Fillet Steak with a Porcini and Fresh Mushroom Sauce

Scrape the new potatoes. Almost cover the porcini with water in a small bowl. Clean but don't peel the mushrooms and cut into thin slices across the cup and stalks  Picture  . Wash and trim the asparagus down to shoots around 2 inches/5 centimetres long.

Trim the steaks if necessary (it shouldn't be from a good butcher). Roughly grind some black peppercorns and put on both sides of the steaks, and leave them on a wooden board.

Put the potatoes on to simmer for twenty minutes. Drain well in a colinder and then proceed to make Sauté Potatoes to serve later on with the meal  Recipe  .

Put the asparagus into a largish ovenoproof dish, sprinkle with a little olive oil and lighly season with salt and pepper. Cook in the oven at 350°F/180°C/Reg4 stirring once or twice for about twenty minutes until soft but not mushy.

Peel and trim the shallots into very thin slices. Put in a frying pan with a tablespoonful of butter and slowly soften over a low light without browning for at least ten minutes.

When the shallots are soft add the fresh sliced mushrooms and probably another tablespoonful of butter. Stir round and cook for a few minutes. Add the porcini and liquor, stir and put to one side.

Make the sauce by adding the cream and warming over a medium heat. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Put to one side  Picture  .

Put a thick bottomed frying pan over a hot heat. Lightly salt the steak on both sides. Melt a tablespoonful of butter in the hot pan. Cook the steaks on both sides for a minute each on the hot heat. Drop the heat and cook for a futher two to three minutes each side to deliver good rare steaks.

Reheat the sauce, pour a little on each serving plate, put both steaks on top and cover with a little more sauce. Add the sauté potatoes and asparagus and serve  Zoom  .