Having cooked loads of “food glorious food” for my family’s Saint’s day feast yesterday (at this point I feel like breaking out in song from the Oliver musical!), dinner this evening was a breeze. The kids were very happy to be eating the leftover buffet of favourite dishes – creamed potatoes, parsley rice, honeyed carrots, green cabbage salad and so on that my husband and I had carefully covered and stashed in the fridge last night. They were particularly keen to finish off the Roasted Rosemary Beef Fillet pictured above. I drizzled it with vinno cotto then quickly warmed it in a hot frypan before serving up thinly sliced rounds. 

This is a pricey cut of meat which is why I tend to reserve this recipe for special occasions. I encourage you to purchase a plump piece of fillet from a reputable butcher like Chilcott’s (Hunters Hill and Concord) because then you can feel confident that your tastebuds will be treated to a cut of meat with butter-soft tenderness and fullness of flavour. 

I’ve tried various methods of preparing beef fillet – some with sensational results and others which left me wondering why I bothered to submit such a sublime cut of meat to such a disappointing recipe. In my opinion, the BEST METHOD of preparing a whole piece of beef fillet is courtesy of Stephanie Alexander and appears in her cookbook, The Cook’s Companion. This method works every time and leaves my family and friends murmuring with delight at each mouthful of beautifully soft beef. I like to add finely chopped fresh ROSEMARY to the pan and I roll the raw beef fillet in this prior to searing and roasting. Oh, and another addition of mine is to SEAR the beef in olive oil and butter because it intensifies the flavour. Just make sure that you don’t leave the fillet in the oven for longer than the recommended cooking time. It will continue to cook simply from the internal heat of the meat once tightly wrapped. 

There is nothing wrong with eating leftovers. I do enjoy hunting through the fridge, selecting and stacking up the various containers of meals made the day prior, then laying them out on the kitchen bench. Not only does it cut down on food wastage, but I find that many of my home cooked meals, have a far superior flavour the next day. Plus, dinner can be done in a matter of minutes, pretty much as long as it takes to properly warm up what’s left in the fridge. It is ESSENTIAL to store leftover food correctly. Use containers with a decent seal, or cover with a double layer of food-safe plastic wrap. I also clamp on the lid of my cooking pot when there are leftovers inside and pop this into the coldest part of the fridge. 

Roasted Rosemary Beef Fillet to serve 6 people in 5 simple steps

Ingredients
1 x piece of beef fillet about 1.2 kg tied neatly with string (ask your butcher to do this for you) 
1 x tablespoon olive oil
30 grams unsalted butter
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
sea salt and black pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees on a conventional setting. 

2. Melt the butter with the olive oil over a medium/high heat in a roasting pan that is long enough to accommodate the piece of fillet. 

3. Add the rosemary, sea salt and black pepper, then the beef, turning the meat over to coat evenly and to sear.  

4. Place into the oven uncovered for 30 minutes for medium cooked beef (20 minutes for rare).

5. Remove from the oven, wrap tightly in a double layer of aluminium foil and rest for 2 hours before slicing and serving, drizzling over the juices that collect at the bottom of the foil wrapping.