Celebrate National Filet Mignon Day with this "From the Vault" episode that was recorded live on a Big Blend Radio Champagne Sunday Anniversary Party (2022), featuring 5-Star Chef and Culinary Instructor Ivan Flowers, plus special guest musician James Saunders. Chef Ivan Flowers shares tips on cooking octopus and how to make his recipe for Rosemary Glazed Pan Roasted Filet Mignon. See his recipe here: https://blendradioandtv.com/listing/rosemary-glazed-pan-roasted-filet-mignon/
Big Daily Blend
Chef Ivan Flowers - Rosemary Glazed Pan Roasted Filet Mignon
♪ It's fever hard pounding in my ears ♪ ♪ It's fever, where will it go from here ♪ ♪ Go from here ♪ ♪ Fish fever ♪ - Everyone, that was James Sondres over in South Africa with Fish Fever, one of his first songs that we played on Big Wind Radio, and we're very excited to have him here. He's gonna be here for a couple seconds, so then he can chat with Chef Ivan Flowers, who's on the show, again, one of our first guests. Here we are celebrating 15 years of Big Wind Radio 25 years of the magazines with some crazy, crazy people and 10 years of traveling the country, but here it is. We've got Fish Fever, and I know Chef Ivan has cooked a ton of fish. He's a five-star chef, a culinary instructor, working with kids in Temecula in the high school there, and he's gonna be talking to us about a filet mignon recipe for Valentine's Day, but we've got James here who has a question for him, but welcome back, Chef Ivan. How are you? - Hi, guys, how you doing? - Good, good. Hey, listen, thanks for waiting so long to get on the show. I know it's an anniversary party, and we have champagne, and you know what happens, but welcome back. It's so good to have you. It's awesome to have you back. James is over in Cape Town, South Africa, and apparently caught an octopus. - An octopus? - Yeah. - That's correct. - So you have a question for Chef Ivan. So go for it. (laughs) - Since you came up with some superpowers, I think fishing different things into a superpower. And, but, yeah. - Does that work? - That's just kind of power. - Let's see. - Let's put a superpower right there. - Yep. - Thank you for bringing that back around. Yep. - No problem. Um, yes. Okay, so, I'm not sure to speak of, but I do, you know, cooking is a huge hobby of mine. Absolutely love it, and I love trying new things. And, you know, when it comes to seafood, and I've got an octopus as well. And we do some research into how to cook it. You know, people just recommend buying it with various ingredients for 15 minutes or so, and then letting it go down, and it's kind of ready. But, I think the question we have is, what are the, what are the ways in which you can present it? We'll serve it with, what would you serve it with? And how would you, you know, I've got a few things going up to my mind. Like, mushrooms, et cetera. Or, or anything, salad, or just, you know, fried up with some herbs and onions and garlic, and maybe some white wine. Or, in a white wine sauce, some of the bit of rice, or anything you can recommend in terms of how you would present or how you would, you know, how you present an octopus. Yeah. You said that. You said how to present an octopus. I'm sorry, that's funny. [LAUGHTER] [INAUDIBLE] Well, the thing you want to do with octopus, you can serve it many, many, many ways. The thing you want to do is you want to get an octopus tender. There's a lot of ways you can do that. I first learned how to cook octopus on the island, on the pattos in the Greek Isles, where they used to take it on the boats, and they would slap against the rocks and keep slapping it to make it tender. You don't have to do that. Although, there are some people that will put it in a mixer with a paddle, and they'll do it that way to try to tenderize it. The best way to do it, some people put it in a pressure cooker with some liquid. I like to basically make a very light stock with a little bit of lemon and tomato, sauce, and you want to simmer it. You want to simmer it very gently for about two to two and a half hours. Until the octopus gets very, very soft. At that point, you want to take it out. And what I like to do is if you're going to grill it, you're going to take shallots and garlic and herbs and spices. You're going to marinate it for a number of hours. Then you're going to finish it on the grill. You can serve it in pieces or you can slice it. Another nice way to do it is once it's tender, you want to do what's called the flute di mare, where you mix it with all the other pieces of white fish, mussels, scallops. You finish it with a light citrus vinaigrette, touch of tarragon, a little bit of sea salt. You can serve it chilled. You can do it with the di mare warm if you want to use a red sauce, a caca or a marinara. But the whole trick is getting octopus tender because it's not tender. It's not going to eat well. It's going to be a turn off. Okay, very interesting. So that's the main thing. The way you serve it is a million ways you can serve it, but the chicken is getting tender. So you said lemon juice, tomato, garlic. So it was a lemon juice. You know, tomatoes, garlic, shallots. And then you put it for two, three hours. Yes, on a low simmer. But do you? You don't want it where it's falling apart. You want it where it's pork tender. Yes, yes. Okay. Dude, do you eat the whole octopus like the legs? And the head or just the head or just the leg? The question. You're just going to use the legs. Yeah. The tentacles. The tentacles. Yeah, you take the head off and you also take the beak out, which is in the center region. You don't want the beak. And I honestly, after watching my octopus teacher and seeing how intelligent and wonderful creatures they are, I don't cook them anymore. Okay. That's like a lobster. It's like the lobster thing about how you boil them and throw them in. It's like a whole weird thing. But your octopus is dead at this point, right? It's like when you kill... Correct. Yeah. Okay. Oh, no. Oh, no. There are some people that catch them live and ride off the boats and they go into the liquid and they're very much alive. Oh, yeah. Oh. So it's like a second. It's like a holding tank of death. Oh, wow. To me, I think you should kill it, by the way. So you don't have a holding tank. You don't... Wow, but a holding tank. You put the... You put the... No. You have to do a plate with its legs spread out. And you put all of those on every leg or from the head down to the tip. That's true. No. You should be able to make something... It's known as... There's pretend death. It's known as pulpo. Our purpose is known as pulpo. And I loved it for years. I love cooking pulpo. So, yeah. Very big in the Mediterranean. Yes. Yeah. Is it good for you? Do you not get it? No. You don't have to. It's high in cholesterol. You know, it's high protein, but very high cholesterol. Oh. You have to be a little careful. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, I mean, you're going to talk about filet mignon just now. And that's, you know, that's careful. But, you know, that's a little different. But I mean, but then there's a squid thing. Do you have to... There's a squid ink. Like, you know, isn't there like a thing you have to be careful with? Yeah, there's a sack. There's a sack sometimes. And people will use that to make sauces or to die pasta. You know, there's octopus and then there's something called calamare, which is squid, which is, you know, quite different. Oh. And most Americans eat that fried. Yeah. Right. The little rings. The little rings and the tentacle heads. Yeah. For a light tempura and then finish it with a little fresh squeezed mires lemon. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh. The taste of the... It's James' first edition man. He is. I mean, we play fish fever. And he's like, so for ghosts his song is also about fishing. And James, that's awesome. And so you're going to have to show us what you cook on social media. I know you're like through social media right now, but we want to see. We all want to see just send it to me. I'll post it. I'll post it. I'll post it. Okay. We want a picture of what you do. Yeah. We want a picture. Okay. It's awesome. I know it's laid in South Africa. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Ivan. You want to get tentacles. You want to serve tentacles with double rows of suckers. Those are the better ones. Not the single ones. You want the tentacles to have double. And now I thought we're at the final. She wants double rows of suckers to talk politics. Yes, right. Okay. Next to our white house. Okay. Those are good tips. Yeah. Yeah. You take them to heart. Well, we want to see the picture. We want the picture of the sucker. Do you mean there's two suckers in one place? How many double rows of suckers? What does that mean? Well, that would be the political parties. Yeah. Right. I just said the white house. I just say, you know, no. But yeah, there you go. I want to see the double sucker. Yeah. What do you mean? Like two suckers in one place? What do you mean double? Yeah. As you come down the, you know, basically the legs. Yeah. Instead of a single suction cup, there's two next to one another. And it comes down the entire leg. The tentacle. Yeah. Oh. Huh. Two sucker legs at one time. I'm not. It's childish. Come on. It's just having fun. We're going to get childish about this. Oh, I didn't know there was a sucker cap because we're allergic to all forms of fish and shelters. But it's an unknown topic. It's a whole new world too. Listen. I'm going to go talking about a sucker cap and tenderizing the tentacles and everything. It's just very interesting. But James, it sounds like you're going to have a really good dinner tomorrow night. I know it's really late now in South Africa, but it sounds like you're going to have an interesting dinner tomorrow night. Yeah. I think so. I think it's going to be good. I've done our research. When you're done. Before you eat it, we want to see it beforehand. So we can pull the photographs of the double roses. That's why I said we want the double. I'll put that in as well. Okay. That will make me. All right. James, thank you so much for joining us. I know it's late and we really appreciate it that you're on our show today. Our party show and his super power really is fishing. And if you see his photos on Facebook and in all of that, you see South Africans with its angling. You guys are anglers, right? Isn't it? Yeah. I remember. Yeah. You're out on the beach with long. And I've come out where you guys do that and it's hardcore. It's hardcore stuff. And much appreciation for what you do. It is amazing. Well, you know, that's also important. The next time we come on our show, we're going to talk about the stiff armor delo. And I'm not saying anymore. No, no, that's Taylor. That's Taylor. Oh, that's Taylor. What? Yeah. What is the stiff armor delo? We're going to, well, James can come back on and soak in Ivan with talking about our medillas. There's an armadillo cake that we can all make and send it to Nakadish, Louisiana since Still Magnolias was filmed there. And they have an armadillo cake. We saw the armadillo cake when we were there at the last time. The winning for the anniversary of Still Magnolias film, the armadillo cake. And then I wanted to make one, but that didn't happen. That's the one word. Yeah. That's the one where Tom Skarett in the movie. Still Magnolias cut the tushie off and looked at, I forget an intro in the claim and said nothing better than a piece of ass. Okay. Exactly. The famous line in that movie. Right. And so we were going to make the armadillo cake during COVID time, you know, in lockdown. But we never did because grocery stores took things off the show. But really, yeah, that is funny. That is funny. But Tracy would be able to make that, right? You're right, Tracy. An armadillo cake? Yeah. She can make an armadillo cake. She's a baker. She gets that. She's a baker. I'm on many things. Yes. She's awesome. She's just awesome. Take care, James. Good luck. Thanks, James. Thanks for the advice. And thanks for having me and happy anniversary again. Thank you. Thank you. Go to Chatting in the Future. Yes. Absolutely. You come back on anytime. I mean, we love James. He's just an amazing musician. And just an amazing guy. So Chef Ivan, let's go to thank you for joining us. I know it's so late in South Africa right now. Go to bed. Go to bed and drink some sleepy sight tea. But just put a shot of whiskey in there. Chef Ivan, you know the party bus is at you in San Diego. And Priscilla, the pink Fox monkey does want to make you a drink or something. What would you like for a champagne brunch for you? What I would drink it as a champagne brunch? Yeah. What would you eat and drink? You know what I would like? I don't drink them a lot. But once in a while, in a tall glass, perfectly made a good bloody merry. With this horseradish, right amount of lemon. Just a touch of horseradish, you know, good, good fresh tomato juice. They're wonderful. And when you make them right, memorable. I can only drink one, but I love it. What would you eat with it? I would do like canopays. I would do little horseradish. You know, I would do like little roasted artichokes or little toast with mascarpone. And a little lemon zest or a roasted stuffed mushroom. Ooh, I like the stuffed mushrooms. Or potato chips with caviar. Oh. Ooh. Hmm. Ooh. So you send us the recipe for the filet mignon. And it is like, you got mushrooms in that photo. So that's kind of what I was thinking. So I'm like, that's good. Well, Nancy does that for breakfast for us. She doesn't marry nice. That's what I was saying with the bloody merry. I saw those mushrooms. And then I'm like, mmm, Nancy, this is good. She stuffs it with garlic and cheese. And we just got this new olive oil. Oh, my gosh. It's interesting about olive oil. You know, and we're tasting olive oil. It's okay. You taste it. Then you cook with it and your mushrooms and onion changes into a whole. And the garlic changes into all of, it was all of milk Creek. It's near where you guys, and I was so funny when I was emailing Tracy about you coming on the show. I screwed up the time. And obviously I had even more on the time. I thought about you guys in Sedona because that's when you were on the show. When you had four-nose restaurants out in Sedona, I mean, that was 13, 14, 15 years ago. And I went to Arizona time for you guys because it's like, it's an anniversary show. This is when, you know, but do you remember? I don't know if they were there then at the same time, but all of us are being grown in Arizona apparently. Yeah. Yeah, they do some nice oils. Yeah. And as soon as I cooked it and listen, I've made flatbread pizza, which we've done. You know, you taught me to cook, don't put the onions and the garlic and the mushrooms raw on the pizza. And we do flatbread like the non-bread or whatever. We'll just take that and put like little pizza sauce on it. And, but I now start cooking, I cook just barely, right? Just a little bit of sizzle. And I did it with the olive oil that, yeah, just a light saute of the, of the mushrooms, garlic and onion. And my God, that was amazing. And doing it with olive oil and that olive oil was really good, by the way. It was like this, I don't, and it's like wine tasting almost with this olive oil thing. Oh, yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. When I was in the industry, I tasted olive oils, um, constantly. Mm-hmm. And had the purver come in. It was, uh, Adiette. And he would come in with six, seven, eight bottles. And we always did it with a plastic spoon. And the range on olive oils next to the virgin are amazing. Some of them are a little clear. Some of them are very green. Usually in olive oil, the text of virgin, you want to finish with a regular olive oil you want to cook with. I always used to use a Lingerian olive oil from the north central region of Italy, by Tuscany. Um, which will be renowned for their olive oils. But then when you taste the olive oil, um, are you heating it up at all? Because what's in the bottle straight out of the bottle, and when you heat it, seems to taste their friend. It does. Once you heat anything, it tastes different. Yeah. Again, extra virgin you finish with, regular you cook with, depends what you're making. Yeah. But it is such a range of olive oil, and then, you know, from all over the country. And all of them taste different. Well, it's interesting in your recipe now. Um, and everyone, Rosemary Glades, Pan-roasted filet mignon, and that's a bumbled radio and TV.com right now. Just go on there and type in filet, type in chef Ivan filet, chef Ivan filet. You see, you'll come up on the search box. Um, it's interesting that you're cooking this, it's pan-roasted, but you're using, and you preheat the oven to 400 degrees. I'm so scared to go beyond 325. I'm such a baby. I'm scared of it. But, um, I'm learning. Remember, anything under 350 is considered baking. Roasting is 350 and above. Yeah. So you want to put it in a hot oven to finish it. That's really the secret. You know, when you think about a filet mignon, in the short line with beef, are you four biggest cuts? You've got your New York's, your porterhouse, and your T-bones. Porterhouse and T-bone is in New York with a filet attack. So when they take a filet mignon out of a steer, all they're left with is bone-in or bonus New York's. That's why they're so expensive. And there's only two per steer. It lays within the fat pocket of the short line. It gets no exercise. So the meat is incredibly tender, but you have to know how to season it. Otherwise, you won't get flavor. People buy it for tenderness, but you have to cook it the right way and put flavor into it to really make this successful dish. So when you put something in the oven like this, because we house it all over the country now, and we've been in a whole bunch of kitchen. Oh, we need to do a show on that. I know. In cooking in people's kitchens is a trip. When you go to put the levels of the oven, sometimes it's right under the flame and you can move it a couple notches down, so it's not right by the flame. That's a broiler, that's a broiler, that's top heat, known as a broiler or a salamander, a regular oven, it's either a block oven or it has a convex in it, which is a fan. The other one is a broiler. Oh, because they have a top oven, they have a top oven, and then it goes, you can broil or bake or do, it's like this little thing, and when you cook in it, you can do the bake. So now I know why my pizza doesn't always work the way I want, but I'm scared to put it up wrong because I'm like, you're going to flame the pizza, because I'm thinking top oven, keep it light, you know, because it's just a pita bread, basically non bread, pita bread, and a few mushrooms on it. You don't need to bake, bake in the big oven, go to the top, and then it's a broil, and I'm like, oh, I'm scared, I don't want to cut. What would, I mean, you know, it's kind of interesting because there's a lot of houses now with these two stove steams that have two level ovens. Yeah, yeah, it's weird, well, it's not weird, it's cool, because you know, like you're not roasting a chicken in the top, right? It's low things, it's more like a broiler like you're saying, but you can still bake on it. Like, maybe cookies, I don't know, it's kind of, it's so cool. When they do steaks commercially in restaurants, very famous steak houses, they use broilers, and they're about 15, 1600 degrees. So the steak is put in, and it's very important, you always leave your steaks out for at least a half an hour, you don't want to go in ice cold. And they'll put them under those broilers, just maybe two minutes aside, and they'll flip them, and you'll get a nice char, and then the steak, especially if it's still on the bone, will keep cooking. So you have to pull it out a temperature before, because as it's sitting on the plate, it's still going, you're still going to add another 10 degrees to that. So actually cooking meat is quite a challenge. Yes, the thing with the fillet, it's interesting too, because you say, okay, you went and bought your fillet, right? And so is this a fillet that's going to feed two people, or are you doing two fillets? You're going to do two fillets, usually an eight ounces is a really nice cut, and you want it completely clean, you want it to look like a hockey puck. There's no fat around the outside, there's a chain, which you want to take off, and you want to make it look perfectly cylindrical, and a little flat, and when it goes on the plate, it has to look like a picture. So a lot of times I would cut them and hand form them, so they were just a perfect round disc. That will give you even cooking, and give you a center that's going to come out perfect. Wow, so I noticed in your recipe, you use unsalted butter, but then you add salt. Right, right, you don't want salt in the butter, otherwise it'll be too salty. You want it especially filet mignon, you want to add a lot of salt, okay? And sometimes pepper, sometimes not, it's up to you, you can finish. What's very important is you're searing it, and you're putting a little bit of oil in the pan, you're searing it on both sides, you're finishing it in the oven. Now when that comes out, you have some of the oil that's still in the pan. When you put the butter in, remember, regular butter, unless it's clarified, burns it to 10, that butter will then mix with that oil. So you have a higher smoke point, and then you can put in rosemary or thyme, fresh, then it freezes in the butter, and then you keep spooning it over the filet, and all of that meat juice, the herbs, the butter, salt, the pepper, then glaze the filet mignon. And you have to let it rest for at least four, five, six minutes. If you cut into it, it's too hot, all the juice is going to come out and it's going to turn gray. So it's important to let it rest. Because you even say to let the meat rest when you take it out of the fridge, even before you cook it, you need to let it get to it. 'Cause I think a lot of us will just take things out of the fridge and just throw it in the pan. Throw it in the pan, but then everything you get. I mean, what is that, does it get to room temperature once you start heating things up or no? No, on the outside it will warm up, the inside will stay ice cold. Now, if somebody wants a filet mignon blue where they want it literally mooing and very raw, like raw in the middle, that's when you're going to do it cold. Because they want it to go other than that. Like if you were doing a turkey and it was like 20, 25 pounds, you would pull it and let it sit for two to three hours before you even went in the oven. Wow. Wow. So this is, yeah, the resting thing, it's interesting on the before and the after, right, about what you're doing. You know, you're resting the meat before you put it in the pan. You're resting it once it comes out. Because that's something you always talk about. You have to let the meat rest before you serve it. And, you know, all of us at home will go, "Oh, it's out. Let's cut it and serve." And you're always about letting rest. Yes. Yes. Is it like wine that it has to breathe? It has to relax. It has to relax. The muscle has to relax. You know, it's interesting. I have a good friend of mine. He's a he's a big foodie from Florida, Walt Blenner. So he's quite a foodie. He's listening to your show today. So we both with a very nice, happy anniversary. Cool. Thank you. Thank you. But, you know, so what he knows about resting the food, he's into that rested. Let it rest. If he doesn't, he does now. It's warm. It's warm. Right now, it's warmer in Florida. Right now, my body would go, "I could rest and you could cook me." I got a lot of meat, but this is really cool. But this is interesting, and you use canola oil. So why, like, we were starting to talk about olive oil, why canola versus olive oil? You can use a regular olive oil. I mean, it's canola oil and butter, which is interesting. Yeah. Why the two? You use the butter to, again, when the oil comes out, butter burns at 210. So by mixing it, you're infusing the oil into the butter so that won't burn and get brown. Otherwise, you'll get what's called the burden-wise jet. And you can use olive oil, but you don't want to use a strong olive oil, because it can very easily take over the taste of the beef. Now, some people will drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil on top. Or some people will make a filet mignon and put what's called a "mater-dee butter," which is a chilled disk of butter with herbs in it. And let that melt on the steak as it comes to your table. So it's just melting all through the top. I know we've touched on this before, but sometimes they do the blue cheese and then a bacon thing on top. But when you're doing a filet mignon, it kind of, I mean, blue cheese is great. I mean, I'm not anti that at all, or all of that. But these are really strong flavor profiles. When you put it on this piece of meat that's supposed to be so great, right? So are we tasting the meat anymore if we're putting that on? Or do we just put a smidgen? Like, where are we on that? You don't use too much. You're introducing umami, blue cheese is umami. It's the fifth profile. So that blue cheese really wakes that meat up, and it works incredibly well together. And then if you have a good wine that goes with that, all three of them just explode in your mouth. Because I think the wine comes down the blue cheese. But you don't want to put a lot. You've just put a little teeny bit overdoing the blue cheese's death. It's not good. It's not good. You can put blue cheese butter. You can put the blue cheese in the butter, chill it, cut a little slice, and then just put the made or deep blue cheese butter on top of the fillet. When it comes out, I just let it melt. I like that. I like that. I like that idea. That's a balance. That's a nice balance. So, Chef Ivan, what is your champagne toast? My champagne toast goes out to all people over the last couple of years working in restaurants, catering, food trucks, hospitals, implant feeders, cooking. Cooking with masks on, cooking on the line, putting the hours in, really making it memorable for people. It's not an easy profession. No. And anybody that cooks, so many people now, they'll order the home box meals. That's it for them. People that cook are really, really doing something that is very passionate and very loving. So, my hat goes off to all of those folks. Yeah. What is it? Superpower. My superpower, my wife always tells me this and it's helped me through my career is my sense of smell. I taste everything. I taste everything through my nose. So, a lot of times, I know if something's going to burn three days before it actually happens. Oh, wow. I have to. That's a good one. With my nose. Yeah. Put him in a forest. Yeah. So, listen, it is so good to have you back on this show. Thank you for joining us. We owe Taylor Joiner a segment because we were supposed to play You Love, but we didn't. And we're going to play Music by Doreen Taylor as we close the show down. Of course, we're always delayed. We're not good at these five shows anymore. We just keep getting delayed because we love all of the people that are on the show. We just want to keep talking to everyone. Music is my magic. I think the first time Doreen Taylor came on our show and we want to give a toast to her. Nancy, I know I'm toasting to her right now. That's my two days. Old friends, new friends, and Doreen is one of them over the show. They've never met her in person. We did get to meet Jeff Ivan and Tracy in person with her total sock monkey. We did get to do that on our tour, which is amazing. And Doreen, hopefully we'll see you too, but we want to toast to you. And we're going to toast with the song Music is My Magic. She came on this show one of our Champagne Sunday anniversaries with her new album, Magic. And so it just makes sense that we play music is My Magic. So we're going to close the show with that. And we want to thank you, Chef Ivan. Thank you for joining us. It's always so much fun. We've missed you. It feels like it's bad, but it's not that bad. I know, man. It's like, oh, but thank you for joining us. Thank you, everyone. Here it is. And shout out to Tracy and Pickle. We heard Pickle. Thanks, guys. Bye-bye. Here it is. Music is My Magic from Doreen Taylor. Keep up with her at doreenetailormusic.com. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. Thank you, guests. Thank you, listeners. We love you all. And our toast goes to you for being part of our journey. And here we go. And after this, we're going to run out and sunshine and have a little more wine, right? Nancy? A little more champagne. I'm halfway there. There it is. Here it is. Music is My Magic. Thank you, Doreen. Music