Greek-Inspired Olive Crusted Roast Beef with Potatoes and Homemade Tzakiki

Tzakiki dip made from homemade yogurt (top) with olive-crusted roast beef (bottom)

This year Easter came twice. One weekend after the Anglo Easter weekend, it’s now the Greek’s turn to celebrate Orthodox Easter.

Now, if I didn’t have my little accident and hadn’t hurt my ankle, we were supposed to be watching the madness of Orthodox Easter festivities in a small island in Chios, Greece. We would have seen this insane festival called Rouketopolemos. The festival goes between Easter eve until Easter day, this year it is held between April 15 - 16. It involves the congregation of two (traditionally) neighbouring rival churches of St Mark’s and Panaghia Ereithiani, shooting makeshift firecrackers made out of wooden sticks stuck to a whole heap of gun powder. Hence the term “Rocket War”! The goal of the game is to hit the bell tower of the rival church using these rockets. Coming from Australia, where the sale of firecrackers are strictly prohibited in most states, the idea of Rouketopolemos is totally amusing!

Rouketopolemos: a "rocket war" to celebrate Easter in Chios, Greece [Photo from www.visitgreece.gr]

Unfortunately, my little injury has prevented this whole trip from even happening. Anyway… shoulda, coulda, woulda… But in the spirit of celebrating Orthodox Easter, I cooked a little Greek-inspired feast of roast beef and potatoes. I served it with a tasty tzakiki, with the recipe and homemade yogurt courtesy of my super talented engineer-slash-chef friend Diego, who swears by the versatility of this dip for breakfast, lunch or dinner (and rightly so!). Danke, Diego!

Greek-Inspired Olive Crusted Roast Beef with Potatoes and Homemade Tzakiki 

Serves 4 hungry people

Ingredients

The beef

1 kg of beef rump

¼ cup olive oil

1 clove of garlic, crushed

3 cloves of garlic, chopped into quarters

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried thyme

Plenty of salt and pepper to taste

1 cup of marinated olives, chopped finely

The potatoes

4 large potatoes.

¼ cup olive oil

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Plenty of salt and pepper to taste

Juice of half a lemon

Tzakiki

2 cups of natural yogurt

¼ cup of olive oil

1 clove of garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons of vinegar

1 teaspoon rosemary

1 teaspoon oregano

Juice of half a lemon

1 large cucumber

Method

Prepare the beef marinade. Combine olive oil, crushed garlic, rosemary, oregano, thyme, salt and pepper together. Place the meat on a roasting tray. Using a sharp knife stab the meat to create small incisions in a few places. Insert the quartered garlic cloves into the incisions, burying it into the meat. Pour the marinade over the meat, rubbing thoroughly. Press firmly the chopped olives onto the top and the bottom of the meat, to create the 'crust'. Leave to marinade for a 6 hours or overnight. If you’re short of time just complete this first and leave the meat to marinade in the fridge while preparing the other dishes.

Prepare the potatoes. Peel and cut the potatoes into quarters. Combine the olive oile, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper and lemon juice together. Pour the marinade over the cut potatoes and mix well.

To make the tzakiki, first peel and deseed the cucumber. Grate the cucumber finely into a bowl using a cheese grater. Strain the grated cucumber well to get most of the water out. Mix together the grated cucumber with the other ingredients.

Preheat oven to 230 degrees C. Place potatoes into the roasting tray with the meat. Roast for 20 minutes. Turn the heat down to 180 degrees C. For a medium-rare roast, continue roasting for another 45 minutes, remembering to baste every 10 minutes or so. 


[Meat origin: Switzerland]