On the heat. Mild

Ingredients

• 600 g lamb fillet, silverskin removed
• 2 tbsp oil · 40 g butter
• Thyme, 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• — SAUCE
• 500 ml red wine
• 2 shallots, sliced · 1 bay leaf
• 500 ml lamb or veal stock, well reduced
• 1 tsp redcurrant jelly
• 40 g cold butter, cubed
• Salt, black pepper

Method

1. Sauce first: reduce the wine with the shallots and bay to about 100 ml — a syrup. Add the stock and reduce again by half. Strain. Set aside.
2. Take the fillets out of the fridge 30 minutes early and dry them thoroughly.
3. Pan very hot, oil in. Fillets in, 90 seconds per side on all four sides — six minutes total for a fillet, eight for a backstrap.
4. Butter, thyme and garlic in for the last minute, and baste continuously.
5. Rest 8 minutes on a warm plate, loosely covered. Whatever juices collect go into the sauce.
6. Reheat the sauce, whisk in the redcurrant jelly and then the cold butter off the heat, cube by cube, until glossy. Slice the lamb thickly across, sauce under it.

Cook's note. Slice after resting, never before. This is the most expensive cut in the book and slicing it early costs you every drop of what you paid for.

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