Roast beef dinner
When I think of a typical English meal, roast beef is the first one that comes to mind. This is a slow cook recipe, so you can use cheaper cuts of meat, but I recommend a good topside, or rib (properly butchered) with a lot of marbling. It is traditionally served with potatoes and vegetables, along with yorkshire pudding and gravy. Nowadays a lot of people prefer their roast beef medium rare (pink in the middle).

Ingredients

  • 3 to 3 1/2 lb joint of boneless rump
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • 8 cloves of garlic (optional)

Method

  1. Remove the joint from the fridge 1 hour before cooking (it should be at room temperature).
  2. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
  3. Place the joint in a drip pan.
  4. With a sharp knife make 8 small incisions around the meat. Place a clove of garlic into each incision.
  5. Rub the olive oil, salt and pepper all over the meat.
  6. Put the joint into the oven fatty side up, so that as the fat melts it will bathe the entire joint in its juices.
  7. Brown the joint at 375°F for half an hour. Turn the heat down to 225°F.
  8. Roast it for a further 2 to 3 hours. When the joint starts to drip its juices and it is brown on the outside, check the temperature with a meat thermometer.
  9. Remove from the oven when the inside temperature of the joint is 135° to 140°F.
  10. Let the joint rest for about 15 minutes, covered in aluminum foil to keep it warm, before carving.

Definitions

To brown: To cook food until it has a brown-coloured appearance, this is usually achieved by grilling, frying or baking.

Marbling: Marbled meat is meat (especially red meat) that contains various amounts of intramuscular fat, giving it a marbled pattern.

To roast: To cook in the oven, usually with the addition of fat or oil.