Approx cost: €10.00
Approx calories (per 100g): ~200
Approx preparation and cooking time: 7 hours
While the initial outlay for this dish is often more than €5 (unless you’re on really good terms with your butcher) if it’s a good piece of meat, when eaten between two people, it will usually last a good 2, if not 3 meals, which instantly makes the initial cost more appealing. The way I do my joints means you get this fabulous salty, garlicky “crust” over the meat at the end of cooking, with an inside which is pink, winey and delicious. While I really appreciate “good” cuts of meat, you can often achieve fantastic results with cheaper cuts, simply by modifying the cooking times and means, which is what I’ll be doing with this post.
Ingredients
– 1 beef joint for roasting. To follow this recipe, it’s best if it’s a cheaper cut
– Red wine
– Garlic
– Olive oil
– Rock salt
Optional
– Dried or fresh herbs (Rosemary and thyme)
Instructions
- Grab your joint of meat and using a carving fork or other long-pronged implement, poke a load of holes all over the joint. Next, take some good pinches of rock salt and rub all over the meat. After this is done you want to grab your garlic cloves – as many as you feel you need – and crush them up. For a joint around 900g I used around 3-4 good sized cloves. Take the garlic and rub all over the joint on all sides. Some people like to push whole or half cloves into the holes in the meat. This is personal choice – personally I prefer the “garlic crust” approach. Throw over some chopped thyme and rosemary – Rosemary especially really goes well with beef and I highly recommend it. Lastly, stick the joint into a suitably sized dish, pour over about 0.1 litres of olive oil, and then about 0.25 litres red wine (or more), up to you.
- Cover with aluminium foil and place in cold place (or refrigerator [It may be swimming in booze and oil but you don’t really want that sitting out all night long]) over-night, turning the meat in the dish every so often.. About 12 hours later you’ll notice that a fair amount of the marinade has been absorbed. Remove from the refrigerator a couple of hours before you start to cook it. Place into an oven, still covered with foil, around 80 degrees Celsius and cook for around 5 hours, turning about once every 1.5 hours. After this time, turn the oven up to around 150 degrees Celsius and cook for another hour, still turning when required. Remove from oven, remove foil and drain away excess meat juices into a jug (use this to make gravy/sauce with) and then replace in oven, uncovered for about 30 minutes more. If the joint is excessively large or small you may need to adjust the cooking time.
- Remove and let stand for 10 minutes or so before removing the string and carving up. To store any leftovers, it’s good to drizzle over some of the drained off meat juices from earlier, as these will keep the meat nice and juicy.
- Serve any way you like – personally I love simple sides of roast potatoes and vegetables, but you can equally try salads, gratins, etc.
[…] tour of England would be complete without a Sunday roast, and while I’ve done “the main event” before, as well as some traditional accompaniments, I’ve never actually posted […]