Our Devon Breed beef is noted for its flavour and tenderness and through the hot months it’s best served warm with salad like accompaniments rather than gravy and root vegetables. There’s little necessity to do much to the meat other than to brush it with olive oil and season it before roasting. I use a Weber barbecue and find that it will cook my beef roast joint perfectly. Infact, if the vents on it are set just right it can also lightly smoke the meat too. Not that good with beef but great with chicken joints and some fish.

However you cook the meat, on barbecue or in oven, allow resting time of 10-15 minutes before carving. With this warm salad it follows that the beef be warm too. Left over meat can be saved for sandwiches for which you might also like to save some of the crème fraiche /wasabi /watercress paste

Ingredients - serves 4-6

1.2kg beef roasting joint
olive oil
salt, pepper

for the warm salad:
250g shelled broad beans
600g small new potatoes, halved
2 bunches of watercress
wasabi paste, to taste
1 small carton crème fraiche

Method

Wasabi is a Japanese condiment served beside raw fish sushi and sashimi. Made from a root-like rhizome, it has a distinct fresh green colour and a very powerful heat - not unlike a strong horseradish - in fact it is often now made from horseradish and mustard to which colouring is added. Why? Because wasabi plant isn’t so easily grown and the wasabi paste is in high demand.

Rest assured that the wasabi you buy will be hot and mixing it to your own taste with creme fraiche is a pleasant way to introduce yourself to the stuff - begin a teaspoon at a time and stir in to the crème fraiche in a small mixing bowl. Finely chop half a bunch of watercress and add it to the wasabi/crème fraiche mixture to make a thick green sauce for the salad. Chill.

Brush the beef with olive oil and season with salt and pepper then roast or barbecue to your preferred point of cooking (no further than medium to medium-rare please!) Leave to rest. Bring salted water to the boil and add the cleaned new potatoes, cook for 10 minutes and test, add the beans to the same pan for the final 5 minutes of boiling time. Drain and allow to cool a little.

Divide the watercress between 4 plates, spoon wasabi cream over the watercress, top with mixed potatoes and broad beans and lastly thin slices of warm beef.