Roast beef dinner is a traditional British Sunday meal. The day is made even more special now as we can enjoy it before settling in to watch Downton Abbey at its home in the 9:00 time slot on PBS.
handy Roasting Schedule
More of a Daisy than Mrs. Patmore? Cookipedia is an amazing website out of the UK which has provided a wonderful chart which takes all the guess work out of roasting meat. It will tell you when to start your roast (beef, chicken, pork, turkey, grouse, pheasant, lamb) based on weight, how you like your meat (rare to medium) and when you want to eat. What a life saver!
If you don’t have time to try the recipe below this link which give you a quick and easy steps to make a great roast.
Link to the lifesaving Meat Roasting Schedule
It really is a simple “one pan” meal, and yorkshire are not hard to make, honest. If you are planning a Titantic tribute party, this was served in first class.
Roast Beef Dinner
Inspiration for this version comes from the great Jamie Oliver, who favors using high heat, and the wonderful use of ginger.
Ingredients
- 1 good qualty roast (top sirloin roast, prime rib) 3 – 5 pounds*
- kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper
- olive oil
- 3 red onions, halved
- 2 heads garlic, plus
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled
- 3 lbs roasting potatoes, quartered
- 1 pounds root vegetables (carrots, parsnips), scrubbed and cut large pieves
- 3 fresh rosemary sprigs
- 2 inches piece gingerroot
- 2 cups red wine (or beef stock)
Method
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C, Gas Mark 8), and heat a large thick-bottomed roasting pan on the stovetop.
- Rub the roast generously with salt, then add a little olive oil to the tray and lightly color the meat for a couple of minutes on all sides.
- Lay the onions and bulbs of garlic in the tray with the beef on top of them, then cook in the pre-heated oven (about 1 1/2 hours depending on the size of the roast.
- After 30 minutes, take the tray out and toss in the vegetables and rosemary. Sprinkle olive oil over the top.
- Pick out the garlic bulbs, and carefully squeeze out the garlic, spreading all over the roast.
- Grate the ginger over everything in the tray.
- Put the roast back in the oven and roast to your taste. I use a digital thermometer, inserting a probe in the centre of the roast and set to my desired setting (135 for medium rare)I just wait for the alarm to sound.
- Rare: 120 – 125 degrees F
- Medium Rare: 130 – 135 degrees F
- Medium: 140 – 145 degrees F
- Medium Well: 150 – 155 degrees F
- Well Done: 160 degrees F and above
- Remove the vegetables to a serving dish to keep warm
- Place the beef on a plate, covered with foil, to rest, for half an hour. This lets the juices settle in.
Rich Beef Gravy
- Remove most of the fat from your roasting pan and reserve for the yorkshire puddings. and you should be left with caramelized onions and sticky beef goodness.
- Add 1 teaspoon of flour to the roasting pan and mash everything together.
- Heat the pan on the stovetop and when hot, add the red wine or beef stock
- Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes.
- Add any juice from the beef and feel free to add some water or stock to thin the gravy if you like or more flour if you need to thicken (to avoid lumpy gravy mix a little of the gravy with flour in a separate cup and then add back to the pan).
Serves 4 to 6 people, with leftovers for sandwiches the next day.
Yorkshire Pudding
Ingredients
- 6 tsp. vegetable oil or fat drippings from the roast.
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 cup milk
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1 tbsp. butter or margarine, melted.
Method
- Keep the oven at 450 degrees F (230 degrees C, Gas Mark 8),
- Prepare the pan(s)
-
- Traditional method: pour a light layer of vegetable oil in the bottom of a 9″ x 9″ square metal pan.
- Individual servings: 1 tsp of vegetable oil in the bottom of each cup of a 6 cup metal muffin tray.
- Put the tray into the oven to heat the oil while you mix the other ingredients.
- Blend the flour and salt.
- Gradually add the milk to ensure no lumps.
- Add the eggs and melted butter
- Beat the entire mixture for 2 minutes so it is light and fluffy. You can make the batter ahead of time and when ready to use, just give it another quick beating.
- Carefully take the heated pan from the oven and pour the batter over the oil.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
- Cut into slices if you have used one pan.
*cooking times will vary on the size of your roast, and even the heat of your oven so the use of a thermometer is helpful to give you a great final product.
Handy Conversion Table
If these measurements don’t make sense to you, refer to the Connections link in the top menu
What a fun blog! I will be checking back often for inspiration, now that I’m officially obsessed with the show.
It is fun, isn’t it. Stay tuned for Titanic recipes which Mrs. Patmore might also have served.
BTW…tell all your foodie friends to follow along!
This looks marvelous. Do you really think that they would have used olive oil and ginger in an Edwardian kitchen? I sort of hope so but wonder if that is a more contemporary thing.
The problem for me would be how to make the Yorkshire pudding with the drippings when I don’t have an Aga with a separate oven chamber for that.
Mrs. Beeton, the Victorian domestic goddess, used ginger in all sorts of dishes. Easy to grow from a cut piece, I just started to grow my own ginger like a proper English gardener. Posh folk like the Crawleys might have had access and a taste for olive oil, as well as stack of ovens. Your aga sounds lovely.