Fillet Flambe

It was such a fun day in the kitchen with my husband on Wednesday this week. Wednesdays are their rugby days off so we thought we would make one of our favorite french recipes for lunch. "Fillet Flambe" served with some spinach, crispy frites and drizzled with a creamy flambe brandy sauce. We first made this recipe together for a french dinner that we held back in South Africa. The flambe sauce is a great way to impress your guests, the flashy frying pan lit up on fire looks very professional. I am very happy to share it with all of you as it really is a great crowd pleaser when serving to your friends or family

Ingredients for 4 people

1 kg of beef fillet steaks (250g per person)

700 g of Fresh spinach (if you cannot get fresh you can use frozen)

2 Onions

2 Potato's

1 cup Cooking oil

1/2 Cup brandy (we used Fish eagle brandy)

2 Cups cream

2 cloves Garlic

Salt

Pepper

Method

1. Finely chop the onions

2. Finely slice the spinach leaves

3. Saute the onions over a medium heat in a frying pan with some oil, once they are cooked add the spinach leaves, drizzle over some oil and season with salt and pepper, the spinach shouldn't take too long to cook.

4. Peel the potato's, using a kitchen peeler thin blade you can peel thin slices of potato's to resemble thin frites

5. In a small pot add a cup of oil, and place over a medium to high heat. The oil will be used for the thin slices of potato's

6. To check that the oil is hot enough place one of the chips into the oil, it should bubble and crisp up straight away. You can add small handfulls at a time and you can leave them in for a few seconds until they are crispy, take the chips out and place on a paper towel to absorb the oil.

7. For the main part of the dish the fillet, you need to preheat your oven to 100 degrees this will just be used to keep the filets warm when you are preparing the sauce

8. Make sure you have a frying pan over a hot heat with some oil, do not add to much oil just a bit to cover the sauce pan.

9. Season both sides of your fillets with salt and pepper, and place them in the pan, cook on both sides for 3-4 minutes, the time all depends on how you like your steak cooked, this will be for a medium rare fillet.

10. Once you have cooked on both sides place the fillets on a oven tray with some butter and place in the oven. The fillets will carry on cooking in the oven.

11. Now it's time for the sauce, you need to use the same frying pan that you cooked the filets in as you want to use the juice from the fillets

12. Crush two cloves of garlic and thinly slice and add it to the frying pan with the fillet juices on a medium heat for about a minute

13. Add the brandy to the frying pan, we have been cooking over a gas stove so you can tilt the frying pan over the flames until it catches a light, the alcohol burns out and you will be left with lovely brandy and garlic flavour. The flames will die out naturally. You can also use a long lighter to be safe to light up the brandy.

This is great to impress your guests

14. Now you can pour over your cream into the frying pan and stir until creamy and all combined, have a taste and season with salt and pepper. You can take your fillet steaks out of the oven and spoon out the remainder of the fillet sauces into your creamy brandy sauce

15. You can now assemble your flambe fillet.

16. Heat up your spinach, place a good helping of spinach in the middle of your plate, place the fillet on top of the spinach and a handfull of crispy frites

17. Drizzle over the creamy brandy sauce and Voila! Bon appetit

The combination of all the ingredients works so well together.