Essence (LCS) Recipe help

[CalumC]

Hi all,

I'm cooking a dish out of the le champignon sauvage cookbook tomorrow, braised blade of beef with nettle risotto.

However, my butcher didn't have blade, so I had to go for fillet. Basically, should I still braise, or instead just fry it, leaving it pink. I was slightly unsure about the suitability of fillet for braising.

If I don't braise, then the sauce would have to be done seperate. I assume itd be pretty much ok if I put the same ingredients into a large pan, and just reduce the liquid for as long as the beef would have cooked for.

Thanks for your help

[Tri2Cook]

There are no rules these days (or very few anyway and somebody usually finds a way to disprove a few on a regular basis which is a good thing) but I'm fairly traditionalist when it comes to filet. Over-cooking destroys everything that's good about it. It goes from juicy and tender to dry and chewy and flavor isn't really one of it's strongest features even before you cook it all out by braising. That's just me though, you should do what you want to do. If I was going to insist on using the filet for that recipe I'd definitely cook the beef on it's own and do the sauce seperately. Of course then it wouldn't technically be the same dish but who says you have to be technical?

[kutsu]

I've done this recipie, it's great.

Don't braise the fillet whatever you do, it doesn't have enough flavour. Make the sauce seperately beforehand using the same ingrediants, and use it to deglaze the pan after frying your fillet steak.

It wont make as much of an "intense" taste as the braised beef, the resault of it being a much leaner cut, but it will be very nice still.

Let us know how you get it, it's a great dish!

[CalumC]

Cheers, thats what I thought. I'll get some final pictures up tomorrow night for you. Out nettle picking tomorrow morning if it's not too wet.

[CalumC]

Went wonderfully, the meat was lovely and rare, which gave a lovely juicy addition to the original idea. I made the risotto with spinach instead of nettles, the weather was absolutely terrible, but I would have got some otherwise. All in all, absolutely delicious.

And i forgot to take a picture. Sorry!