Roast Beef & Yorkshire Puds

Had a couple of friends over for dinner last night & given the cold blustery conditions outside thought it was time for my first roast of the season. Decided to follow Jamie Oliver’s recipe from Happy Days as I saw him cook it on tele & it made me drool, also has been years since I’ve had Yorkshire puddings. As well as the veggies suggested I added roast beets & pumpkin with some salt & rosemary & cooked some bok choy in garlic on the side. As usual I cooked way too much & Michael & I are enjoying some roast beef sandwiches for brekky as I type. Everything was delicious, forgot how much I love a good roast. The potatoes were crispy as promised so think I will always parboil first in the future. The Red wine gravy after a shaky start where I thought it was just going to be a runny mess was sensational so we didn’t need my backup gravox after all, and I didnt even sieve it as recomended! And the puds, well just look at the photo, how delicious do they look & yes they were as good as the picture.

Roast Beef & Yorkshire Puddings

Serves 8
2.5kg fore-rib, wing-rib or sirloin of beef, French trimmed
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
3 red onions, halved
3kg roasting potatoes, peeled
4 large parsnips, peeled & Quartered
3 rosemary twigs
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 thumb sized pieces of fresh ginger, peeled & diced
flour
½ a bottle of robust red wine

Yorkshire Pudding Batter

285ml milk
115g plain flour
pinch of salt
3 eggs

Before you start get all veg prepared & getting pudding batter ready.

Preheat the oven to 230c & heat a large thick bottomed roasting tray on your stove. Rub your beef generously with salt, then add a little olive oil to the tray & lightly colour the meat for a couple of minutes on all sides. Lay the onions in the tray with the beef on top, then cook in a preheated oven for 1 ½ hours. While the beef is starting, parboil your potatoes in salted water for about 10 minutes then drain. Toss about to chuff them up, this will make them very crispy.

After 30 minutes, take out the tray & toss in your potatoes, parsnip & rosemary. With a garlic press or grater, squeeze or grate the garlic and ginger over everything in the tray. Shake the tray & whack in back in the oven for the final hour. Remove the potatoes & parsnips to a dish to keep warm, place beef on a plate, covered with foil, to rest & get your greens & puddings on.

Preheat a muffin pan with 1cm of oil in each section. After 10 minutes, divide the batter into the pan. Cook for about 30 minutes until crisp – don’t open the oven door or they won’t rise!

Remove most of the fat from your roasting tray & you should be left with caramelised onions & sticky beef goodness. Add a teaspoon of flour to the tray & mash everything together. Heat the tray on the stove & when hot add your red wine, simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes until your gracy is nice & taste & thick enough. Add any juice from the beef if you feel like it. Pour through a sieve & serve with the roast.