Roast forerib of beef with beetroot and horseradish

Sunday - roast dinner day. Well it was in my childhood. Once I reached an age to decide for myself, I went years without a roast dinner. As a student I didn't have an oven for three years, and then doing a PhD I did have an oven but a temperamental one with an attitude problem, two spiral staircases below my attic room. I rediscovered roasts when I finished studying, finally, aged 26, and started work. There is something immensely comforting about a Sunday roast when work looms on a dark Monday.

Anyway Jamie's recipe for forerib of beef with beetroot and horseradish caught my eye. It is meant to serve eight, but I did some complicated and probably erroneous divisions, cut down the amount of everything and made it for two of us with enough for leftovers. Basically, it is a forerib of beef, rubbed with a mixture of lemon zest, rosemary, anchovies and oil, roasted with beetroots that have been boiled and then marinaded in thyme and marjoram, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. The horseradish cream is grated fresh horseradish with lemon juice, creme fraiche and marjoram or parsley. I went to locate our parsley in the garden and it had been colonized by the over-excitable mint, while the marjoram appeared to have been eaten by the fennel. So my herby creme fraiche-horseradish was herbfree! Anyway it tasted good.

The creme fraiche and horseradish mix:

The beef was delicious.

The beef was beautiful, the beets were amazingly flavoursome and I love the lemon juice in the horseradish cream sauce. It made me happy on a Sunday evening, even while my husband sneezed away with a monster cold in the background and I felt I was battling to ward it off. I hope all that fresh horseradish has scared away any lurking bugs...