This week, my
Jamie Oliver's 'Ministry of Food' cookbook is getting a good work out, I must admit.
Now I know how to cook a roast and vegetables - I know mostly everyone does. Bang the meat in, with the veggies at the same time if you must and cook away for an hour or two, use a bit of gravy powder with some settling juices and hot water and that's it. (Well, something like that.) Instead, I decided to actually follow a recipe for roasting beef and vegetables AND make (from scratch) my own gravy. And
oh my, the result? Well, let me say that I'll be making my next roast this way again.
I do admit, that I make a pretty good roast meal without following a recipe - I learnt many, many years ago from a friend's mother, how to make crispy roast potatoes (par boil, drain, toss around in pan, roast in vegetable oil rather than olive) and my potatoes rarely let me down. I've just never (*shock/horror*) made my own gravy from scratch so this was a great achievement for me.
So here are three separate recipes on making the 'perfect' roast meal and all taken from;
Jamie Oliver's 'Ministry of Food', published 2008
Perfect Roast Beef (pg 192)
Serves 4-6
1.5kg topside of beef (I used a NZ Rib-Eye 1kg beef)
2 medium onions
2 carrots
2 sticks of celery
1 bulb garlic
a small bunch of fresh thyme, rosemary, bay or sage, or a mixture (I used thyme, rosemary)
olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
To Prepare your beef
Take your beef out of the fridge 30 minutes before it goes in the oven. Preheat your oven to 240C/475F/Gas 9. There's no need to peel the vegetables - just give them a wash and roughly chop 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 olive oil. Drizzle the beef with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper, rubbing it all over the meat. Place the beef on top of the vegetables.
To Cook Your Beef
Place the tray in the preheated oven. Turn down the heat immediately to 200C/400F/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 10-15 minutes.) If you're doing roast potatoes and veggies, this is the time to crack on with them - get them in 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 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 tinfoil and a tea towel and put aside while you make your gravy.
To carve your beef
Remove the string from the meat. Use a good, long, sharp knife to carve the meat and a fork (preferably a carving fork) to hold it steady. Serve with prepared vegetables and hot gravy.
 |
Top Left - Prepared vegetables; Top Right - Beef sitting on gravy vegetables
Bottom Left - gravy coming together; Bottom Right - Vegetables waiting to be roasted. |
Roast Potatoes, Parsnips and Carrots (pg 202)
Serves 4-6
1.2kg potatoes
6 parsnips
6 carrots
1 bulb of garlic
3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
To Prepare your vegetables
Peel the vegetables and halve any larger ones length ways. Break the garlic bulb into cloves, leaving them unpeeled and bash them slightly with the palm of your hand. Pick the rosemary leaves from the woody stalks.
To cook your vegetables
Put the potatoes and carrots into a large pan - you may been to use two - of salted, boiling water on a high heat and bring back to the boil. Allow to boil for 5 minutes, then add the parsnips and cook for another 4 minutes. Drain in a colander and allow to steam dry.
Take out the carrots and parsnips and put to one side. Fluff up the potatoes in the colander by shaking it around a little - it's important to 'chuff them up' like this if you want them to have all those lovely crispy bits when they're cooked.
Put a large roasting tray over a medium heat and either add a few generous lugs of olive or carefully spoon a little of the fat from the meat you're cooking. Add the garlic and rosemary leaves. Put the vegetables into the tray with a good pinch of salt and pepper and stir them a round to coat them in the flavours. Spread them out evenly into one layer - this is important, as you want them to roast, not steam as they will if you have all on top of each other. Put them into the preheated oven for about 1 hour, or until golden, crisp and lovely. Serve immediately, with your roast dinner and your gravy.
A Consistently Good Gravy (pg 205)
Serves 4-6
As well as your roasted veg (listed in the beef recipe) you'll need:
1 heaped dessertspoon plain flour
a wineglass of red wine, white wine or cider, or a good splash of port or sherry (I used Rose')
1 litre vegetable, chicken or beef stock, preferably organic
To make your gravy
By the time you are here, your meat will be covered and resting and you'll have your tray of meat juices and vegetable trivet in front of you.
When everything is mixed and mashed up, add the alcohol to give a little fragrance before you add your stock (the alcohol will cook away). Keep it over the heat and let it boil for a few minutes. Pour the stock into the tray or add 1 litre of hot water. Bring everything in the pan to the boil, scraping all the goodness from the bottom of the pan as you go. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, or until you've achieved the gravy consistency you're looking for.
To serve your gravy
Get yourself a large jug, bowl or pan and put a coarse sieve over it. Pour your gravy through the sieve, using a ladle to really push all the goodness through. Discard any veg or meat left behind. At this point you've got a really cracking gravy and you can either serve it straight away on put back on the heat to simmer and thicken up.
Enjoy!
 |
| The final product minus the gravy |
 |
| Left over roast potato and turnip. See how lovely they look. |
