My roast beef

Roast beef is my favourite Sunday roast, I like my meat medium, tender and juicy and achieve this by basting the meat several times though the cooking.  Whatsmore the cold cuts make fantastic sandwiches the next day, served on thick granary bread smothered in horseradish and rocket leaves!!

This dish is my way of doing roast beef, some people seal their meat before they roast it but I just cook the beef on high for 20 minutes first which has the same effect.

I like to roast my beef with onions in the pan which caramelise and help make the most delicious gravy afterwards.  You can also smother your beef in Dijon mustard before roasting, of English mustard but be careful as its hot!!

Finally this recipe can be used with any cut of beef, I prefer rib of beef however topside and silverside are also fantastic.  As usual I get all my beef from the Ramshaw’s at Northumbrian Quality Meats.  Ive been buying my beef there for years and it won Gary Rhodes local food hero a few years back, and rightly so! 

The absolute most important thing with this recipe is getting the best quality meat, beef from a supermarket, in my opinion will just not do, its void of flavour as it hasn’t been hung and its red and bloody from the steroids pumped into the animal to promote growth.  Get good beef – have a good roast! Its as simple as that.

Ingredients
Serves 4-6
1kg of beef (any cut) 1.5kg  if using rib of beef to compensate for the weight of the bones.
Salt and pepper
1 large white onion
For the gravy:
Aprox 250mls of red wine
250mls of beef stock
Salt and pepper
Cornflour (optional)

mustard or horseraddish (any kind) this is just optional for flavour

Method
Pre heat the oven to its highest setting.
Get your beef out of the fridge and bring it to room temperature, which relaxes the meat.
Season the joint liberally with salt and pepper on all sides. Drizzle the joint with a little oil.
Get a roasting tin which is large enough to take the meat and put a little oil in the bottom.
Put the joint of beef in the tin.
Roughly chop an onion and put that in tin, scattering it around the beef.
Put the beef in the pre heated oven and roast for 15 minutes.
Turn the heat down to gas mark 5 (190) and roast the beef as follows:
20 minutes per pound (450g) for medium meat, 30 minutes/lb for well done meat. (do not include the first 15 minutes in this timing, you need to cook it for 15 minutes PLUS extra minutes per lb)
Baste the beef throughout the cooking, you do this by removing the tray from the oven and spooning the juices in the bottom of the pan back over the joint.
Once your cooking is completed remove the beef from the oven, let the juices drip from the beef into the baking tin and put the beef somewhere to rest for at least 30 minutes.
It is very important to rest the meat to ensure the muscle relaxes after beaing roasted in the oven.

Now lets make the gravy.
Put the roasting tin directly on the heat of the hob.
With a wooden spoon give the tin a good stir and scrape up and bits from the bottom of the tray which are full of flavour.
When the juices begin to sizzle and reduce add 1 glass of red wine, keeping the heat high.
Once the wine has reduced by half its volume add the beef stock and reduce again until a desired consistency for your gravy  is reached. 
If you like your gravy a little thicker add some cornflour and whisk in briskly.  If you like it a little thinner add more stock.
Season the gravy and pass it through a sieve to remove the onions and any other bits.
Keep warm until needed.  At this stage you can add a spoonful of horseradish, mustard or red currant jelly, whatever you like!
Before you carve the meat pour any juices from the resting plate in the gravy to enhance the flavour.