How to Cook Beef Fillets with Smoked Bacon Sauce
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 1 hour
Ingredients needed to make Beef Fillets with Smoked Bacon Sauce:
For the beef:
- 1 lb 5 oz beef fillet
- Olive oil, as required
For the sauce:
- 1 lb smoked pancetta
- 2 large carrots, trimmed and chopped
- 1 Spanish onion, peeled and chopped
- 1 pint beef stock
- 17 fl oz Madeira
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
For the roasted shallots:
- 4 banana shallots, peeled, trimmed and sliced longitudinally
- Olive oil, as required
Cooking instructions for Beef Fillets with Smoked Bacon Sauce:
- Trim the beef and set the trimmings aside until necessary.
- Wrap the fillet in a cling film and set aside in a refrigerator to chill.
- To prepare the sauce, heat a splash of olive oil over medium heat until it shimmers and toss the carrots as well as onions into it.
- Sauté them for 3-4 minutes, stirring at times, for 3-4 minutes, or until the turn tender.
- Get rid of any excess fat in pancetta and toss the trimmed fat into the pan.
- Cook the veggies until the veggies begin to brown and chop the pancetta into small dices in the meantime.
- Add a splash of Madeira into the pan and give them a nice stir to mix well.
- Flambe the mixture by lighting it with a match and wait until the flames subside.
- Cook further until the sauce thickens considerably and stir in the stock until well mixed.
- Scatter the beef trimmings into it and bring the sauce to a boil.
- Reduce it to a simmer and continue to cook until it thickens further to half its previous volume.
- Adjust the seasonings and pass it through a fine mesh sieve to strain into a clean saucepan.
- To roast the shallots, heat a lashing of oil in a heavy-bottomed skillet over high flame and throw in the shallots.
- Stir fry them for several minutes or until they turn golden brown and remove from heat.
- To cook the beef, slice the beef into four equal pieces and then peel off the cling film from each of them.
- Heat oil in a skillet over moderate flame and brown the meat for 3-4 minutes, stirring often, until it is cooked to medium-rare doneness.
- Stir in the pancetta bits and cook for another minute before turning off the heat.
- Place a piece of beef onto each plate and sprinkle the diced pancetta on top.
- Spoon the sauce over them and scatter the roasted shallots around each beef slice.
- Serve warm.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
