This is a piquant sauce, made from carrots, parsnips and celery root. Original recipe from this link. All of the recipes on-line indicate that if you are cooking with beef, to begin this recipe a couple of days in advance so that the beef has time to tenderize in the marinade. I did this batch with turkey scallopini, so I marinated for a few hours. Also, for poultry, I would strongly suggest that you allow the marinade to cool to at least room temperature before you immerse the poultry in it. Also, the original recipe called for a roux to thicken the sauce, I omitted this as I felt the sauce was thick enough with the cooked vegetables.
Ingredients:
- 1 trimmed whole beef tenderloin, 5-6 lbs (my mom used to make this with eye of round — tenderloin is way too expensive, plus, it has 2-3 days to marinate, and soften up).
- 1/4 cup pancetta, cut in to little strips
- 1 cup grated celery root
- 1 cup grated parsnips
- 1 cup grated carrots
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
- 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
- grated rind of 1/2 lemon
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 cup minced sweet onion
- 1 tablespoon sugar (I did add this but strongly recommend not to, it was too sweet; the carrots make this sauce sweet enough)
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt
Directions:
- Start this recipe 2 or 3 days before you plan to serve it.
- Combine 1 1/2 cups water and the vinegars in a dutch oven (not aluminum), add the vegetables and bring to a boil. This step is simply to blend the flavours, not cook the vegetables. If making this dish with poultry, allow this mix to cool completely before the next step. I also transferred this mix into a glass container with a lid, large enough to hold the liquid and the meat.
- Add the beef, grated lemon rind and bay leaves so that the mixture covers the meat. Marinate for 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator.
- When you are ready to cook, pre-heat the oven at 350°F.
- In a large dutch oven (large enough to hold the vegetables and the meat) over heat wilt the onion in 1 teaspoon EVOO; do not allow the onions brown.
- Remove beef from marinade and place it on top of onions. Cook meat for 2 or 3 minutes on each side.
- Pour marinade over meat and place into pre-heated oven, covered until meat is almost cooked, for 2 hours.
- Remove the meat and cut into 1/2 inch thick slices, set aside.
- Remove bay leaves and discard. Using an immersion blender, blend vegetables until very smooth (you may wish to press this through a fine sieve to get the creamiest texture, as I did).
- I omitted this step: Brown the sugar in a small frying pan until caramelized. Add 3 tablespoons cold water and cook for a few minutes till sugar melts. Whip in the mustard. Pour the caramel and mustard into the puréed sauce.
- Instead, I whipped the mustard into the smooth sauce. Return the sauce to the dutch oven.
- Add sliced meat; keeping the slices whole. Cook at a slow simmer for another 10 to 15 minutes to allow sauce to permeate the meat (this can be done on the stove).
- Just before serving, combine the lemon juice and sour cream and whisk into the sauce. Serve with bread dumplings.