Roast beef and beetroot with horseradish sauce

My local butcher (The Crown Roast in Lingfield) always has good beef.  Sourced from local farms and properly hung, the beef is always tender and tasty.  The beetroot season is on us now and I thought the earthy sweetness of roasted beets would go well with the beef.  And to offset it all, the classic accompaniment of horseradish.

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to preparing horseradish.  Just peeling and chopping onions has me in floods of tears, so the idea of peeling and grating fresh horseradish root is difficult to countenance.  Instead, I'm afraid to say, I tend to use the stuff out of a jar.
I was going to mix the horseradish with creme fraiche, but when it came out of the fridge it was well beyond its use-by date so I improvised with a tub of Philadelphia cream cheese - it worked very well indeed!

I won't give the full recipe here, but suffice to say, I roasted the beef for 20 minutes a pound after seasoning it well.  This kept the meat quite rare, but the end slices were well-enough cooked for Spud.  The beetroots were par-boiled for about half an hour, then peeled, quartered and roasted with the potatoes.

The horseradish sauce was made with a few teaspoons of grated horseradish, about the same of double cream and a tablespoon or so of cream cheese.  Poured over the beef and the beetroot, it cut through quite nicely.  

Possibly the best thing about roast beef though is using the leftovers the next day.  Cut very thinly and layered with a little Maldon salt in brown bread with a smear more horseradish, it surely is the king of sandwiches...

tags: beef  

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