In our house, Sunday would not be Sunday without a roast for lunch. My wife’s favourite is roast beef with all the roasted potatoes, parsnips, sweet potato, onions and Yorkshire puddings. Add Chantenay carrots and buttered greens with black pepper and garlic with a glass of Merlot and you have heaven on a plate.
When you reach a certain age you find yourself using cookbooks more and more and your memory less and less. This last Sunday I realised that Grandads Cookbook did not have my favourite recipe for roast beef so here is the one I use regularly from Jamie Oliver.
👨🍳 Recipe Tips
This recipe cooks the beef quickly on a high setting and for best results I have a couple of tips.
Firstly allow the joint to come fully to room temperature. Jamie advises 30 minutes but I allow up to 3 hours in a cool place.
Secondly, preheat the oven to 240℃ and turn it down to cooking temperature when putting the joint into the oven.
Sunday Roast Beef
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg topside of beef
- 2 medium onions
- 2 carrots
- 2 sticks celery
- 1 bulb of garlic
- 1 bunch of mixed fresh herbs such as thyme, rosemary, bay, sage
- olive oil
Instructions
- Remove the beef from the fridge 3 hours before you want to cook it, to let it come up to room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 240°C/475°F/ gas 9.
- Wash and roughly chop the vegetables – there’s no need to peel them. Break the garlic bulb into cloves, leaving them unpeeled.
- Pile all the veg, garlic and herbs into the middle of a large roasting tray and drizzle with oil.
- Drizzle the beef with oil and season well with sea salt and black pepper, then rub all over the meat. Place the beef on top of the vegetables.
- Place the tray in the oven, then turn the heat down immediately to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 and cook for 1 hour for medium beef. If you prefer it medium-rare, take it out 5 to 10 minutes earlier. For well done, leave it in for another 10 to 15 minutes.
- If you’re doing roast potatoes and veggies, this is the time to crack on with them – get them into the oven for the last 45 minutes of cooking.
- Baste the beef halfway through cooking and if the veg look dry, add a splash of water to the tray to stop them from burning.
- When the beef is cooked to your liking, take the tray out of the oven and transfer the beef to a board to rest for 15 minutes or so. Cover it with a layer of tin foil and a tea towel and leave aside while you make your gravy, horseradish sauce and Yorkshire puddings.
You may also like one of my other recipes …
