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!

Dish 5: Mid-Week Beef Curry

The dish

What to say about this dish? I love curries, so I was excited this one out. Moreover, because I do have a full-time job, mid-week seems like a call from heaven. After all, a mid-week dinner is supposed to be fast, right?

Wrong! This dish takes about 2 (two) hours to prepare, so unless you are self-employed, currently between jobs or a stay-at-home parent, this is definitely not - and I do mean definitely not! - a dish that's suitable for your average rushed mid-week day.

Andy Allen, if ever you read this: mid-week should mean a preparation and cooking time of 20-30 minutes, not 120. (Yes, yes, I know I should have read through the recipe sooner...)

The preparation

This dish seems pretty straightforward. You take some spices and chuck them in a large pan (yay, I love chucking!), together with some meat and other ingredients such as finely chopped onion and red chillies. 

Unfortunately getting all of the correct spices turned out to be a little trickier than anticipated. You should know that I have a lovely best friend/flatmate who takes care of getting most groceries. She ended up visited approximately five different stores all over town to locate the final few ingredients. This means that in the end I did have to cheat a little, since I technically did not have all of the spices necessary.

Once you do have all ingredients, the dish is incredibly simple to prepare. You start out by chopping up a fair amount of beef, which can take up quite a bit of time if you want to make sure you have gotten rid of all of those sneaky tendons. However, once you've done that, the hardest part is over. Huzzah!

Then you proceed to dry-roast your spices. In my case, only one of three was available in seed-format, so I used the ground version of the other two. In comes one of the best things in the world: the mortar and pestle. I bought mine about half a year ago, but had yet to use it for the very first time. 

It was glorious, I can tell you! Even if I wasn't the one who thought up which spices had to be ground together, there is something about creating your own spice mix that makes you feel like a proper cook, instead of the usual easy grab a pre-fab concoction from the shop.

Once the meat is browned, you use the same pan to fry the other ingredients and spices before you put the meat back in there with some stock and lemon juice. And then the waiting game starts.

I did a workout while the curry was simmering away, which made my initial feeling of hunger fade, as it does when you wait long enough.

Approximately two hours and a pan of boiled basmati rice later (I don't even know how to steam rice), it was finally time to dine!

The result

Was it tasty? Hell yes. There was a slight error in judgement, which caused my final version of the dish to be a little more sour than intended, but it was delicious nevertheless. Change the name to a Mid-Weekend Beef Curry and I'm all for it! Oh, and guess what? My onion-loating best friend didn't even mind the onion so much. Score!

Next time

Although I was planning on making something out of Ben's section of the book, all the deep frying that was involved kind of put me off... for now. Instead I'll try my hand at what I grew up with as a proper Sunday dinner: Simple Chicken Satay (p. 31). And yes, I did check the preparation time beforehand. Also, it's called Simple, so if it ends up being difficult, I know where to find you! ;)

See you at our next elemental meal!