Beef sirloin with Hasselback potatoes and red wine sauce

I think meat is something very exclusive. Not because it’s more expansive than e.g. vegetables, but because of how meat today can be handled. I try to minimise how often I eat meat, and when I buy it, I try to find meat which is coming from sustainable sources. I buy meat where I know how the meat is produced and how the animal is raised.

This meal is typical Scandinavian. The potato name “Hasselback” has different stories where the name is coming from. The one I believe in is the one saying the name is coming from a chef creating those potatoes at the restaurant Hasselbacken in Stockholm in the mid twentieth century…

Ingredients (4 pers): 

• 1.7 lb Beef Tender Loin
• 1 garlic
• butter
• salt and pepper
• 1 pack haricots verts

Hasselback potatoes

• 8 potatoes  
• 2 tbs natural oil (e.g. rapeseed oil)
• salt
• pepper
• 0.2 lb butter
• 2 tbs bread crumbs 
• 2 tbs parmesan cheese 

Red wine sauce

• 1 red onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tbs butter
• 1 1/4 cups red wine
• fresh herbs e.g. rosemary or thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbs concentrated veal bullion
• 1 cup water, + 2 tbs
• 2 tbs balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbs corn starch
• black pepper

Meat

Let the beef rest in rooms temperature for one hour before you start to prepare it. Pre heat the oven to 250ºF. Get some natural oil on the meat so the salt and pepper bind better on the meat. Sprinkle salt and pepper around the meat. Put the meat in to a hot fry pan with butter. Let it rest in one position until it gets color before you move it around. Make sure it gets a golden color around the whole meat. Baste the butter with a spoon over the meat. The temperature in the pan should be so the butter bubbles but not get burned. Half the garlic (with coat) and put the two pieces in the pan. Continue to baste the butter until the meat has a golden color around the whole piece.

Now place the meat and the garlic in an ovenware and let the meat get ready in the oven. To get it medium/medium raw, you meat should have a temperature of 140-150ºF. I always use a thermometer. When the meat is ready, let it rest outside the oven before you start to cut it (to avoid a lot of meat juice runs out.

Hasselback potatoes

Peel the potatoes. Cut them in thin slices, but not the whole way through. Use a second cutting board on top of the cutting board where you have your potatoes. Let the knife go through the potatoes until it gets to the first cutting board. That’s a trick to make sure you not cut the whole way through. Put the potatoes on a ovan pan. Melt butter and brush it over all potatoes. Add salt, pepper and let them go in the oven on 410ºF for 30 minutes. Thereafter, brush each potatoes with more butter and sprinkle with bread crumbs and possibly parmesan cheese if you want. Let the potatoes stay in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Red wine sauce

Peel and cut the garlic, onion and carrot. Fry the vegetables in 1 tbs butter for about 2 minutes. Add the wine and let it boil until 2/3 of the wine is gone. Drain the sauce. Add the fresh herbs, bay leaf, 1 cup water, bullion and vinegar. Let it simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the herbs and the bay leaf. Add butter and stir it into the sauce.

Mix corn starch and 2 tbs water in a bowl. When it’s good blended, add it into the sauce and let it boil in. Add black pepper and the sauce it ready.

Last but not least, wash the haricot verts. Let them boil for a couple of minutes and then put them in really cold water to keep them crispy.

Now serve your fantastic beef sirloin with Hasselback potatoes, the red wine sauce and the crispy haricot verts.

Smaklig måltid!

This plate is from Royal Copenhagen.