Air Dried Beef - Chef Recipe by Zoe Birch

Ingredients

4 medium beetroots
A chunk of air-dried beef (bresaola)
2 tsp verjuice
A mixture of garden herbs
Salt and pepper for seasoning

Linseed and Sesame Crisps:

100g linseed
100g sesame seeds
40g potato starch
700g water
Salt to taste

Method

Beetroot Puree:

Take 3 of your 4 beetroots, wrap in foil and bake in a moderate oven 180 C until soft, this will take around 1.5 hours.

Once cooled chop two of the cooked beetroots in to small pieces and blend in a blender till smooth with addition of verjuice and salt and pepper to taste (not too much as to take away from the natural beetroot flavour).

Set aside at room temperature till needed. With the remaining cooked beetroot cut into batons, whatever size you want really, as this is merely for texture and presentation so feel free to go crazy with artistic licence!

Beetroot Chips:

With the remaining beetroot, slice as finely as possible, a mandolin is best for this, a peeler can be substituted or if you have mad knife skills challenge yourself. You want the slices to be as thin as possible.

Give the beetroot a quick rinse under some running water, dry off on some paper towel. Season with salt and spread onto a small baking tray with grease proof paper. Bake in a 160 C oven until crisp but not brown, this will take around 10 minutes.

Linseed and Sesame Crisp:

Mix the dry ingredients and make sure there are no lumps of potato starch in among the seeds.

Pour boiling water over the seeds, whisking thoroughly. Leave to cool in the fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour, or until thickened.

Spread out onto an oiled sheet of baking paper, cover with another oiled sheet of paper and roll out with a rolling pin to the desired thickness (not too thin as they tend to break easily).

Remove the top sheet, transfer the dough on the bottom layer of paper onto a baking tray and bake at 170 C for about 10-15 minutes, or until dried and crisp to break. Leave to cool on paper.

To Serve:

Break off small pieces of the linseed cracker to your desired size, I aim for around 10cm but they don’t need to be precise, imperfection is perfection.

Spread room temperature beetroot puree on crisp, a liberal amount. Place some of the beetroot batons on the puree and a scattering of beetroot chips on top. Now a selection of garden herbs. This is up to you, I like small nasturtium leaves, upland cress, clover and red elk but whatever you have available will work, simply think of the flavour that will go with the beetroot.

All the above herbs give lovely peppery tones to the dish. Last with a micro-plane or fine grater grate the air-dried beef over the top of the crisp, I like a lot but again it is completely up to you. Enjoy!

Recipe provided by Greasy Zoes