melt in your mouth whole roasted beef scotch fillet

It was our wedding anniversary over the weekend, we its actually today but thats a work day and thats no fun!  Instead of going out we decided on  roasting a whole piece of scotch fillet. I grabbed as many of the herbs in the garden that stand up to cooking, like rosemary, thyme, sage, and oregano and roughly chopped them up along with a few crushed cloves of garlic, a good glug of evoo, salt and plenty of black pepper.  Into a bowl it all went for a good half an hour, sitting on the bench.  Large pieces of meat like this really benefit from sitting out of the fridge but only for 30 minutes, think food hygeine/danger zone here.

I whacked the oven up to 240c for 20 minutes, then turned it down to 200c and put the meat in.  It was 1.6kgs and took around 1 hour and 20 minutes to reach 70 degrees on my meat thermometre.  It was cooked med-wellish, I'd prefer it a bit pinker, say 65 degrees, but you have to compromise with your loved ones!

I did it like I roast all my meat, over a wire rack with water underneath, it collects all the juices and you are left with a lovely stock you can use for gravy to serve with it or for another day.  Just make sure you drain it into a jug, put in the freezer for an hour or so and then skimm off the fat that will rise to the top.  You can throw this fat out, or keep it for your next batch of roasted vegies.

We had freshly dug spuds from the garden made into chippies cooked with some fresh rosemary.

Teamed with a simple garden salad of rocket, chickpeas, garden peas, fetta and walnuts, a delicious bottle of red wine, it was a wonderful anniversary dinner that I'll remember for years to come.  I will be making this again, I have an uncle who would die for beef, I think I might become the golden niece with this recipe!

We didn't exchange any gifts this year either, I asked hubby to humour me, and we exchanged an 'appreciation' letter to each other, and let me tell you it was a wonderful gift to receive and it didn't cost a cent.  

Ciao, Jan