pork fillet
puff pastry
shallot, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
millions of salt and pepper
thing o mushrooms, cleaned and finely diced
thing o pate
some thyme
1/2 cup o water
1 egg lightly whisked.
-i couldn't afford prosciutto in my local shop. no replacement used.
first off i'd just like to mention in hindsight this was always going to be a disaster.
[ EDIT never mind just ate some, it's lovely =) ]
cut fat off de fillet, rubbed salt and pepper all over it. easy on de salt, some msg to compensate.
lotsa butter foaming in pan but not burning out, seared fillet on all sides and left to cool.
cleaned pan and started again with fresh butter.
softened finely chopped shallot then threw in finely diced mushrooms and garlic, water. brought to boil then reduced till dry. it really shrinks! added salt (+msg) and pepper and some thyme. let cool to room temp.
in medium bowl work the pate with a spoon a bit then added the duxelles (mushroom mix) and mixed together.
here's where it gets weird. cook a base of pastry on a buttered baking tray big enough for fillet to go on (12mins @220c) and let cool. <- all the juices are going to go down onto this so do not worry about burning later on. put duxelles on one half of meat, put that side face down on cooked pastry. cover the rest of the fillet in duxelles. make sure it's thickly covered everywhere.
brush egg on one side of remaining pastry, put said side face down onto top of fillet. tuck it in all sides and meeting if possible on the bottom (i didn't do this right). make sure it's sealed in pastry at both ends (i didn't coz i couldn't roll it out properly), brush the outside heavily with remaining egg.
I popped this in oven for 20mins on 220c then 25 mins on 200c. was supposed to be on rare side of medium but it went the other way. need to reduce time if doing again.
Turned out OK. Pastry was a bit of a mess though. Totally soggy on the bottom, totally dry on the top. Two holes at either end let a lot of moisture go :-( but tasted pretty good! will do better next time.
Yummy!
