Roast Beef Fillet with Creamy Celeriac-and-Horseradish-Cream Salad

I do love celeriac, and this combination of slivers of snappy celeriac tossed in a remoulade-style dressing of yoghurt, cream and horseradish, and served over rosy slices of roast beef, is my idea of heaven.

For this recipe I used fresh, grated horseradish steeped in olive oil (recipe here) but you could use creamed horseradish. How much you add is up to you, but the horseradish shouldn't overpower the delicate taste of the celeriac and its creamy dressing.

This is also lovely with pork fillet: try adding a grated apple to the mixture.

If you are also a fan of celeriac, try my Salad of Warm New Potatoes, Smoked Trout, Celeriac and Watercress

Roast Beef Fillet with Creamy Celeriac and Horseradish 

For the fillet:
1 large fillet of beef
3 Tbsp (45 ml) Dijon mustard
3 Tbsp (45 ml) olive oil
millled black pepper
salt

For the salad:
2 young celeriac, each about the size of an orange
½ cup (125 ml) thick plain yoghurt
½ cup (125 ml) pouring cream
1 Tbsp (15 ml) creamed horseradish, or freshly grated horseradish, to taste
a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
salt
a pinch of white pepper
alfalfa sprouts or micro greens, to top

Heat the oven to 190°C, and place a metal roasting pan in the oven.

Put a dollop of mustard in the palm of your hand and smooth it all over the fillet. Sprinkle with olive oil and grind over plenty of fresh black pepper. Season with salt. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a high flame. The fat should be very hot, but not yet smoking. Brown the fillet on all sides; this shouldn't take longer than five or six minutes.

Now put the fillet onto the heated roasting pan and bake in the pre-heated oven for 10-20 minutes, depending on the degree of pinkness you want. (A slim fillet takes about 10 minutes; a full-size one 15-20. If you're not sure, cut a deep slit in the thickest part of the fillet to check for doneness). You'll find more detailed instructions for cooking fillet here.

Now make the salad.  Whisk together the yoghurt and cream, and add enough horseradish to give the dressing a nice bite. Add a good squeeze of lemon juice - the sauce should be pleasantly sharp - and season with salt and a little white pepper. Peel the celeriac with a sharp knife and cut into very thin slices (you could use a mandolin). Stack the slices vertically, cut them into strips or matchsticks, and place in a mixing bowl. Pour just enough dressing over the celeriac strips lightly to coat each piece: the salad should not be swimming in dressing. Do so immediately, or the celeriac will go brown.

Remove the fillet from the oven and set aside to rest for 10 minutes.

Carve the warm fillet into slices and arrange them on a platter (or on individual plates).  Pile the celeriac in the middle, and top with tangle of crunchy alfalfa sprouts, or micro greens of your choice.

Serves 8-10 as a starter; 6 as a main course.

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Heaven on a plate: Fillet, Mash and Rocket with Balsamic glaze

My recipe of the year - this really is heaven on a plate; the most sublime combination of flavours and textures. Actually, it's not my recipe, but my humble imitation of an exquisite plate of food served up at Al Fiume, a very good Italian country restaurant set on the banks of the lovely Hennops River, about 45 minutes' drive north of Johannesburg. In the kitchen is the inspired Giancarlo Pironi, formerly of Assaggi and arguably South Africa's best Italian chef.

This is the perfect dinner-party dish. It's easy to make and not at all fiddly, provided you move quickly, keep everything piping-hot and buy the very best matured fillet and and the pepperiest, freshest rocket and sharpest Parmesan. This recipe serves 10, but is easily halved.

I blush at the fact that this dish is vertically stacked on the plate (I detest towers of food, but in this case the piling of rocket upon steak upon mash is entirely justified).

Fillet with Mash, Rocket, Parmesan and a Balsamic Vinegar Glaze

2 whole fillet steaks
2 T (30 ml) Dijon mustard
2 T (30 ml) olive oil
3 T (45 ml) good soy sauce (Kikkoman)
salt and milled black pepper

oil and butter for frying

10 large floury potatoes, peeled and quartered
milk and butter

fresh rocket (about 3 'pillow packs', or enough to fill a medium salad bowl)
a wedge of cold Parmesan or Grana Padano
freshly squeezed juice of 2 lemons
a glug of olive oil

200 ml balsamic vinegar

An hour or two before you're going to cook them, trim and prepare the fillets (click here for details). Place the fillets in a ceramic dish and, using your hands, smear with the mustard and olive oil. Pour the soy sauce over the meat, cover with clingfilm and set aside (out of the fridge, so they can come up to room temperature).

Preheat the oven to 190°C and place a baking sheet in the oven to heat.

Put the potatoes into a pan of salted water, bring to the boil and cook until quite tender. Drain in a colander, allow to dry out for 5 minutes, and then put them back in the pan. Place the pan back on the heat, add a splash of milk and a large knob of butter, and mash until fluffy and very smooth. Season with salt and pepper, cover and keep hot.

In a large frying pan, heat some olive oil and butter until very hot - just short of smoking. Remove the fillets from the ceramic dish, shake off the liquid, season well with salt and pepper and place into the hot fat. Quickly brown the fillets on all sides until nicely caramelised (this should take about 6 -7 minutes). Put the fillets on the heated baking sheet and place them in the oven for 7-12 minutes, or until done (they should be a nice rosy pink inside - cut a slit in the thickest part of the fillet to check for doneness). Leave the frying pan and its juices on the stove. Put 10 plates in the warmer drawer.

While the fillet is baking, tip the rocket leaves into a deep bowl. Using a potato peeler, shave the Parmesan or Grana Padano into large thin flakes and add to the bowl. Now add the lemon juice and olive oil, in equal quantities, season with salt and pepper and toss well to coat.

Turn the heat on under the pan you fried the fillets in. Tip the liquid left in the ceramic marinating dish into the hot pan and stir well to loosen any sediment. Pour in the balsamic vinegar. Allow to bubble over a high heat until reduced by about half, to a slightly syrupy glaze.

To serve: Take the fillets out of the oven, cover and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Carve into 20 1-cm-thick slices. Put a generous mound of hot mashed potato into the centre of each plate and drizzle with a little olive oil. Place 2 slices of fillet on the mash (they should lean casually against the mound). Sprinkle with a few drops of balsamic glaze. Top with a generous handful - an extravagant crowning tuft - of the rocket and Parmesan.

Now, in best cheffy style, take a teaspoon of the balsamic glaze and make a pretentious designer dribble around the edges of the plate.

Serve immediately, to rapturous applause.

Serves 10.

Note: Don't shave the Parmesan in advance - it tends to dry out and get a bit greasy. Print Friendly

How to cook (or braai) a fillet of beef to perfection

Over the years I must have tried ten different ways to cook a lovely fillet of beef, with results ranging from an incinerated log to a bloody shame. After much experimentation, I reckon this is the way to go. This method gives you a lovely crusty brown skin on the outside, and meat that is melting, rosy-pink and tender on the inside.

Left-over fillet steak thinly sliced and served with home-made mustard
mayonnaise and fresh dill. I like fillet quite pink in the middle, but if you
prefer it medium, leave it in the oven for a little longer.

The challenge with roasting or braaing (barbecuing) a fillet is achieving a caramelised mahogany-coloured crust on the outside without over-cooking the inside. It's tricky to know when a fillet is done to perfection, as this depends on so many factors: the size and maturity of the meat, its internal temperature when you start to cook it, the heat of your frying pan or fire, the ferocity of your oven, and so on.

Even with the aid of a digital cooking thermometer/probe, I've found it difficult to get the same results every time, so now I judge the 'done-ness' of a fillet by touch and  instinct, and sometimes by going against all the cheffy rules of cooking and slicing deep into it to check whether it's ready (see below).

So try this:

Three hours before you're going to cook your fillet, take it out of its packaging (strictly speaking, it shouldn't be wrapped in plastic at all, but let's not be precious about this), drain off all bloody liquid, pat it quite dry with a paper towel and put it into a ceramic dish so it can slowly come up to room temperature.

One or two hours before cooking, trim and flavour the fillet. Using a sharp knife, cut through then peel away the 'silverskin' (membrane) on the outside of the meat (good instructions here).

Double the thin end over and tie it to the main fillet with kitchen string. Don't worry if one end is much thicker than the other (the thick end will cater for those who like their fillet rare, and the thin, doubled-over end will do for those who like brown beef).

Whether you're braaing or frying, preheat the oven to 190°C, and place a metal roasting pan in the oven to heat through.

Immediately before you cook the fillet, put a dollop of good prepared mustard (such as Dijon mustard) in the palm of your hand and smooth it all over the fillet. Sprinkle liberally with olive oil and a little salt, and grind over plenty of fresh black pepper. Add any other flavourings that you think might be good (a dash of good soy sauce or a very light dusting of mild curry powder are to be recommended, but don't use fresh garlic, which turns bitter when it browns in hot fat).

If you're frying: Heat one to two tablespoons of olive or sunflower oil in a frying pan over a high flame.  Wait until the oil is very hot, and is just beginning to shimmer in the pan (but it should not be so hot that it is smoking). Put the fillet into the pan and cook on one side for about two minutes -  without moving or disturbing it - or until it's a rich brown colour. Turn the fillet and brown it on all sides in the same way; this shouldn't take longer than six to eight minutes. This is a smoky business - if there is no smoke in your kitchen, your pan is not hot enough.

Now add a tablespoon or two of butter to the pan and turn the fillet over a few times so it's coated.

(If you're braaing: Make sure your coals are very hot.  Put the well-oiled fillet directly onto the grid and brown it all over in the same way; again, this should take about seven to eight minutes.)

Now put the fillet onto the heated roasting pan and bake in the pre-heated oven for 10-25 minutes, depending on the degree of pinkness you want. A slim fillet takes about 10 minutes; a full-size one 15-25.

If you're not sure, cut a deep slit in the underside of the thickest part of the fillet to check for doneness.  This will result in the loss of a little juice, but as you're only going to be cooking the meat for a little while longer, the damage will be minimal. If the meat looks unpleasantly raw and bloody on the inside, give it a few minutes longer.

Alternatively, and a somewhat less accurate method: plunge a fork deep into the meat, leave it there while you count to ten,  then hold the tines to your upper lip. If they feel very hot - but not so hot that they burn your lip -  the beef should be medium rare inside.

Remove from the oven, cover loosely with a piece of clingfilm, foil or kitchen paper, and set aside to rest on a plate 8 minutes.

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