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Christmas Eve Dinner and Recipe: Fillet Mignon & Root Soup

{ January 3, 2009 @ 12:01 pm } · { Food, New Galleries, Recipe, Root Soup, Steak }
{ Comments (1) }

Greetings~

Welcome to a first here at The Way I See It … food blogging!

This was our Christmas eve dinner here at the Glynn household and I thought it’d be fun to share it with you.

On the menu is Fillet Mignon with side salad and Root Soup. The soup is one of my specialties, if I do say so myself … even though I did none of the cooking. As you will see, the chores were divided up as follows: my wife did all the work, I had fun playing with my camera!

The steak and the salad are pretty easy endeavors and you can make these up in which ever way suits your tastes, but the soup is a little more specific, so let’s dive right in.

First, our ingredients.

3 Carrots
2 Parsnips
3 Turnips
1/2 large Rutabaga
2 large Potatoes
3 stalks of Celery
2 large Onion
1 lb. of Bacon
A bottle of good stout (Bell’s Kalamazoo, in this case)
64 oz. (approx.) Chicken Stock
1/2 quart (approx.) Cream
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
1 stick Butter
1/2 teaspoon Thyme
1/2 teaspoon Marjoram
As you can see, we won’t be using every bit of what’s pictured … it just made for a nice photo!

First, let’s get that bacon started.

And always start with a good quality, well sharpened knife.

Chop your onion, celery and potatoes …

… and set these to the side for now. It’s a good idea to place the cubed potatoes in a pot of cold water to prevent browning.

Oh, let’s check on that bacon and see how it’s doing.

Mmm … looking good! Now, let’s peel our rutabaga, turnip, parsnip and carrot …

… and then grate them all down.

For the parsnip we used the peeler to make large but very thin slices. Now, wrap these four ingredients in paper towel and set these to the side as well. Let’s get that bacon out of the skillet.

But don’t get rid of that bacon grease! Let’s use that to caramelize the onions, in the same skillet.

While the onions are cooking, grab your largest stock pot and throw in a stick of butter on medium heat.

This is where we’ll be sweating all of our root veggies. Be careful not to scorch the butter, though. Let’s check on our onions.

Yeah … that’s what I’m talkin‘ about! Okay, now that the butter is melted, let’s throw our celery, parsnips, turnips and rutabaga into the stock pot.

The onions are nice and caramelized now …

… so let’s put them off to the side …

… and now throw our cubed potatoes into the same skillet with the remaining bacon grease. While those are browning …

… let’s move back to our stock pot. Grab your bottle of Stout …

… and dump the whole bottle in with the sweating veggies.

Things are really beginning to take shape at this point. Let this mixture cook down a bit. After about 30 minutes, remove your potatoes from the skillet. Now, add your chicken stock to the soup …

… and allow this mixture to simmer for another 30 minutes.

Now, it’s time to add the cream …

… stir, salt and pepper to taste and allow to simmer while you chop up your bacon …

… and now it’s time for the steaks!

Go ahead and salt and pepper these as well …

… and throw them in the skillet.

To finish up the soup, add your potatoes, onion and bacon …

… and simmer on medium heat while the steaks are cooking.

Mmmm … red meat!

We like ours done medium, but you cook yours however you want. Things are getting nice and steamy now.

Go ahead and finish your steaks as desired and set them to the side to trap the juices while the soup finishes up.

And viola! We’re done.


Here we plated our steak and poked it a few times with a fork to let some of the juicy goodness escape and added a side salad with ranch dressing. For the soup we grated a little Irish cheese on top and finished with some croutons. A little red wine for the palate and we had ourselves one fine bit o’ eatin’, I’ll tell you what.

I hope you enjoyed viewing and reading this little project as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Try the root soup yourself and let me know how yours turns out!

As always you can view larger photos by clicking on the images or you can go right to the gallery by following this link:

Christmas Eve Dinner 2008: Fillet Mignon & Root Soup with Side Salad

Slainte
Gareth — The Celtic Camera Photography

Clicking on any of the photos here on “The Way I See It” will take you to my web site, “The Celtic Camera Photography,” where prints of all sizes and photo gifts (Mugs, T-Shirts, Puzzles, etc) are available for purchase by clicking on the shopping cart within the galleries. For information regarding photos for commercial contracts, click here and then follow the “Contact Me” links.

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