In my previous post I shared my excitement in receiving a case of The Chocolate Block from Rossouw's Restaurants (thank you again, JP!) and after contemplating what exotic meal I could make to pair with the wine - the basic flavours won in the end.
Rossouw's Restaurants suggested that I enter the Wolftrap Great Steak League competition (hence the attempt at semi-decent food photography). So if you like what you see, be sure to have a look at The Great Steak League on Facebook and I'd love a vote if you are so willing - thank you!
Firstly, some things I have learnt after making this dish:
- Taking photos of food is tough work. Primarily because you eat cold food.
- As much as I love my iPhone, it is times like these I wish I had a proper camera.
- The lighting always seems inadequate.
- When you cook good quality fillet it needs no sauce - the sauce we made was used on chicken for lunch the next day.
Now here is the recipe!
Pan-seared then oven-roasted fillet with blackened carrots, golden roasted potatoes, chilli coconut salsa and of course, a glass of Chocolate Block
Ingredients
900g fillet
2 large potatoes (peeled)
6 carrots (seems a lot but they shrink after being roasted)
2 handfuls of fresh French beans
1 cup of cheap red wine (plus additional nice wine to drink)
1Tbsp coconut oil
1Tbsp olive oil
Pepper
I will place the recipe for the chilli coconut salsa below as it was never eaten with the meal.
Method
- Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.
- Place fillet into a bowl and cover with cheap red wine. Allow to sit for 30 minutes.
- Peel potatoes and cube into golf ball sizes. Thereafter, slice your carrots (no need to peel them).
- Pour 1Tbsp olive oil into a dark baking dish, toss in the potatoes and carrots and place on a low rack in the oven (the closer it is to the element the darker the colour shall be). Roast for 15 minutes before preparing the fillet.
- With 10 minutes down, remove the fillet from the wine, place on a plate and severely douse the fillet in ground black pepper. When you're sneezing a lot you know you're doing it well.
- In an oven-proof pan, place on a high heat on the stove and melt the coconut oil. Coconut oil has a very high smoking point so it is perfect for this dish as olive oil begins to break down and become toxic when it is beyond its smoking point, which is about 68 degrees C.
- Wait until the pan is very hot (and you're going to keep it on this high heat) and only then place the peppered fillet into it. It may start spluttering but you are merely browning the meat, not cooking it. It will take about 30 seconds per side, if that, so stand close by and turn the fillet over as soon as the underside is brown.
- Turn over the roasting potatoes and carrots - place back into the oven.
- As soon as the browning is complete, open the oven and place the pan on a tray. Set your timer for 20 minutes and drop the heat to 180 degrees C. 20 minutes was ideal to get medium rare perfection. If you prefer your meat more on the medium side, add a few more minutes. Alternatively, if you have a thin piece of fillet, the cooking time will be shortened.
- 5 minutes to go: Boil some water and a steam your French beans.
- Remove the fillet as soon as the timer goes off and set on top of your stove to cool down and allow the meat's juices to be reabsorbed. I took a spoon and basted the fillet (scooped up the liquid and poured it over the meat).
- Whilst your fillet is cooling, remove the veg and plate whilst the meat is sliced into thick pieces.
- Drizzle with jus (natural juices from the fillet).
- Cheer on your excellent cooking abilities!
The jus is the liquid that you see in the pan. The flavour is absolutely incredible and you can taste the hint of the red wine (from step '2' above) and the bold taste of pepper!
Here I am basting the fillet as soon as it came out the oven.
You want the fillet to cool down (below oven temperature) to reabsorb the natural juices.
And it tasted even better than it looked!
(One would hope so too as my photos aren't great.)
Chilli Coconut Salsa
Ingredients
1/4 cup coconut cream (we used milk and the consistency wasn't great)
5 spring onions
1 red pepper
1 de-seeded jalapeño (it isn't hot at all so we added a full red chilli and it was still mild - add for your taste)
1/2 lemon (juiced)
2 cloves of garlic
1Tbsp olive oil
Method
- Blitz all non-liquid ingredients with the olive oil.
- Add coconut cream and lemon juice.
- Blitz again.
- Enjoy.