Week 31: Beef Thick Flank (DK: Okse Cuvette)

I can never figure out how to cook a roast properly, so I'm going to add those recipes here as well, so I can work on improving the results. Apologies for weird wordings - this was harder to translate than most recipes.

The Recipe
~750g thick flank
Thyme, salt, pepper
5 cloves of garlic
1/2 onion

Preheat the oven to 250C.

Trim the roast and cut the fatty layer on top in a diamond pattern. Place the roast with the fatty side downwards and rub with salt, pepper and thyme. Put the roast into an oven proof dish with the fatty side up and rub with salt pepper and thyme again. Cut the garlic into halves and the onion into larger chunks and place around the roast. Add a bit of water - just enough to cover the bottom of the dish.

Cook for 15 minutes, then turn down the heat to 160C and cook for another 30 minutes or until it has a core temperature of ~56C. Remove the roast from the oven proof dish and place it on a cutting board. Cover loosely with some foil and let it rest for 15 minutes before carving.

The Verdict
The roast was at 56C after 25 minutes and had gone up to 59C by the half-hour mark. It was still pink when cutting, but very quickly turned grey before we had time to eat it. It wasn't a dry grey though, and still had good taste, so I think I'll consider this a success :-) Next time I'll probably adhere more to the 56C than the 30 minutes though.

Week 30: Beef Meatballs with tomato-salad and mushrooms

The Recipe
400g minced beef
a handful of fresh basil leaves
65gr almonds
32g pine nuts

Salad
200g plum or cherry tomatoes
1/4 onion (or one small)
100g feta cheese
1 avocado
12 olives
1-2tsp olive oil

Mushrooms
250g white mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
a bit of butter

Meatballs: Chop the basil leaves, the almonds and the pine nuts coarsely. Mix thoroughly with the beef. Form to small meatballs (makes about 20) and cook in butter for about 3-5 minutes on each side.

Salad: Cut the tomatoes and olives into halves, chop the onion, cut the avocado into bite-sized pieces. Mix everything together and drizzle with a bit of olive oil.

Mushrooms: Rinse the mushrooms and cut them into quarters. chop the garlic. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat and cook the garlic for a few minutes - just until it turns fragrant. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently, until they're brown in colour and have given off most of their moisture.

The Verdict
I served this with garlic bread. The meat-balls were a tad dry, but I loved the taste the nuts gave them. Will have to try to experiment with making them more moist... perhaps it's as simple as just not cooking them for as long. Both the mushrooms and the salad were awesome and we could easily have eaten more! We had left-overs of the meatballs (6 of them), but nothing else.

Week 29: Bacon-Chicken with Salsa

The Recipe
(Serves two)
450gr chicken breast fillets cut into halves (~4 halves total)
8 slices of bacon
250gr fresh pasta of your choice.

Salsa
200gr tomatoes
1 bell pepper
1/4 onion (or one really small one)
2 cloves of garlic
1 chili, deseeded and de-cored.
A handful of fresh basil leaves
2tsp apple vinegar or apple cider vinegar
2tsp olive oil.

Cut the tomatoes in halves, remove the seeds and cut the rest into small pieces. Chop the bell pepper and onion into similar sized bits, chop the chili and garlic finely (make sure you get rid of all the seeds and center core of the chili, or it'll get too spicy!) and mix it all together. Chop the basil leaves and mix it with vinegar and oil. Pour over the tomato mixture and leave to marinate while cooking the chicken.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Wrap each piece with 2 slices of bacon.

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package. Drain and drizzle with olive oil.

Cook at medium high heat for 10-15 minutes on each side or until done (depends a lot on the thickness of the chicken).

The Verdict
Really, really good! I'd been afraid the chili would make the salsa too spicy for DH, but that wasn't the case at all. The flavours had melded nicely during the time it took to cook the chicken. Chicken and bacon is always good, and the salsa served nicely as coating for the pasta. Definitely something I'd make again!