My Delicious Emeril Lagasse Screwup!

I am a huge fan of Emeril Lagasse, and miss watching him on television every weekend. One Christmas years ago, my husband gifted me with “From Emeril’s Kitchens: Favorite Recipes from Emeril’s Restaurants.” I was absolutely tickled as this cookbook contains an amazing variety of dishes just waiting to be tried. As always, my husband was tickled because he’d be the recipient of these creations!

So Much Deliciousness

I spent all of Christmas day paging through the book, carefully reading each recipe, its ingredients and preparation. There were ingredients I’d never heard of, and some that I knew I’d have a tough time finding in our stores. I always believe if I know the individual ingredients, and their flavors, I’ll know it’s a dish we’ll like. In no time, I zeroed in on his Pork Tenderloin en Croute – perfect for our New Year dinner. To the average eater, you might know this as a type of Wellington or something along those lines. But in my Emeril-dazed eyes, I was finally going to French cook!

I carefully made my shopping list, breathing a sigh of relief when I realized all of the ingredients would be easily found in my store. The only change I made was to substitute the pork for beef tenderloin….we’re beef people here! There was just one new item I looked forward to trying…the legendary Emeril “Bam” Original Essence.

Let’s Begin

It’s a thing of beauty, isn’t it?!

Around mid-afternoon, I donned my apron and began my prep, chopping, slicing, dicing and measuring. I was going to make the dish exactly as it was written (which I never do with any recipe). Out of respect for Emeril, I felt I somehow owed it to him to not screw it up.

Once I had the mushroom stuffing made, I knew this was going to be a home run. I knew exactly why he used to say he wished there was smell-a-vision! Good Lord, it was nose nirvana. Next up, the tenderloin. Into my smoking hot skillet it went, and the sear sizzle was exactly as I expected, music to my ears. It was a thing of beauty….and then it dawned on me I forgot to give it a liberal sprinkle of BAM before searing. Damn…well, I’ll just sprinkle when I wrap it in the pastry.

Pulling It All Together

Here we go…final step. I rolled out my puff pastry, placed my gorgeous seared tenderloin, sprinkle sprinkle the BAM, topped it with the mouth-watering mushroom stuffing and carefully, carefully folded the puff pastry around the meat and stuffing trying valiantly to make it look like something other than a glob of dough, placed it in the oven….and waited. When I pulled it out of the oven I caught my breath….it was PERFECT!

Makes my mouth water just looking at it!

I carefully sliced my work of art, and proudly presented it to my husband. As we sat eating this unbelievable meal, my husband says, “Gee, this tastes familiar but I can’t put my finger on it.” How could that be? I’d never made this before. While the ingredients individually were familiar, together they made a masterpiece. So, in my infinite wisdom I say, “It must be the BAM” and proceed to pull the jar back out of my spice drawer. I dramatically twisted off the top and said, “Smell this.” It was at that point that I realized my brand new bottle of BAM had never been opened. That’s right…the paper seal was still intact. What the heck did I sprinkle?

Unbeknownst to me, in my haste to get the dish in the oven before the hot meat melted the pastry, I had grabbed my jar of Pampered Chef Cinnamon Plus (my own blend is below). My sprinkle was similar in flavor to my beef stew because of the cloves, not the zip and heat of BAM!

Since then, I’ve made this dish more times than I can count, full-sized tenderloins as well as individual servings. I’ve even made the mushroom stuffing for other dishes, it’s that good. Over the years, I’ve made some other small adjustments that we enjoy just a bit better, but I have to say, I’ve only made with Emeril BAM once. With all due respect to Mr Lagasse, we love the cinnamon/clove blend best.

So here it is. My version of Emeril Lagasse’s en Croute. I’ve tried to simplify it a bit so anyone can feel comfortable making this dish. The original version had a lot of steps and many ingredients. While not exactly like Emeril’s it certainly tastes just as good…in my humble, home cook opinion.

By the way, as you can see by my photos I made individual servings. It’s a little bit more time-consuming to do individuals, so I usually make a full tenderloin. So, my instructions below are based on a single, full tenderloin in a single pastry. The best way to have a beautiful, consistent single loin is to cut your tenderloin ends off so the entire loin is roughly the same thickness. That way, it cooks pretty evenly and your finished pastry product will have a beautiful, uniform shape. Enjoy!