Beet Root Cured Beef Carpaccio

This was inspired by my friend James' awesome dish that he does with salmon. I just applied a similar beet root cure to a piece of beef fillet. I peeled five smallish beets and pureed them up in a food processor with a good splash of cabernet sauvignon vinegar, about 1/4 cup of lemon oil (regular extra virgin olive oil and the zest and juice of one lemon would probably work out fine as well), freshly grated black pepper, and a good couple pinches of salt. I put the puree into a bowl and, wearing gloves so my hands didn't turn pink from the beet root juice, rubbed the mixture into the piece of beef. I made sure it was completely coated in the puree and then covered the bowl with cling film and left it for 24 hours.



I was really pleased with the result. When I cut into the beef it had a beautiful dark purple stain around the outside and the flavor was really nice. I was slightly worried the beetroot would go bitter, or that the juice would stain too much to the center and I would lose the beef flavor altogether, but it was actually pretty perfectly balanced and the beet flavor was nice and sweet with a nice brightness from the vinegar.


I wiped as much of the puree off the beef as I could, covered it in cling film and rolled it tightly into a log. I put this into the freezer about two hours before I was going to serve it, this helped to keep it's round shape without freezing it to the core.

To serve: I sliced the beef very thinly on a meat slicer (another way would be to slice by hand and then pound the meat thinner between two pieces of cling film) and arranged them on the plate in a circle. I brushed the beef with a lemon oil made here in New Zealand by Stone Valley, seasoned with salt and pepper, sprinkled the top with finely diced shallot, chopped parsley stalks (I am a new fan of parsley stalks, as long as they are from newer growth, they are crunchy and sweet), fried capers, and finally topped the dish with some shaved (also New Zealand made) sheep's milk Pecorino. Not only did this look extremely cool, it tasted awesome. I will definitely do this dish again.