Main: Roasted Eye Fillet with Red Wine Risotto
Women’s Weekly The Complete Book of Modern Classics
Dessert: Pear Tart
Women’s Weekly The Complete Book of Modern Classics
“Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.” – Anthony Bourdain
Hi Everyone!
Couldn’t agree more with Anthony Bourdain and the key to this week’s meal is starting with the very best quality meat. By doing this the whole process becomes flawless.
This is one to impress that special someone mid week.
Cooking the fillet to your liking in the oven is simple. Handle a piece of meat like this with respect. Not a cheap cut so needs very little attention. Just massage a little oil into it with salt and pepper. Some people like to quickly seal the meat on the cook top in a fry pan and this will keep the juices in, however, this recipe has you placing it directly into the oven. While the meat is cooking you can be making the risotto. I just love risotto and serving the meat resting on it like this just blends these subtle flavours to perfection.
There is nothing complicated here and you could do this to impress for a dinner party very easily, just add a simple salad if you like. OR, as I did add a couple of interesting vegetable dishes. The cauliflowers are so lovely at this time of year I decided to try this stir-fried cauliflower, choy sum and snake beans dish. I did it ahead of time and just gave it a gentle warm through in the microwave. It was so tasty and would stand on it’s own as a meal to serve your vegetarian friends with perhaps the addition of some tofu stir fried through it as well.
The second vegetable dish I did was cooked on the BBQ. Char-grilled vegetable salad with balsamic dressing. Perfect at room temperature. So really either of these vegetable dishes could be used at your next BBQ and the ability to do them ahead makes life so easy.
I was really happy with this main meal. It ticked so many boxes and was given a 9/10.
Dessert was a no brainer with the way the pears are at present and when I saw the simplicity of the recipe I just had to use it. I cooked the pears rubbed with the syrup, sugar and butter well in advance and then just placed them in store bought puff pastry squares and whacked them in the oven for 20 minutes. A dusting of icing sugar and a blob of cream and you’re done. 9/10!
I feel a bit of a fraud this week because it was all just so easy and nothing went wrong. Whoops maybe I shouldn’t have said that – may have jinxed myself!
Really hope you give this week’s menu a go yourself because you won’t be disappointed.
From my table to yours with love. x
