Prosciutto Wrapped Fillet of Beef

This particular recipe was inspired by a meal that we saw Jamie Oliver prepare for a few friends on the program, Oliver’s Twist. I just had to give it a go and throw in my own variations – it’s actually really simple to do but looks amazing when served, with a taste to match! I don’t acclaim to being a chef nor have not had any formal training, apart from having worked occasionally in a hotel kitchen in Greece for 6 months. Thus a good deal of our cooking is ‘inspired’ and I enjoy being creative with different food flavours. We love to go through cookbooks, foodie magazines and watch the BBC food cooking channel. This dish is great served with roast butternut, ginger and sesame green beans and roast potatoes.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg good quality fillet of beef
• 150g of Prosciutto ham (can’t find Prosciutto then use Parma ham)
• 400g mixed mushrooms
• a few sprigs of fresh time
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
• 2 tsp of mustard seeds
• 1 tbsp of crushed garlic
• a splash of olive oil

Give it a whirl!

Pre-heat your oven to 180ºC.

Take your mushrooms and finely chop them with a knife (not a food processor as this would be too fine). Then take the olive oil into a cool pan and add the tablespoon of crushed garlic. I find it’s important to place the garlic into cool oil as this way it doesn’t burn and thus flavours the oil further. Once the oil starts to heat and the garlic is agitated, place the mushrooms in the pan and add the thyme. The idea here is not to cook the mushrooms but to get enough heat through them to allow the moisture within them to release. Once this starts to happen, add the mustard seeds and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Remove from the pan and place in a colander to drain the excess juices.

Now take some tinfoil and lay a large piece on the counter. Remove the Prosciutto from the packaging and lay them in strips that is as wide as your fillet creating a square of sorts. Make sure you get a fair bit of overlapping taking place so that it helps to ‘seal’ the fillet while cooking. Take your mushrooms from the colander and spread thinly over the ham, covering all the ham surface – see below:

Then turn your attention to the fillet. Fillet, even though it’s generally an elongated piece of beautiful beef, can have some irregularities within the shape. You can to get a fairly rectangular shape so cut the thinner pieces towards the end and reposition to get the entire piece fairly equal in thickness. Remember it’s going to be ‘held together’ by the ham while cooking. Then take the fillet and place it on one side of the ham and mushroom layers. Take the rosemary and sprinkle over the length of the fillet.

Now this is the only tricky bit in this recipe. You’re going to roll the fillet. Using the tinfoil take the whole fillet and work it towards the open side of the ham & mushroom mixture until the tinfoil touches this – then compress slightly with the palm of your hands and peel back the tinfoil and continue the process until the end of the ham layer has been reached. When you transfer this to the roasting pan, try to make sure your join is on the underside to help keep it from separating.

Take some more olive oil and drizzle over the top of this rolled fillet, then take your tin foil and wrap it over the foll attempting to tuck it under the sides and ends. Place it in your pre-heated oven at 180ºC for 20 minutes, take it out the oven, remove the tinfoil and cook for a further 15 minutes on 200ºC. Take it out the oven and allow to rest for 5-10 minutes in a food warmer before carving (or just leave to rest in the oven with the door slightly ajar).

To serve, take a sharp carving knife and gently cut 2cm wide slices – hoping that it all stays together in the process. Don’t worry if it doesn’t as you’re going to love the flavours anyway! Serves 6-8 people. Enjoy.