Moving Soon

Moving the blog

Although I have written quite some updates on Blogger, I'm far from pleased with the way it works. This is also why I have not updated in quite some time, although I have plenty of updates and pictures yet to post. However, the constant irregularities in the way Blogger tends to posts headers, pictures, etc, makes writing an update a chore rather than something I enjoy. And that's not the point of this, so I'm leaving. Go home, Blogger, you're drunk.

In other words, I have decided to move this blog from Blogger to another site (yet to be determined). Once I'm completely satisfied with the way that page looks and works, I will first start by transferring all posts on here to the other site, and then I will add the new ones that have not yet been posted on here. Think of scones, lamb sliders and some other great dishes that have already been made and documented, but have not yet seen the light of a computer screen.

I'll put up the new address here when it's ready. It's going to be worth it, I promise.

Hope to see you all soon again on the other side of the web.

Dish 15: Crispy Skin Duck with Witlof

The dish

I have wanted to make this dish since I first got the book for several reasons. 

Firstly, because it is duck and I have never ever ever prepared anything with duck, although I have eaten it upon occasion and really like it.

 Secondly, because it has witlof. Now, for those of you who aren't Australian, witlof is known in most English-speaking countries as chicory or endive. But guess what? In my little country with its little but complicated language, witlof is known as... witlof. Can you even imagine how thrilled I am to see a word for a vegetable in this cookbook that I don't need to translate? For the record, "wit" means white and "lof" is another word for chicory (it also means praise in a completely different context).

I wandered off there, sorry. Finally, I have been wanting to make it, because it seems like a challenge. For once you can't just read the recipe and follow it from top to bottom. Instead, this dish is made up out of 4 different components, and you need to time them just right in order to serve your diners a warm meal.

The preparation

The four different components of this dish are:

1) Duck breasts

2) Witlof

3) Orange sauce

4) Roasted onions

In total this dish does not take a lot of prepping time at all, but you do need to make sure you time it well.

I started out by preparing my roasting tin (in my case: glass baking dish) with the onions and their seasoning. As they had to be in the oven for approximately 15 minutes, I needed to make sure they had been prepped and ready to hit the oven the moment time called for it.

Next were the duck breasts.  

Follow Andy's instructions when it comes to these. Score them properly and add the salt flakes. I found that since this was my second time ever scoring any kind of meat (the first time was the pork belly), I have yet to find out exactly how to score skin and get a perfect result. I can tell you, however, that I'm getting better at it already.

I cooked the duck in a pan until the skin was indeed golden and pretty crisp, then transferred it to the oven, together with my roasting tin with onions.The duck breasts only needed a short while, whereas the onions were allowed to stay in there for 15 minutes, so I set the timer for the duck.

I then started on the orange sauce. Thanks to a visit to the market I had all necessary spices (and even managed to get the allspice berries that I needed for the lamb curry - next time I'll be prepared!) for it. This sauce takes quite some timing, as you add its ingredients in three batches, each with a different amount of time that you allow it to simmer or infuse.

While the sauce was simmering away, I pulled the duck breasts from the oven and covered them with foil. 

I also put on a pan for the witlof, that my lovely best friend had already cut up for me before. Once again you will need a pan with a lid for this, and once again I had used the wrong pan, but this time I was aware of the leaking water/steam, so I could save it in time. Not that it needed saving this time!

I also added the final ingredient to the orange sauce, which, very surprisingly, were sliced oranges.

Approximately ten minutes later, all of my components were done, and I was ready to plate.

Before I move on the result, I would like to share the following with you. With this dish, the trickiest thing definitely lies in the planning of every component. This took the most time to figure out. In the end I managed a time schedule in my head not unlike any Christmas dinner I plan, when I only have one oven and approximately four dishes that require oven time.

In case you are bad at this, I'll narrow it down for you:

Prepare your onions first, so that the roasting tin is ready to go into the oven. Turn the oven on and let it preheat.

Prep your duck and bake it in your pan.

After the required cooking time for the duck, put both the pan with the duck and roasting tin with the onions in the oven. Set a timer to the duck time as indicated in the cookbook.

Start on your orange sauce, and after adding the second batch of ingredients to the pan, pull out the duck and cover it with foil.

Put a frying pan on and start on the witlof. 

Continue with the sauce while keeping an eye on your onions and witlof.

If you managed to do this, by the time the duck breasts have rested for 10 minutes, all other items should be ready as well. It's not hard, but if you start preparing this dish from the top (= the orange sauce), you might run into trouble. 

The result

What can I say? "Please sir, I want some more!"

This dish. Oh my. This sauce! As my best friend put it, "If I had a spoon, I would eat this as soup." The duck, the witlof, the onion, the orange and the sauce together, this was more than a match made in heaven. This was the perfect combination and one I am definitely going to make this again and again and again. I literally had to stop myself from running my finger through the bowl after finishing, just so I could lap up a little more of that sauce.

Andy, I take my hat off to you. Delicious.

And dear reader, if by now you still have not bought this cookbook, you are nuts. Get it here!

Next time

Next time it is Easter. This means that I am meeting my loveliest friends for an extravagant brunch. I will be providing Scones (p. 77), with cream and probably some lemon curd. Because why not? If we're having mimosas at 11 in the morning, we are having scones.

I might also attempt Ben's White Chocolate Mojito Cheesecake with Rhubarb (p. 202), but I can't make any promises.

But still, I really do hope to see you at our next elemental meal... :)

Dish 14: Smoked Salmon & Avocado Mousse Crostini

The dish

You might aware that I didn't have a lot of time, so instead of going for a bigger meal, I opted for the Smoked Salmon & Avocado Mousse Crostini (p. 100). Although they looked liked little appetisers, I figured I could make them just so they would fill a grown woman's stomach in terms of dinner.

I must say, I was weary of the amount of smoked salmon I needed, but if there is something I have already learned throughout this process, it is to trust Andy when it comes to flavour.

The preparation

This dish is perfect as a canapé, and it is actually what it ends up looking like... if you follow the recipe closely. If you do it right, you'll end up with small discs of baguette with a dollop of avocado mousse, some smoked salmon, and fresh dill.

Yeah, no such thing.

I did follow Andy's recipe for the bigger part.

I got my baguette...

I got my smoked salmon, and I got my avocado mixture going. This, dear people, involves blending with a stick blender. I can recommend not using a bowl, for you will undoubtedly splatter green muck onto yourself, and unless you are a parent of a teething baby, this is pretty much unacceptable.

Naturally this dish contains one of Andy's favourite citrus fruits, but most of it purely relies on the flavours that the ingredients offer. You don't use a lot of extra spices, you just combine amazing ingredients.

The result

It isn't brain surgery, but boy, is this delicious! As said before, I was afraid of the amount of smoked salmon you needed to use, but who knew that avocado and smoked salmon went together so well? Instead of getting an overdose of salmon, like I feared, the avocado almost neutralised its strong flavoured counterpart and made it into this delightful mix. 

It was like seeing your extrovert best friend hook up with a really quiet partner, and being absolutely astonished when it works. A match made in heaven. Don't forget to add the dill for this show stopper!

Next time

As this was such an easy one, next time I will attempt a proper real dish again: Crispy Skin Duck with Witlof (p. 172). 

Stay tuned and see you at our next elemental meal! (Is it getting lame yet? A little, huh?)

Delay in update - kitty's things first

Good evening, all ye who read this. :)

After my holiday weekend, I haven't had time yet to prepare a new dish from Andy's cookbook, and hence I'm immediately letting you and myself down by not having put up a new post yet by yesterday evening.

I was planning on preparing it tonight, but I just came back from the vet.

My cat has had a case of pretty bad breath and I fear that this bad breath in combination with her growing refusal to properly chew, means there's something wrong with her teeth. I have to say, taking my cat to the vet was a whole new experience altogether. My cat is lovely, let's start with that. And I don't know who that creature was in the vet's exam room, because that hellish vixen was definitely not my cute kitty. 

I don't know if any of you have a pet that changes 100% whenever they are at the vet's, but it's one of the weirdest things. She was purring and I got to cuddle her again the moment the vet had left the room, but when they returned, once again the ears went down and she went berserk. 

Anyway, I'm back now, with an appointment to drop her off next week, where she'll have a full examination whilst anesthetised. Roxy, why can't you just be an easy cat? 

~~~

Long story short, I'm in no mood to prepare a proper dish right now, so instead I'm going to warm up some leftover soup.

Thursday I'll try out the next dish, though! I am looking forward to that, and I hope I won't be as tired then as I am now. 

See you then! =)

Dish 13: Indian Lamb Curry

The dish

Another curry! To be honest, I was looking forward to preparing this dish. Like its Mid-Week buddy, this dish takes at least an hour and a half before it's done, so I wouldn't prepare it as a last minute thing. If you have the time for it, though, do it. Now.

For me the hardest part about this dish were the ingredients. It requires ingredients such as allspice berries and cardamom pods. Over the past 12 dishes I have expanded my kitchen cabinet's spices section threefold, but these items were not there, nor were they to be found at the larger supermarkets. Next time I might go on a scavenger hunt for them, but this time I chose to use instructions on how to replace the particular flavours of these items with the spices that I did already have available to me.

The preparation

You chop up some of the ingredients, such as the lamb. Andy's recipe requires lamb shoulder, but our local butcher only had leg of lamb, so it had to do. 

And it did. I cubed it, seasoned it and browned it. Important to keep in mind is that you need to use a pan that has a lid! You don't need it just yet, but you will regret it if you use a pan without a lid.

After transferring the browned meat back into its bowl, you need to use the same pan to heat some of the spices, such as cloves and bay leaves, until they are fragrant.

You also use some of the other chopped ingredients, and put them in with your fragrant spices.

You add your tomato paste to this mixture once the onion is soft, and then also add the lamb and the stock. At this point you will need your lid, because this needs to simmer for one full hour.

I put all of this stuff in a nice deep pan for which I didn't have a lid. Instead I used a bigger lid that did cover the pan. Unfortunately most of the steam did manage to escape by dripping down to the edge of lid and seeping down.

This meant that after about 45 minutes, I had nearly burned my lamb. It started smelling overly fragrant (which I never trust), and when I checked on it, the lamb was about to blacken. Not even thinking twice I chucked in extra stock, and hoped for the best. 

Luckily, when I added my potatoes and coconut cream a little later, things seemed to be alright. I tasted it. No trace of a burnt flavour. I was a happy camper. At this point you will also have to put the (in my case absolutely useless) lid to the side.

Since you have added your potatoes by now, these are the ones that need to be cooked through, so if you are not sure that the 20 minutes the recipe requires are enough, just grab a fork and test the potatoes. If it's been 20 minutes and your potatoes are soft, you are ready to eat.

Don't forget to prepare your basmati rice in time! Top it all off with fresh coriander, and you're ready to dine. Don't forget to filter out the cloves, bay leaves and cinnamon stick!

The result

I love curries, so I was really glad that my lamb didn't burn or leave a burnt flavour.

This curry was absolutely delicious, although I probably do prefer the Mid-Week Beef Curry (p. 50) just slightly over this one, as that one packs a bit more of a punch in terms of flavour. However, if you're a big fan of lamb, this dish brings those particular lamb flavours to a new level. it had been a while since I had eaten lamb that I have enjoyed this much. True story.

Next time

Well, as I'm writing this it's Wednesday night, the 2nd of April, and it's my birthday. This means that this coming weekend, I will be celebrating with friends and family, and have not yet considered anything to make yet.

So, I will let it be a surprise or a last minute thing.

Also, I will vow not to leave the updates of this blog hanging. I will try to put up a new post every Monday night (since I usually cook things on Sunday). 

If you do not believe me, or know yourself to forget this, and you really want to know what else is in Andy Allen's cookbook, feel free to fill out your e-mail address and get notifications whenever I've updated! 

See you at our next elemental meal!

P.S. Don't forget to pay a visit to Judy's Books and Bakery!

P.P.S. Interested in purchasing Andy's cookbook? You can order it here.

Dish 12: Popcorn Chicken with Lime Mayo

The dish

If you are a normal human being, you probably sometimes have those "I need to have some fried right now" cravings.

This dish, Popcorn Chicken with Lime Mayo (p. 106) is the perfect solution to that. Want to eat chicken fillet but are sick of preparing it the same way you always do? Fry it, Andy says. And whenever Andy says something, we listen. (Except when he says, "gracias señoritas".)

The preparation

As you may have understood from its name, this dish has two components. One the one hand, we have our fried chicken, and on the other hand the lime mayo.

Let's start with the mayo, as once you've prepared this, you've got your hands free to get down and dirty with the chicken.

There. That's that done. Andy wants you to use Kewpie Mayo, but I don't think they sell that in the Netherlands, so I just used your ordinary every day mayonnaise. Add some lime juice and lime zest (see? told you he likes citrus) and mix it all together. Put it in the fridge while you work on the chicken, and send your best friend out to get some fries from the local cafeteria (the irony is not lost on me).

Fact is, I don't own a deep fryer and unless I inherit one or get one as a gift, I don't think I ever will own one. Frying stuff makes your house stink. Maybe if at some point I have a garage or barn or some kind of creepy filled-to-the-brim-with-spiders shed I will fry stuff there.

For now, I will suffer through the recipes that require deep frying, and once the weather allows, I will open up all windows when doing so.

But anyway, you get your chicken and you chop it into the most evenly sized cubes you can master.

I know. I'm kind of impressed, myself. 

Kiddink, kiddink.

But yes, you then get your conveyor belt style line-up ready:

1) a bowl with flour

2) a bowl with egg and milk

3) a bowl with breadcrumbs

Get this show on the road. After a while, you will end up with your chicken looking somewhat like this:

Brilliant! In the meantime you should have already got your sunflower oil going, so it's time to check the temperature. 

Get the oil up to 180 degrees Celsius and drop in some of your chicken pieces. I used a skimmer, because I wouldn't like getting hot oil splattered all over me. Naturally it depends on the size of the frying pan you use how many pieces you put in there together.

These little buggers brown up quickly, but don't pull them out until you've counted to 120 (or set a timer, what you will), because we don't want to give anyone salmonella. 

Don't they look delicious? It takes some time, and if you're on your own I'm not quite sure it's worth going through the trouble. On the other hand, if you want to satisfy your need for something fried, this isn't the worst thing you could do.

The result

Add two and two together, and you end up with a crunchy but tender bite of chicken, coated in fresh lime mayo. 

And my best friend's verdict? "De-li-cious."

I think that says it all.

Next time

Time to get back into the groove with a proper full fledged dinner dish: Indian Lamb Curry (p. 46). I would love for you to join me on this ride.

See you at our next elemental meal!

Dish 11: Mushroom Sauce

The dish

If you do not like mushrooms, you'd best stop reading now, because this dish is not for you. To quote You've Got Mail (and technically Shop Around The Corner): 

"Well, if you don't like Kathleen Kelly, I can tell you right now, you're not going to like this girl." "Why?" 

"Because it is Kathleen Kelly."

The preparation

One takes mushrooms. Several kinds of mushrooms.

You chop and tear them up, and then you get to do what I love: chuck them in a pan. Naturally you add about 10 other ingredients to this pan, including some stock and you add your other ingredients in the order that Andy tells you to. 

You end up with something that looks like this (or at least, I did!):

I know, it may not look as appetising as you may have expected, if you expected anything at all. But, the proof is in the pudding and not in the way it jiggles.

And naturally there is something that makes everything look better. Tasty garnish! Add some parsley and voilà, a tasty looking mushroom sauce.

Not too shabby, right?

The result

If you have not realised this already: Andy Allen loves his citrus. Almost every dish I have made up until now has had lime/lemon juice or zest through it. Sometimes I find that the acidity can dominate the other flavours a little, but in this sauce, it is amazing; the saltiness of the stock combined with those delicious mushrooms and the freshness of the parsley just fits perfectly alongside the sour lemon juice..

And if, like my best friend and I, you like your mushrooms next to a good piece of meat, you could try combining it as follows:

A good piece of steak, oven baked potatoes and green asparagus. Delicious.

Next time

I don't think I can avoid the fried food for much longer, so get ready to get your deep fryer out of the garage or from the attic (because surely you can't use it that often?). It's time for some Popcorn Chicken with Lime Mayo (p. 106).

See you at our next elemental meal!

Dish 10: Pork & Fennel Sausage Rolls

The dish

You may know by now that I'm not a huge pork fan. Still, not only have I sworn to myself to prepare every dish in this cookbook, I will always give stuff a second, third, or fourth chance. 

And so I chose to make Pork & Fennel Sausage Rolls (p. 120).

The preparation

To be honest, the prospect of having to make my own sausage rolls was kind of daunting. I had no idea if it was going to be hard or if I had to be very careful with amounts. 

In terms of preparation, this is becoming kind of a regular thing: you start by chopping things up, such as shallots!

And then you chop up some more things, including the fennel! For the record and in case you have never cooked with fennel before (comme moi), remove the heart of the fennel, like you would with witlof (chicory/endive).

Next step: mashing everything together with your pork mince. It seemed all fine and dandy up until this point. 

And then came the part that worried me: getting out your puff pastry and actually forming the sausage rolls.

Unlike the recipe in the book, the puff pastry I had were not slabs of 15 x 30cm. Instead I had to work with squares of 10 x 10cm.

I had calculated that I didn't need that many, but ended up adding more as the portions of the minced meat concoction were so plentiful that the 6 or 7 sheets I had laid out were hardly sufficient.

Still, I tried to stuff as much meat into the puff pastry as possible.

As you can see, the meat mix took up about one third of the puff pastry, so folding these little rascals and keeping them shut was quite an experience. Luckily my egg wash helped a lot, and I think the experience I have with using this kind puff pastry when making apple turnovers also gave me a boost of confidence.

Let me tell you: I won. And all these little pigs in blankets went straight into the oven with their fennel comrades.

 

The result

They turned out quite alright, although, perfectionist as I am, I'm not entirely pleased with the way they look, simply because they don't look the way they do in the book. But then, this is the first time ever I made them, and they are incredibly good-looking, aren't they?

As for taste... Well, let's just say they tasted of pork. But the addition of fennel was really great! I think I did make a mistake regarding seasoning, though, because I found that I really needed to sprinkle extra salt over it to give it some flavour. The moment I had figured that out, it was all good.

Mine were also twice as big as they are supposed to be if you follow the recipe precisely, but since I prepared them for dinner, I figured a slightly bigger version of the same thing couldn't do any harm. And it didn't, but they are quite heavy on the stomach. I would definitely suggest them as a party snack, though!

Next time

Next time I'm not going to prepare a full dish. Instead, I will focus on one of the extras in The Next Element, and that is a sauce! I know, it's absolutely thrilling. But just you wait, Henry Higgins!

See you at our next elemental meal!

Dish 9: Rosemary Baked Hand-Cut Chips

The dish

Alright, let me start off by saying that I have been dreadfully negligent with regards to this here blog. Sorry, blog!

However, that doesn't mean that I haven't kept to my promise of trying out every Andy Allen recipe; it just means that you know nothing about it! Muahaha! Nah, just kidding. It just means that I will have to write a lot, and I will do so today, because my lovely friend Judith basically forced me into it. She is going to share a link to this blog on her own incredibly pretty and professional blog. Yeah, so by the by, if you are looking for an awesome and stylish blog, head over to Judy's Books and Bakery.

On with the actual blog. As I noted in my previous update, I hardly had any time for proper cooking, let alone documenting all that I did. And no, I obviously did not end up making those scones (they live to love another day). Instead, it was Oscar night! And what do you eat during Oscar night?

That's right! Nothing, because all those skinny women in beautiful dresses intimidate the hell out of you. Except if you're me, and all that intimidation just leads to you eating your way through your cupboards.

Actually, none of that is true. Well, not really. I just figured that a snack such as this one would be perfect. Why buy crisps/chips if you could also make them yourself?

The preparation

As you would expect with a dish called Rosemary Baked Hand-Cut Chips (p. 70), it is pretty straightforward.

You get your potatoes, and you slice them. If you are fancy you use a mandoline. If not, and you're like me, you create your own (slight more wobbly) version.

Once you have sliced as many potatoes as you need, you put them in a bowl, and add some seasoning.

Don't forget the olive oil and mix it all together. 

Then comes the lazy part if you're someone else, and tedious "it will fit perfectly" part if you're me: you put all the slices onto your baking tray.

Add your rosemary and your garlic. Add a little more olive oil, add a little more seasoning, and chuck the tray into the oven.

Because the slices are so thin, it only takes a short while before they're done. However, did I mention that you need to flip them over halfway through? Yeah.

But, in the end you will end up with some lovely hand-cut chips!

The result

They say a picture is worth more than a thousand words. So here:

And I only have one more to add: Yum.

Next time

Due to the fact that I'm writing this update after I've already done four other dishes, I can tell you, without any form of surprise or change of plan, that the next dish is something I have never tried before: Pork & Fennel Sausage Rolls (p. 120).

Oh dear. Pork again. Read on to see how this Next Elemental meal was received.

Dish 8: Mediterranean Chicken Skewers with Coriander Yoghurt

The dish

I was in the mood for something easy and light. Something that didn't take a lot of prepping, but was still a warm meal, since I'm saving the salad recipes for Spring and Summer.

Consequently, I chose chicken skewers. Because who doesn't like chicken skewers?! I can tell you, the Dutch love it. We love barbecuing. You know why? We don't get to do it all that much, so when we get the chance, we take it. So chicken skewers it was, even if I had to make do with a grill pan rather than a barbecue.

The preparation

You get the ingredients; you chop them up. Then you mix them all together with some herbs, garlic and olive oil, and let them marinate overnight (or throughout the day, as I did).

You also you dunk your wooden bamboo skewers in water and let them soak.

When the time has come, approximately 3 hours before you are hungry), you start preparing the skewers. I love that in the recipe Andy is so very specific. First chicken, then capsicum, then zucchini, then onion. Repeat. Until you have two of each kind of vegetable. TWO. NO MORE. I don't know, I didn't try it out, maybe the skewers self-destruct if you don't stick to this way (pun a little intended)?

Eventually, you end up with a pile that looks like this:

If I didn't know that raw chicken was bad for you, I'd eat it like it was, that's how good this pile looked. And see? Chicken, capsicum, zucchini, onion. Repeat. ;)

I put my grill pan on the stove with a little bit of oil, and while I was waiting for it to be hot enough, I prepared the coriander yoghurt. I am telling you, I need a herb garden and a lemon tree, because I don't think that there's been a recipe yet that didn't involve thyme, coriander, lemon and/or lime. 

This stuff is gorgeous, and it is a lovely addition to these chicken skewers.

The result

Because my grill only had enough room to grill 4 skewers at a time, it took me quite some time to have all skewers cooked through and through. Luckily, this dish is so tasty, you don't really need to eat it while it's hot. Cold will do just fine.

Do make sure to add some lemon wedges when you dine. Sprinkle some lemon juice over the food and the add the coriander yoghurt. Delish, I tell you.

Next time

Due to the fact that I will only have time on Friday for the next meal, after returning from work at 5 p.m., I will most likely opt for a dessert, or perhaps those scones that have been eyeing me since the moment I got this book. After all, it's never too late at night for some dessert. Wink wink nud-- never mind. :)

What it is going to be is therefore going to be a huge surprise, so see you all at our (my) next elemental meal!

P.S. I'm still avoiding the creepy crawly dishes, aren't you proud?

Dish 7: Roast Beef with Winter Vegetables

The dish

I owe you two posts by now, so you'll get both of them quickly following one another. Although, if you read this later, you'd never know (schedule-manipulation ftw, muahaha!).

Anyway, I had already decided on this dish quite some time ago, so I was looking forward to preparing it. Also, I had expected most of this being sitting around while the oven does all the work, which always makes me tingle a little on the inside. 

The preparation

And sitting around I did. Not so much while the oven did it's work, but while the oil and thyme sprigs did their job. 

While the meat (which I didn't expect to be so expensive. Oh well, you live, you learn!) was marinating, I made a start on the vegetables.

This was the first time ever I have touched a parsnip, and it was the first time since forever that I touched a beetroot. 

I felt so healthy preparing all of the vegetables. This dish isn't complicated, unless you don't know how to use a small kitchen knife, in which case you're pretty much screwed.

I was, however, surprised when I didn't need to chuck the meat into the baking tin together with the vegetables, but that I was going to have to brown the meat in a frying pan. False advertising, I call that, because the pictures in the book all had the roast lying amidst the vegetables inside the baking tray. 

Luckily I got a great frying pan for Christmas 2012 that allows for time in the oven, so after I browned the meat I was able to put it - pan and all - into the oven, just above the vegetables in their baking tray. 

In the meantime I started on the dressing, because I had all the time in the world now.

Let me get one thing straight: I love horseradish. I love wasabi. Seriously, even the feeling of having your nose pinched shut just above the nostrils, bringing tears to your eyes? Yup. :)

I also put the plates in a bath of scalding hot water to heat them up a little.

Once the dressing was done, the meat had to come out of the oven to rest for about 15 minutes. I grabbed my oven mitt and pulled the frying pan out of the oven, transferred the beef onto a wooden cutting board and covered it with some foil.

And then, unexpectedly, I still managed to pull an Andy. Remember that pan-oven vs the hand situation? Yeah. Having safely pulled the pan out of the oven, it was in the way, so I figured I'd just clean up a little. Without the mitt, this time. Boy, did I feel stupid. Luckily, no severe harm done (and it only cost me about 10 minutes of cooling - which still left me 5 minutes).

Unfortunately, one of my dinner guests notified me about 7 minutes before it was done (and 2 minutes before she was due to arrive) that she was going to be around 10 minutes late. Needless to say, I was not amused, especially not because I did not want this expensive meat to be overdone. But what can you do? So I waited and prayed to the gods of meat. No, not really. Well, okay, maybe a little.

The result

This dish is pretty much what it says it is: roast beef with winter vegetables. And once finished, it can look like this:

Yes, I realise I should have put the two pieces of meat with the pink sides up as well, but oh well, I was hungry and the meat was pretty much cold by then.

I also served with a delicious Australian wine that my best friend bought just because of the label. 

Read it and weep, my darling readers. And be sure to buy it, because it was actually pretty tasty. (But what do I know? I've just finished being a student so I settle for most wines.)

Also, quick question: how do people let meat rest for so long without it going absolutely cold? Does one warm it up again right before serving? And if so, how? Oh the mysteries of life!

I figured out with this dish that horseradish can make up for a lot of things, but it cannot make up for parsnip. I am not a sweet vegetable eating girl, and although most of the vegetables were fine, I couldn't for the life of me finish the chunk of parsnip on my plate.

But no worries: there is so much food on your plate, that you definitely won't go hungry!

Next time

Technically next time has already been, but just so you know, the dish after this I made Mediterranean Chicken Skewers with Coriander Yoghurt. During the Olympic closing ceremony. Which I then ended up missing completely. :(

Still, see you at our (sort of) next elemental meal!