On
22 July 2006, we had planned to make Tournedos
Rossini, but the piece of filet we had been sold wasn't up to the task: it had a particularly
thick streak of fat down the middle. Instead, we found this recipe, apparently originally
from Louis Geniés'
Cuisine Provençale.
Ingredients
| traditional |
quantity |
ingredient |
step |
| 6 tablespoons |
60 ml |
olive oil |
1 |
| 4 |
4 |
salted anchovies |
1 |
| 4 slices |
600 grams |
beef filet |
2 |
| 5 slices |
50 g |
fresh bacon or Schinkenspeck |
2 |
| 2 to 10 cloves |
30 g |
garlic |
2 |
| ½ teaspoon |
1 g |
rosemary |
3 |
|
|
|
Salt |
3 |
|
|
|
Pepper |
3 |
In this table, the traditional measure probably doesn't match the quantities; they were in
the original recipe, and I didn't try to interpret them. The quantities are what we used.
Steps
-
Water and dry the anchovies. Warm them in the olive oil over a water bath until soft.
Drain the oil and put into a bottle; discard the anchovies.
The anchovies we get come in sunflower oil, which seems to be the ideal result of this
procedure, so we skipped this step and used the oil. I think the result was as good as
ideal.
-
Chop the meat into slices approximately 4 to 5 cm thick. If using Schinkenspeck (sorry,
don't know an accurate English translation, but it's the word in use in Australia), cut
into 2.5 mm slices, as many as needed to put between each piece of meat. Cut garlic into
slices.
Put alternate pieces of meat, garlic and bacon onto 2 parallel spits, so that the meat
can't rotate. Pay attention to keeping a relatively uniform size (approximately the
thickness of the thin end of a filet, about 8 cm across) so that the brochette cooks
evenly.
-
Salt and pepper the brochette and sprinkle the rosemary on top. I don't like salting
meat for grilling, and the salt on the outside is seldom enough for a thick piece of meat,
but that's what the recipe calls for.
-
Grill over an open fire for 5 to 6 minutes, then turn over and give another 5 to 6
minutes. The original recipe specifies 25 to 30 minutes, but that would mean either that
the meat would be completely cooked through, or that the fire was very low.
