The first snow fell and the world starts looking like a winter wonderland again. We really enjoy this time of the year. Everything look so beautiful, well, at least as long as there is snow, and one can observe the first preparations for christmas. We already visited one christmas market and enjoyed hot glühwein with our friends. But with temperatures dropping it’s not always that we want to spend much time outside, especially in the dark. Some evenings we take our scrabble out and enjoy our evening while the dinner is slowly cooking in the oven.

As we are still looking for ideas of what to serve at the festive dinner, my couch table and pretty much all other surface avaible in the living room and the kitchen are plastered with cookbooks, magazines, notes and more notes. Since it’s better to be prepared, especially when the whole family is getting together and they are the hardest critics, we are already trying out few recipes. One of those is this beef with baked apple crust. First I thought this is an interesting combination. But surprisingly it tasted really good. Everything matched, juicy beef roast and a little sour taste of the apples. We did it over the weekend, and to be honest I think I already found a winner!

Serves 4-6

Preparation time: 20min                                                   Baking time: 40min

FOR THE BAKED APPLES AND APPLE CRUST

6 small sour apples

½ bunch fresh parsley

2 onions

120g bacon

4 tbsp butter

1 tsp dried marjoram

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 egg

100g ground almonds

FOR THE MEAT AND THE SAUCE

ca 700g-1kg beef tenderloin

salt and pepper

2 tsp mustard

2 tbsp cold butter

200ml veal stock or beef stock

Chop the parsley and set aside. Peel the onion and cut in small cubes. Cut the bacon in cubes. Heat 2 tbsp of butter, add the cut bacon and sear until golden yellow. Add the onion and marjoram and cook for 5 min on high heat. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Wash the apples and set 2 aside. Remove the core from the remaining 4, but try keep them whole and in one piece.

Peel the 2 apples, remove the core and cut in small cubes. Combine them with lemon juice, bacon, egg, parsley and ground almonds.

Fill the 4 whole apples with the prepared mix and place them on a baking tray or a roaster. Spread a little bit of butter on those apples and on the roaster and shove it in the oven for 15min.

In the meantime wash the meat and pat it dry. Season with salt and pepper. Heat 2 tbsp of butter and sear the beef in it all around. Take it out and take out the roaster from the oven. Place the meat among the apples and distribute the remaining apple-bacon-mix on top of the meat. Put it back in the oven until the meat reached core temperature of 70ºC (ca 40min).

For the sauce, use the remaining fat from the pan where you have seared the meat and from the roaster. Pour to a smaller pot and heat up. Add the stock and mix. In batches, stir in ca 1tbsp butter and 2 tsp of mustard. Bring to the boil, then set aside. If the sauce is too liquid to your liking, mix 1 tsp of flour with a little bit of water and a tbsp of sauce in a small cup, then stir it in in the sauce stirring all the time until thicker. Bring to the boil and set aside.

Serve with potatoes and red cabbage.