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help me create a dish

post #1 of 42
7/15/10 at 3:25am
Thread Starter 
having friends over for dinner. having brocolli soup with scallops for starters.

they are all big meat eaters and big drinkers and the night is likely to degenerate into cigars, whisky and bad language.

one of them has fairly conservative tastes so beef fillet for main. im thinking some kind of cauliflower puree on the plate with panfried beef fillet. some pate on top of the fillet.

what else can i plate with this?
maybe something crunchy to go with the pate (a wafer or some crouton?).
what sauce? im thinking something fairly flavoursome. as beef fillet is a fairly mild cut...no cream as there will be cream in the cauli puree.
vegetable? maybe cabbage sauted in butter with some bacon? side bowl of greens with olive oil?
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post #2 of 42
7/15/10 at 6:00am
Well, if you're going with cauliflower puree and some sort of greens you'll definitely be wanting something with a crunch for a bit of variation in the texture.

What I might suggest is that if you're topping the fillet with pate and thinking of putting a crunchy top on, you're virtually already doing a beef wellington so why not go the whole hog and do that.

If you don't feel like cooking one large wellington, what you can do is cook your beef fillets, top them with your pate and maybe a mushroom duxelle and top it with individual pieces of puff pastry in whatever shape is most aesthetically pleasing.
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post #3 of 42
7/15/10 at 12:09pm
french fries (seriously)
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post #4 of 42
7/15/10 at 6:45pm
where are you? that sounds like a midwinter menu.
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post #5 of 42
7/15/10 at 11:08pm
Thread Starter 
yeh battling through the depths of an anitpodean winter i thinking a wafer of pastry on top of the pate can do the trick - like a 'deconstructed wellington' heh im ignorant when it comes to sauces? what type and how to make sauce? in my mind im picturing a thin brown intensely flavoured sauce? maybe i can infuse it with dried porcinis to keep the wellington theme going?
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post #6 of 42
7/16/10 at 2:08pm
my advice, seriously and not to be snarky, but if you don't know how to make a sauce, you shouldn't even think about "deconstructing" anything. the goal of cooking for other people is to make something delicious they will enjoy. start simple and do something you know you can do well.
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post #7 of 42
7/16/10 at 10:03pm
Thread Starter 
fair enough. im going to give it a try anyway. going to make a brown sauce and infuse it with dried porcinis. fillet, pate and a 'crouton' of fairly short pastry. will try it out on myself for dinner tonight so if its a complete disaster i can always revert to something easier. also my use of the word deconstructed was a little tongue in cheek
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post #8 of 42
7/16/10 at 10:18pm
first thing that came to mind was green beans sauteed with some almond slivers how about brussel sprouts with some bacon? or something like a parmesan crisp/chip for sauce, how about the tomato route, but still thick and sticky, along the lines of sundried tomatoes and balsamic vinegar then again, take everything I saw with a pinch of salt
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post #9 of 42
7/17/10 at 11:32am
Thread Starter 
alright - invited wifes parents over as a loss prevention measure - if i poison anyone it will be the inlaws... in the end it tasted great but looked terrible
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post #10 of 42
7/17/10 at 11:35am
Thread Starter 
some photos 1 - as good as my knifework gets unfortuantly. 2 - the piece of fillet the butcher gave me. was more envisaging a long straight piece but this is what i ended up with. 3 - tried to trim it up into fairly simmetrical bits. ended up with quite a bit of cut offs so decided to make a ragout instead of brown sauce... 4 & 5 - roux with clarified butter 6 - more floury than i expected. maybe i would half the amount in the roux recipe if i make it again. i added porcini muschrooms to give it some mushroom flavour but they were dried and i think they may have sucked more flavour than they added... 7 - cauliflower in milk for puree, stock for brocolli soup 8 - for some reason i fried the fillet before roasting it 9 - the finished product. nothing like what i had in mind but im posting my failure here in the hope that i can get some advice. brown sauce wasnt as runny as i wanted. maybe i should have just done a concentrated veal stock and mushroom broth? final presentation looked fairly unapetising - plates are half to blame. next time i would probably just cook the steak instead of roasting the fillet (to stop red juices leaking onto cauliflower puree).
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post #11 of 42
7/17/10 at 11:46am
Thread Starter 
i realise the brown sauce does look like poo but it tasted pretty good. anway, wheres that laphroig.
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post #12 of 42
7/17/10 at 10:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Herbert View Post
i realise the brown sauce does look like poo but it tasted pretty good. anway, wheres that laphroig.

the mirepoix ratio is wrong... I think you should have just done a regular beef wellington.
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post #13 of 42
7/18/10 at 1:01am
Thread Starter 
i didnt use all of that, the recipe called for 1:1:1...is that right? are the ratios critical? i didnt want to make a wellington because i wanted to learn about sauces. im happy to make a few mistakes along the way.
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post #14 of 42
7/18/10 at 1:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Herbert View Post
i didnt use all of that, the recipe called for 1:1:1...is that right?

are the ratios critical?

i didnt want to make a wellington because i wanted to learn about sauces. im happy to make a few mistakes along the way.

Mirepoix is 50% onion, 25% celery, 25% carrot.
If you really want to learn about sauces, there is a wonderful book written by James Peterson called "Sauces."
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post #15 of 42
7/18/10 at 2:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Herbert View Post

are the ratios critical?


It's a corner stone of western cooking.
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