Baked meat

How to prepare roast meat.

Although there is still a bit to go for the weekend, ideas for dinners and end-of-year meals are already bubbling in my head.

I start to think about these dates a lot of recipes so that I do not catch the bull and go testing, you have to be prepared!

Every year I try to make a special meat recipe to surprise my family at Christmas , especially with dessert to get my sister to lick her fingers.

Today’s recipe is an example of “that special touch.” It is not just a simple round of roast beef, for me it is, from now on, “the recipe” for round .

For my taste this is a meat that usually remains a little dry in its preparation. As in the roast of pork, it needs the help of a mash and a vegetable sauce that normally accompanies it to make it juicier.

But with this recipe, the meat is neither dry nor has sauce, the preparation is quite different from the traditional way and the result is luxurious .

It is about cooking the meat initially at a high temperature, for a short time so that it forms a “protective” outer crust. Leave it for a long time to let it cook at low temperature keeping its own juices.

You will be left with a tender interior and a crispy outer crust. I hope you like it and prepare it at home.

Preparation of potato and thyme Rösti

1. An hour before serving the roast we begin to prepare the rösti.
2. Peel the potatoes and onions. We grate them chubby with a grater. In a bowl, mix the potatoes, onion, salt and thyme.
3. We put a wide frying pan on the fire with half the butter and we make the rösti by portions.
4. We put a ring inside the pan, like the ones used to assemble the dishes.
5. We fill it with the mixture to a thickness of 2 cm. Crush and smooth with a spoon and remove the ring.
6. We put a pinch of butter on top of each serving. We will do like this with all the mixture until completing the rations.
7. Cook the rösti over medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes and carefully turn them over.
8. We put another pinch of butter on top of each of the portions and let cook another 15-20 minutes. We serve very hot.

Preparation of the cream of peppers

1. While we make the rösti we are preparing the cream. Peel the onion and cut it into a thin julienne.
2. We wash the pepper and cut it into small pieces. Peel the tomatoes and crush them. We reserve.
3. In a saucepan, heat extra virgin olive oil. We fry the onion and the pepper until they are poached.
4. Add the crushed tomato and cook for 30 minutes.
5. We salt and with a mixer we crush the cream and reserve.

Roast beef preparation and presentation

1. In a mortar we pour the chopped garlic cloves, the salt, the thyme, the black pepper and the olive oil.
2. Crush the mixture slightly. Spread the round with the paste that we just made.
3. We place it on the tray that we use for baking. Let the meat rest with the dressing for about 30 minutes and put in the oven.
4. We preheat the oven to 200º C about 10 minutes before introducing the meat.
5. It is important that we place the piece of meat with the fat part facing up. Both for the round and for any other type of meat that we are going to roast in the oven.
6. If what we want is to roast a piece of meat with bone, such as a shoulder of pork, the bone must be exposed upwards.
7. What is special about this recipe, apart from its dressing, is the way of baking. We will put it at 230º C, for 7.5 minutes for every 500 grams of meat. In this case the round weighs 1256 g so we bake it for 19 minutes.
8. At the end of this time we turn off the oven and  without ever opening the door  we let it continue to do with the residual heat for 2 hours.
9. When removing it from the oven we cover it with aluminum foil for 10 minutes and it will be ready to serve. You will be left with a hard scab on the outside and super soft on the inside.
10. It is not necessary that you add any type of liquid for the baking, trust the recipe, it is not necessary.
11. We slice the roast and serve on each plate a portion of roast, 1 or 2 rösti and the cream of peppers.

It is simply delicious, you will see, it is perfect for a holiday or special day.

You can prepare it a few days before, so as not to overwhelm us with the kitchen. I recommend that you try it and you will tell me.

You can see in this step by step how to prepare this  roast beef recipe. Follow the photos and I assure you that the recipe will be easier.

Ideas to accompany your baked meat

• To accompany the meat I have decided on a  “rösti” , a classic Swiss recipe that has the potato as a base. Originally the rösti was part of the usual breakfast for farmers in the area of ​​the Swiss cantons of Zurich and Bern.
• Today it is served as an accompaniment to meat and fish dishes throughout the country.  Potato toasts are a very popular dish in Europe, even Jewish cuisine has the typical Hanukkah latkes .
• In Switzerland there are two ways to make this dish, with its little controversy included. On the one hand using the raw potatoes and directly to the pan. Or with the potatoes previously cooked with which, in addition to a frying pan, we need a touch of oven.
• The times in both cases are different, but the result is practically the same, a very creamy crisp exterior inside.
• Although the potato is the main ingredient of this dish, additional ingredients such as cheese, onion, aromatic herbs, apples are usually included in its preparation … There they are cooked with butter, but they can also be prepared with extra virgin olive oil, although the flavor varies .