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 2, 3 and 4: The Crispiest Skin Pork Belly, Honeyed Carrots, Pomme Puree

The dish

Yesterday I prepared The Crispiest Skin Pork Belly (p. 92). I usually don't eat a lot of pork, because I don't like the taste of it very much, but I had never really had pork belly, so I was definitely keen to try this.

Other than pork I also prepared some Honeyed Carrots (p. 73) and Pomme Puree (p. 60), to accompany that slab of meat. I have prepared honeyed carrots before, but for those I took inspiration from Julie Goodwin's cookbook. I was curious to see how much these carrots would differ from that recipe. Naturally I have also prepared mashed potatoes before, but I have never actually pressed potatoes through a sieve, despite having seen it done on various cooking shows.

The preparation

A trip to the butcher's got me some nice pork belly, although I bought a little over half of what the recipe required, because I only prepared it for two people, whereas the recipe is for a company of four.

If you don't like handling meat or seeing that meat comes from "a real animal", keep in mind that carving the pork's skin may be a little daunting. In the broad daylight, seeing how much their skin and ours look alike, it really makes it sink in that this used to be a living animal.

Anyway, I carved the skin, which proved to be a little trickier than expected. I guess my chef's knife just isn't as sharp as I'd hoped, because it was quite hard to get through.

I figured that because the piece I bought was so much smaller than the one in the recipe, I would be fine putting it in the oven for a shorter period of time. However, because it was the first time ever I had made it, I wasn't sure what it was supposed to look like after the first scorching 30-40 minutes. Strangely enough, despite having salted both sides equally, only one side started to look like I know crackling to look like, whereas the other stayed white and dry. I still don't know what happened there.

Because it took the full 40 minutes for the better half to look crispy, by then I decided I would just follow the recipe as it was, overcooking the pork be damned. I'm fine with messing up a dish if it's the first time ever, so that I know what went wrong.

In the meantime I started on the pomme purée and the honeyed carrots. Luckily I had done both of these before, and since neither required the oven (whereas Julie Goodwin's honeyed carrots also spend some time in the oven), I could combine it perfectly.

First time ever I pressed boiled potatoes through a sieve with a tea towel. And yes, the purée was silky smooth and to my big surprise the pan I mixed the potatoes, milk and butter in stayed almost perfectly clean, and the purée began to look like a kind of dough. Perhaps it was a bit like gnocchi in that sense. Interesting.

Final result

Was the pork belly crispy? Definitely! You couldn't hear yourself think when chewing it, and I have proof in the form of a video which I may or may not post later.

The pomme puree was super smooth, and because I added extra butter, had a great flavour. All in all, however, I'm much more of a chunky mash eater, so although I know that I could make some of my friends really happy serving them this puree, I myself probably won't make it this way soon again.

As for the carrots, although I couldn't really mess up there, I do think I was a little overenthusiastic with the lemon juice. The carrots, although lovely, sweet and fresh, were a little on the sour side, thanks to this overdose of lemon juice. It did accompany the silky creamy puree and the fatty pork crackling perfectly, though!

If you do love pork, this dish is amazing. If, like me, you're not a big fan of the flavour of pork, I would give this dish a miss. Over all, for a cold and snowy day, such as the one we had yesterday (and today), why not prepare such a wintery meal?

Next time

Next time I will prepare an Andy Allen dish a little later than the weekend, because, as it goes, those days are already planned full. Instead I'm going to go for the Mid-Week Beef Curry (p. 51) on Tuesday or Wednesday. Perhaps it is a little easier than some of the other dishes, but I find that with limited time, one needs to make such choices.

You already know what I will prepare the week after that, and if the recipe is really simple, I will also attempt one of Kylie Millar's desserts. Which one, I don't know yet.

Stay tuned and see you at our next elemental meal!