Pork Wellington

ingredients:
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!

Rosemary Pork Fillet with Mashed Celeriac and Roasted Parsnips

Mashed the shit out of loads of peppercorns, coarse salt, albout half a bulb of garlic, and the leaves of about 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary in my new pestle and mortar.

Put the whole pork fillet in a large bowl and rubbed the mixture all over the pork and into all the cracks of the fillet. Wrapped tightly in tinfoil and placed in tray.

Prepared some parsnips peeling and cutting down the middle in half (quarters for any very large ones). Put all the parsnips in the same bowl with a little remaining mixture and added some olive oil. Tossed well to cover in the oil and placed onto oven tray cut side down. This all goes in the oven for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile I prepared a celeriac by cutting the odd-looking base off and peeling with a knife. Cut into large pieces and popped in a large pot with a little shallot and garlic and some chicken stock. Left to the side to cook later.

After 30mins took out the oven tray and unwrapped the pork fillet and put back in oven for another 20mins.

I washed out the tinfoil into the pot with celeriac in, topped up with boiling water, and boiled for 20mins. Mashed the celeriac with a little butter and milk, it didn't get creamy but kind of smashed is the best way to describe it. Delicious! I was afraid it gonna taste of celery as that how it smelt raw but it didn't taste too strong and was nice. What sweetened the deal is that it contains only 25% of the carbs compared to potatoes -important for me as I have become quite fat from being obsessed with food of late.

Took out the oven tray. Sliced the fillet into thick medallions, fucking gorgeous! Totally over-seasoned and delicious. The parsnips were nicely softened and sweetened from the roasting -an old trick I picked up. I also tried roasting a few pieces of celeriac which really sweetened! I highly recommend it and must investigate further..

This made about 3 dinners.

Oh yeah, made a gravy as well. Scrubbed the shit outta the oven dish with a little boiling water to lift the fillet brown stuffs and poured into small pot, added a finely chopped shallot and a couple of garlic cloves and boiled for a while. Added some cornflour and watered down with a little balsamic vinegar and soy sauce. A little strong tasting but I'll use sparingly rather than water it down.