Contantinos Giannoulis from  World of Flavors sent a new recipe with a bit of chocolate (which we love).

Roast Beef with Chocolate-Orange sauce

Ingredients (for 4-6)

The roast beef

• 1 roast beef in the net (1kg)
• A handful mix of black and red peppercorns
• Salt
• ½ tsp mustard seeds or 1 tsp mustard powder
• 1 clove of garlic
• dried thyme
• 1 tomato
• 3 mid sized onions
• 1 fresh garlic
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Nob of butter

The chocolate sauce

• 150gr of dark grated chocolate (any quality you fancy should work, I think the darker the better)
• 1 orange
• Two knobs of butter

How – To

Remove the roast from the fridge 1½ hours before roasting.

Crush the peppercorns, the clove of garlic, the mustard seeds, the thyme and salt into a fine mix (not puree). Coat the roast very thoroughly and let it rest.

You could marinade a day in advance for a more enhanced flavor, in which case remove the roast from the fridge about 1 hour before roasting.

Place the roast in the middle of your oven tray, cut the onions, the fresh garlic in quarters, the tomato in half and place around the roast, add salt & pepper, dress with olive oil and put in a preheated oven at 180.

For rare, temperature in the center of the roast should bed be around 55 Celsius, around 60 minutes.
For medium, temperature in the center of the roast should be around 60 Celcius, around 70 minutes.
For well done, temperature in the center of the roast should be over 70 Celcius, around 85 minutes.

Don’t forget to turn the roast half way.

Remove the roast from the oven and coat it with a knob of butter and place on a medium hot pan to create a gold cover. Around 2 minutes each side. We are looking for a golden and kind of crispy outer texture. Remove the roast and let it rest on a cooling rack for 5 minutes, and then slice it as thick or as thin as you fancy. Don’t clean the pan!

While resting the roast we puree all the roasted vegetables, and the juice from the tray with a food processor, adjusting with a little olive oil and salt for thickness and flavor. If you prefer it chunkier you can just mash everything with a fork.

Time to prepare the chocolate sauce!
Use the same unclean pan where the roast was crisped and put it on medium low heat, add the orange juice scraping all that’s stuck in the bottom of the pan from the roast, that’s nothing but flavor! Add a knob of butter, the orange zest and finally chocolate. Be fast! Once you have a shiny chocolate creamy texture you are there!

Now you can either mix the vegetable puree with the chocolate sauce or serve it separately as in the picture above.

Serve the slices of meat over a bed of salad, which is recommenced to be a bit acidic (use a dressing rich in lemon or vinegar). We prepared a cabbage & carrot salad with a mix of olive oil, red wine vinegar and lemon juice.

Enjoy!