When I was in New Mexico last week my wife was going to use some of our elk meat, she has no good concept of what the cuts are.
At any rate she had some tenderloin out and I can't even bring myself to mention what she was going to do with it. She didn't and I told her I'd BBQ when I got home.
I had her defrost it and when I arrived home she had also thawed some backstrap and wanted to compare them. I decided to cut the tenderloin into 1 1/2 inch filets. The backstrap was already in small cuts, I seasoned with Johnny's Dock seasoning and seared them on high heat. Stood guard and just when they showed the slightest firming to the touch removed and tented them.
They served rare to medium rare and were succulent. Hard to say which was better, both were fantastic and I suppose it comes down to personal taste. While the backstrap was very tasty the tenderloin stood shoulders above it. Can't wait for our next BBQ.
I really liked the lightly seasoned meat with the Johnny's Seasoning salt, keep it simple, serve rare to med rare!