Sunday Roast

[capsw]

What is the best method for cooking Roast Beef to obtain maximum flavour? 

[Snappy]

What matters is the meat more than the cooking. No ammount of good cooking can turn a horrible piece of meat into something gorgeous! It needs to be a nice bit of well hung beef, with a nice marbling of fat!mmm!

[woofgang]

Snappy is dead right about choosing your meat. My other half doesn't like rare meat so I pot roast ours. You brown the joint in a frying pan  first then plonk it into a coverable roasting tin add a little boiling water, cover  and bung in a HOT oven for about 15 mins then turn the oven down to cook at about gas four for about 30 mins per lb plus about 20 mins. then remove from the oven and leave covered to rest for about another 20. Carve and gorge...

[New Forester]

Snappy and Woofgang have it exactly right.

 

We hang our beef for at least 3 weeks, and we kill as old as we're currently allowed to (30 months rather than the usual commercial 20 -- though another year would be better).  Our steers get wild plants to eat instead of rye-grass, and that must help too.  The meat comes out dark and full of flavour, with just enough good juicy fat marbled right through.

 

To us, supermarket "beef" looks like veal and tastes of nothing much.  They even put little hats of white fat on it in the hope it'll roast.

 

I took a steer to the butcher's earlier this week (poor chap).  He'll be ready mid-November -- are you anywhere near the New Forest....?

 

Failing that, the Rare Breed Survival Trust have a scheme in which particular butchers sell rare-breed meat -- see if you can get to one of these:

http://www.rbst.org.uk/html/rare_breeds_meat/tbmms.html

then click on the link for the map (or the one for mail order).

 

Otherwise, go to your local proper butcher and ask about their beef.  Ask how old they kill at, where it comes from and how long it's hung.  A good butcher will be very happy to tell you -- and it will very likely cost no more than the supermarket stuff.

 

Good eating!

[smudge]

It's all been said, but I make the best roast beef lunch in the whole wide world - so my family tell me!

[country_boy]

Mmm nice bit of rolled rib, low and slow, beautiful.  Wish I lived near New Forester, I'd love to try some of his beef.

[Ouisch]

As everyone else said, make sure you're starting out with a good cut of beef.  Season it with Worcestershire sause, some black pepper and a touch of garlic powder and place it inside a large roasting bag. I like to chop up onions and carrots and toss them in the roasting bag with the meat.  Dissolve a package of onion soup mix and a cube of beef bouillion in one cup of water, and pour that over the meat.  Seal the roasting bag loosely, poke a few small holes in the top for ventilation, and put it in the oven (set on "bake" at 350 degrees).  For a two pound roast, I bake it for about an hour and 15 minutes, because I like mine a bit rare.

[???*????????]

in the oven

[Ouisch]

Yes, the oven.  Same place where you'd bake a cake.