Part One

Have attempted a three course dinner tonight! My boyfriend was at work all day so I had the time to potter about in the garden, disappear to the shops and catch up with the food shopping. I was looking for baby leeks, fillet of beef, cod loins (I had to look up exactly where this 'cut' was - either side of the backbone of a quadruped apparently - didn't know fish had 4 legs, but there you go!), streaky bacon, lemons, eggs and various other ingredients for the weekend. However, as I began my trek around the supermarket, I noticed that many of the shelves were bare. According to the man behind the butcher counter, this was because they'd had a rush due to the inclement weather forecast!

So...the menu for this evening was

Carpaccio of beef with watercress and Parmesan shavings
Cod wrapped in bacon, thyme, rosemary and lemon dressing with dauphinois potatoes
Lemon tarte

Part One

This was the simple one of the three. Well, it was meant to be. First, season the beef and sear it in a hot pan with a little oil. Next, slice finely into rounds and plate up. Top with watercress and Parmesan shavings and drizzle with lemon juice, good quality olive oil and a little balsamic vinegar. So, I arrived at stage 2 and attempted to slice the fillet with my new, ultra-sharp knife which I bought today and am very excited about! I cut a lemon in half without any effort or 'cutting' at all! It's like magic!

Sorry, little digression there. So, as I was saying, slicing the beef should have been the easy part...Remember when I said there was little on the shelves? There was also very little choice of beef fillet left at the butchers: I opted for the most cylindrical of the three, but it had a few 'flaps' rather than being smoothly round. Hence, when I came to cut it, no 'perfect rounds' appeared as in all the lovely pictures you see of carpaccio. Mine was more 'chunks', but cooked to perfection none-the-less!