Roast revival

Warning: If you are vegetarian look away now. This post is all about meat!
Brazilian food diet is mainly meat based, so it’s not uncommon to find beef in our plate more than once a day.  I was invited to a demo class, meat cooking and tasting at L’Atelier des Chefs  by EBLEX.
EBLEX is the organisation for beef and lamb levy payers in England. They exist to enhance the profitability and sustainability of the English
beef and lamb sector. Their aims are to help the beef and sheep meat supply chain become more efficient; to add value to the beef and sheep meat industry. EBLEX backs up fully assured beef and lamb products from farm to retailer through quality standard schemes, giving  retailers high levels of guarantee about the meat they buy. The additional requirements of the Quality Standard are designed to diminish the impact of animal age oneating quality – giving retailers and, ultimately, the consumer with
improved and more consistent product.

The whole supply chain (farm, abattoir, wholesaler, butcher, retailer) need to be signed up to the scheme in order to utilise the Quality Standard Mark. The Quality Standard Mark was launched as a means of informing consumers which beef and lamb products met EBLEX’s strict standards regarding the farming and supply chains of meat products.
The mark also acts as indicator of origin, with animals born, raised and slaughtered in England carrying the St George’s flag, while Scottish and Welsh meat bears the Union
flag.

The event took place back in September. I have been to EBLEX events before and I really enjoy them.  Read all about here: lamb butchery and here: meat butchery. At This event we were introduced to different mini joints, rubs, marinates and pastes to jazz-up the mid-week and Sunday roast dinner too. The roast was once the most important dish on a Sunday dinner table and now unfortunately it has falling out of fashion. The mini joints are perfect for 2-3 people and quick to prepare, it takes about 30 minutes in the oven and while it’s resting you have time to finish off the side dishes.

The mini joints are very good value for money
This event was attended by food bloggers and journalists. I teamed up with fellow food blogger May and we created our own special Jerky-inspired rub for our preferred joint the topside joint. Our joint won the best joint of the evening – it had a Brazilian-Asian-Mexican-Caribbean kick!
Our award winning paste recipe enough for one mini joint:
 6 cloves of garlic, minced
60ml rapeseed oil
1 & 1/2 tbsp Jamaica style jerk blend
1tbsp of dry thyme
a handful of chopped parsley
juice of 1 lime
one squirt of sundried tomato paste
1 tbsp of Smokey Chipote rub
a thumb of freshly grated ginger
1/2 of finely de-seeded chopped Scotch bonnet
100ml of red wine
Maldon Salt to taste
Rub onto the joint and roast it
 While the joints were cooking in the oven, our host, food adviser for EBLEX,  Denise Spencer-Walker showed us how to carve a leg of lamb
Here is our award winning roast joint:
Thanks to EBLEX, Denise Spencer-Walker and Good Relations for organising this lovely meaty evening.
I was a guest at this event. All opinions are my own and I love meat.

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1 Comment

  1. Fresh Foodie
    October 20, 2013 / 4:44 pm

    Great that you promote meat with high quality standards. I hope the initiative is not mostly about profitability but about sustainability.

    I decided to cut back on meat and rather enjoy it as a treat, therefore I buy only the best aged or fresh meat I can get.
    We mostly buy on farmers markets and from artisan food producers that really know the origin of their ingredients, vouch for them and enjoy the traditional crafts.

    The recipe souds great and the pictures are truly mouthwatering.