Saturday 5 October - Fillet of Beef

We visited our favourite butchers in Titchfield, and came home with the most expensive piece of meat we've ever bought - on investigation when we got home we realised we had bought far too much for 3 people so half of it went straight into the freezer.


We found a recipe in one of the Masterchef books for Beef with leek and cheese souffles, wilted spinach and watercress, potato rosti and a madeira jus. This is what it should look like

 

First stage was to roll the beef in chopped rosemary and thyme, then wrap it in bacon - we used pancetta for this - a layer of cooked mushrooms and ceps was also added to the meat.

The souffles were made with baby leeks, goats cheese and some Lancashire (which was rather hard to come by in Gosport) and were twice baked - so the first cooking was in ramekins in a water bath

 

They were then turned out, sprinkled with cheese and baked quickly a second time while the meat was resting - at this stage we reheated the rostis that we had made earlier, and also made some jus from madeira and beef stock .

The meat was roasted for 12 minutes - for my taste I would have done it for a few more minutes, but it went down very well with every one else.