Roasted Fillet of Beef in Herbs and Porcini and Wrapped in Prosciutto
900gr/2 lb fillet of beef, left whole
12 – 18 slices of prosciutto or Parma ham
1 good handful of dried porcini, soaked in around 285ml/1/2 pint of boiling water (or you could just use fresh mushrooms of your choice)
2 glasses of red wine
3 peeled cloves of garlic
3 good handfuls of fresh rosemary and thyme, leaves picked and chopped
3 good knobs of butter
juice of half a lemon
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
Preheat your oven at 230C/450F /Gas8.
Lay out your slices of ham on a piece of grease proof paper, so it makes a sheet large enough to wrap your meat in. Make sure there are no gaps.
Chop one of the garlic cloves, and fry it together with the porcini in one knob of butter for about 1 minute. Then add half the soaking water and let simmer for about 5 minutes, before adding the lemon juice, the remaining butter and salt and pepper. If you’re using fresh mushrooms, it’ll take a bit longer, but either way you want the moisture to reduce down so your mushrooms are moist, but there’s no excess fluids. Spread the mushrooms out on half the laid-out prosciutto. If you put the mushrooms on the ham while they’re still hot, they’ll warm up the ham and make it sweat and wrapping the meat will be a lot harder. So better let them cool down first.
Season the beef and roll it in the herbs. Place it on the mushrooms and wrap the ham around it, pulling back the paper. Again, make sure there are no gaps. Tie everything together with string.
And now for the roasting! Put your meat in a roasting tray with the garlic. The time it’ll take of course depends on the size of your fillet. For this amount Jamie recommends 25-30 minutes for rare, 40 min (medium), 50 minutes (well done) or 60 minutes (cremated). Add the wine halfway through.
When your meat is done, let is rest on a carving board for 5 minutes before carving. In the mean time, remove all juices (scraping all the goodness from the inside of the tray first) to a saucepan and reduce down for a lovely red wine gravy.