' MICRO ROASTS - SUNDAY BEEF .' part one

Micro Sunday Roast of Beef neck-strap , Red wine, onion & thyme gravy , Potato scallopini , Baby peas , Steamed baby broccoli and Roasted baby carrot & turnip.

                 This is the first edition of 'Micro Roasts', the roast beef and veggies. With this series I endeavour to present entremets ( or between course dishes ) of the humble roasts that bring the diners experience back to the dinner table on a sunday evening at home, hence keeping the preparations, ingredients and portioning micro size. This means sourcing and using ingredients of particular size and cut to accommodate the portion factors, keeping the entire dish to an entremet serving size.  

                  First of all to make this edition of 'micro roasts' I first preheated the oven to 220 deg.c. before rubbing a cut of beef back-strap with a little olive oil, salt, brown sugar and cracked black pepper. The meat was then placed into roasting pan and put into the oven to brown and caramelise on the outside, sealing the juices. The oven was then turn down to 160 deg.c. and the beef was place on a rack back into the pan with red wine, caramelised onions and sprigs of thyme in the bottom. The pan was then covered with foil and placed back into the oven for a further 10-15 minutes, before the beef was removed and wrapped in foil and set aside to rest the meat. The juices of the pan were strained and added to a saucepan with a little corn flour, whisking on a medium heat to form a gravy. Once the gravy was thick I added a small piece of bone marrow, turned the heat off and melted the marrow through the gravy to  give a velvety finish to the gravy.
                  Next with the oven turned off I washed and peeled baby carrot and turnip, coating in olive oil and salt I placed them in the oven and allowed them to roast with the residual heat from cooking the meat. Once these were tender and browned in appearence the veggies were removed from the oven and ready for plating. To make the scallopini I thinly sliced the end of an oblong new season potato to get the small rounds of potato, these were layered and topped with flaked Dutch Maasdam cheese before being grilled for 4-5 minutes until the potato was opaque and soft in texture with the cheese melted and just starting to colour. The scallopini was then set aside to plate. Hovering a tea stainer with the baby broccoli and peas inside over a pot of simmering water, I steamed the veggies until just nicely blanched and still vibrant in colour, these were salted and set ready to be plated.                                                                                                                    
                  To plate this micro roast I thinly shaved slices of the roast beef laying them on the plate and spooning some red wine,onion and thyme gravy on top, placing a small sprig of thyme on top to garnish. The potato scallopini was placed adjacent the meat and the roasted and steamed vegetables arranged on the plate to finish.