Roast Dinner Woes

Lonewolf

Lonewolf

Lonewolf

Soldato
Joined
23 Feb 2004
Posts
4,013
Location
Manchester
Require a little advice from you guys who regularly cook a roast dinner. I'm not a bad cook, in fact I cook most of the meals in our household, but this is frustrating me.

Whenever I use a trivet of veggies under my roast meat, the veg often burns. Today, I used celery, garlic, carrots and onions to sit a joint of beef upon and my fat of choice was Flora Cuisine, use it for all my cooking. Well, the veg soon started to burn even with a splash of water added to the roasting pan. By the time the bef had cooked, the veg was cremated and blackened.
How can I best avoid burning my veggie trivet?
 
If you're a one tin kinda guy then just cook the beef for a certain amount of time first, then add the veggies.

You could also add more onions as they will give off plenty of moisture to help prevent things burning. Think about the veggies too, the carrots might benefit from a bit of par-boiling first as the garlic, onions, celery will cook fairly quickly.

Finally, you might just be cooking at too high a temperature throughout - lower the oven temp and if you want dat crispiness then take out the meat/veg towards the end, whack the oven temp up then give it a blast before serving.
 
Last edited:
It's not as if the temp is that high...I set the oven to the temp the meat requires to cook in the recommended time e.g. cooked everything at 190/gas mark 5.
 
Take the veg out when they're cooked and transfer the beef to a new roasting tray.
 
I'm not a huge fan of the technique tbh. It may be a good time saving, or space saving idea, but it doesn't do either the protein or the sauce you will make from the veg justice. They both deserve the respect of being handled independently. Let's face it, how much flavour is going to be imparted to a roast that is perched atop a tray of veg? Not very much. If you want to impart the flavour of stock veg into a roll of beef, you're better of braising it.

Also, the veg in your sauce can be more easily controlled by caramlising it in a saucepan. The juices, and extracts of the roasting meat can be deglazed and added to the sauce after the roast. This way, you have control over everything, and while perhaps slightly less convenient, will give you a better finished product.

Personally, if you're going to go for a sunday roast (and especially at xmas), you should go the extra mile to make it special.
 
For me The trivet forms the base of the gravy so it doesn't matter if it's a bit burnt as all i'm going to do is mash it up an sieve off the liquid! If your trying to cook roast veggies to eat with the beef just put them in later in the cooking!
 
Now long you cooking the meat for?
190 is also high 180/gas mark 4 is a better temp.

When you mean burnt what do you mean and now small do you cut the veg. Got a pic, is it just dark, or actually burnt.

Also get rid of that silly gimic oil that isn't actually healthy and use olive oil or animal fats.
 
Glaucus said:
Also get rid of that silly gimic oil that isn't actually healthy and use olive oil or animal fats.
Click to expand...

Flora Cuisine;
Ingredients: Vegetable oils in varying proportions (75%) (rapeseed oil, linseed oil, sunflower seed oil), water, salt (0.9%), emulsifiers (SOY bean lecithin, polysorbate 60), preservative (potassium sorbate), SOY protein, citric acid, stabilisers (guar gum, xanthan gum), flavourings, colour (carotene), vitamins A and D.

Yum :p
 
a1ex2001 said:
For me The trivet forms the base of the gravy so it doesn't matter if it's a bit burnt as all i'm going to do is mash it up an sieve off the liquid! If your trying to cook roast veggies to eat with the beef just put them in later in the cooking!
Click to expand...

This^ Veggies in the roasting dish are really to add to the gravy flavour. A bit of caramelisation and burnt ends adds a lot of flavour to a gravy, just remove the really burnt bits.

For veg to serve with the meat, roast it separately.

My favourite posh way of roasting veg at the moment is as follows:

Baby carrots and baby parsnips (Or larger, chopped length ways), in a roasting dish with eschalon shallots, a few whole cloves of garlic, a couple of sprigs of rosemary.

Now a small bottle of truffle oil instead of the usual oil (M&S do a really good one for £4 a bottle). The shallots should separate into burnt onion petals, and the earthiness of the root vegetables with the truffle and garlic is immense. Best with a fillet steak, but would go well with turkey as well.
 
Glaucus said:
Now long you cooking the meat for?
190 is also high 180/gas mark 4 is a better temp.

When you mean burnt what do you mean and now small do you cut the veg. Got a pic, is it just dark, or actually burnt.

Also get rid of that silly gimic oil that isn't actually healthy and use olive oil or animal fats.
Click to expand...

I like my meat well done so the piece I roasted sat in the oven for over 2hrs, it was cooked perfectly. The veg? There was little left because it was so badly burned. Onions were more or less cut in 1/8's, carrots and the celery were about 1/2" thick.
No pic because it went straight into the bin
 
Lonewolf said:
I like my meat well done so the piece I roasted sat in the oven for over 2hrs, it was cooked perfectly. The veg? There was little left because it was so badly burned. Onions were more or less cut in 1/8's, carrots and the celery were about 1/2" thick.
No pic because it went straight into the bin ��
Click to expand...

Drop the temperature and cook for longer, used to do mine overnight when I was working in the trade.
 
if you are going to cook the veg that long at that temp you need to keep the veg covered by a stock otherwise what do you expect, would you roast your potatoes for two hours?

But the meat fat/juice should keep your trivet from burning, if it's directly sitting on it, but you obviously can't get much veg under your meat.

Trivet for gravy, separate tray for roasting veg.
 
There wasn't much fat and it pretty much dried up anyway. Added a splash of water, but again it didn't last too long.

Could I part cook the meat then sit it on trivet of veggies? How long for when raw?
 
And cut the veg larger, like onion in half
I assume you're only using the veg for gravy?

Not surprised it's burnt to a crisp, temp to high, cooked to long and cut to small.

And if you like meat well done, you are much better off choosing cheap cuts, that have more flavour, more fat and more connective tissue, then cooking them low and slow. And getting a much better meal out of it, than over cooking more expensive cuts.
 
Last edited:
Glaucus said:
And cut the veg larger, like onion in half
I assume you're only using the veg for gravy?

Not surprised it's burnt to a crisp, temp to high, cooked to long and cut to small.

And if you like meat well done, you are much better off choosing cheap cuts, that have more flavour, more fat and more connective tissue, then cooking them low and slow. And getting a much better meal out of it, than over cooking more expensive cuts.
Click to expand...

Feel like I'm being chastised, LoL

The cut was a topside..To be fair when removing the cooking instructions from the wrapper they were fairly useless having not peeled off correctly and not being able to read them. In the end I leant on the web for cooking times/temps. As said, the meat was perfect for my taste just not the veg. Will cook the veg separately as suggested. Thanks all for your input and guidance ;)
Hopefully the family will benefit :cool:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom