Caporegime
Hello all, today I made roast rib of beef for a very satisfying Sunday dinner.
Here's how it was done!
Meat, on the bone of course. Not the world's finest beef, but it did the job:
Other bits:
Less obvious bits in the above pic include chicken stock for the gravy in the blue tub, concentrated beef stock in the little plastic container, clarified butter for searing the outside of the joint, and a bouquet garni of 1-2-3 bay rosemary parsley. I didn't tie the bouquet or use muslin, as the gravy was being strained anyway. It's also easier to distribute the flavours when the herbs are loose, if the bouquet isn't going in liquid to start with.
Let the beef cool to room temperature for a couple of hours. Season well with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper (ideally sea salt flakes).
Creat a vegetable trivet from the onions, carrots, garlic, shallots, and herbs:
Add the butter to a heavy pan over a high heat, and sear the beef on all sides to create a nice flavoursome crust. Don't use normal butter as the milk solids will burn. If you don't have or don't want to make clarified butter, use a high smoke point oil, such as vegetable or ground nut. To a point, the higher the heat the better. You need an ultra hot pan to get the necessary crust.
Place the beef on the vegetable trivet and add the herbs. As the beef cooks, its juices will mix with the vegetables and create a nice gravy base at the bottom of the pan. Put the tin in a pre-heated 210 deg C oven. After 10-15 minutes, turn it down to 160 for the remaining cooking time.
Now for the roasties! Boil them for five minutes, then drain and toss them hard in the pan with the lid on to fluff the outsides. Then score the potatoes with a fork. This will help them absorb more fat and get the outsides crispy.
Leave to dry on the side. They need to be dry before we start to cook them or they'll spit like a mofo. Use towel if necessary, or just boil them the day before and put them in the fridge overnight (covered).
Almost registering rare, not long to go:
Back to the potatoes...two teaspoons of goose fat, one of clarified butter in the bottom of a hot roasting hit. Put it over a med-high heat:
Season the potatoes and get them in the hot tin. Sear the outsides and spoon the hot fat over them. Then into the oven at 200 degrees C.
Beef out of the oven. Get it resting in a warm place for at least half an hour.
Put 2 tablespoons of flour into the pan and stir the whole lot around to absorb the juices and cook off the flour:
Add a little bit of water if it's too dry, just to help the uptake of flavours.
Add 1/2 - 3/4 bottle of red wine. I used a £3.50 job from Tesco, many people are of the school of thought that just because you are cooking with it, this doesn't mean that the wine should be cheap. Make your choice, but my feeling is that the main flavour from the gravy comes from other sources.
Now add the chicken and beef stock and cook for another few minutes, before pushing all the goodness through a sieve to catch stuff you don't want to eat.
Now that the gravy's in a saucepan, check for seasoning and texture. I keep a blond-brown ('peanut butter') roux in the fridge / freezer at all times for flavouring and thickening sauces and gravies. A roux is basically a fat of some kind + flour. I use clarified butter with normal flour. This beats corn flour etc. as a thickener in every imaginable way! You can fill an ice tray with it and it will keep for months. Making a roux is another thread, but this is what mine looks like:
Carved; it was pinker than it looks your honour!
Served:
Let us now kneel before the mighty cow
.
Here's how it was done!
Meat, on the bone of course. Not the world's finest beef, but it did the job:
Other bits:
Less obvious bits in the above pic include chicken stock for the gravy in the blue tub, concentrated beef stock in the little plastic container, clarified butter for searing the outside of the joint, and a bouquet garni of 1-2-3 bay rosemary parsley. I didn't tie the bouquet or use muslin, as the gravy was being strained anyway. It's also easier to distribute the flavours when the herbs are loose, if the bouquet isn't going in liquid to start with.
Let the beef cool to room temperature for a couple of hours. Season well with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper (ideally sea salt flakes).
Creat a vegetable trivet from the onions, carrots, garlic, shallots, and herbs:
Add the butter to a heavy pan over a high heat, and sear the beef on all sides to create a nice flavoursome crust. Don't use normal butter as the milk solids will burn. If you don't have or don't want to make clarified butter, use a high smoke point oil, such as vegetable or ground nut. To a point, the higher the heat the better. You need an ultra hot pan to get the necessary crust.
Place the beef on the vegetable trivet and add the herbs. As the beef cooks, its juices will mix with the vegetables and create a nice gravy base at the bottom of the pan. Put the tin in a pre-heated 210 deg C oven. After 10-15 minutes, turn it down to 160 for the remaining cooking time.
Now for the roasties! Boil them for five minutes, then drain and toss them hard in the pan with the lid on to fluff the outsides. Then score the potatoes with a fork. This will help them absorb more fat and get the outsides crispy.
Leave to dry on the side. They need to be dry before we start to cook them or they'll spit like a mofo. Use towel if necessary, or just boil them the day before and put them in the fridge overnight (covered).
Almost registering rare, not long to go:
Back to the potatoes...two teaspoons of goose fat, one of clarified butter in the bottom of a hot roasting hit. Put it over a med-high heat:
Season the potatoes and get them in the hot tin. Sear the outsides and spoon the hot fat over them. Then into the oven at 200 degrees C.
Beef out of the oven. Get it resting in a warm place for at least half an hour.
Put 2 tablespoons of flour into the pan and stir the whole lot around to absorb the juices and cook off the flour:
Add a little bit of water if it's too dry, just to help the uptake of flavours.
Add 1/2 - 3/4 bottle of red wine. I used a £3.50 job from Tesco, many people are of the school of thought that just because you are cooking with it, this doesn't mean that the wine should be cheap. Make your choice, but my feeling is that the main flavour from the gravy comes from other sources.
Now add the chicken and beef stock and cook for another few minutes, before pushing all the goodness through a sieve to catch stuff you don't want to eat.
Now that the gravy's in a saucepan, check for seasoning and texture. I keep a blond-brown ('peanut butter') roux in the fridge / freezer at all times for flavouring and thickening sauces and gravies. A roux is basically a fat of some kind + flour. I use clarified butter with normal flour. This beats corn flour etc. as a thickener in every imaginable way! You can fill an ice tray with it and it will keep for months. Making a roux is another thread, but this is what mine looks like:
Carved; it was pinker than it looks your honour!
Served:
Let us now kneel before the mighty cow
.
Last edited:
