Roast Beef

This is Delia Smith's roast beef. Picture taken from here.

And this is mine (just half done). You can see the onions are still not brown yet and the crust just lightly browned - cover with foil at this point to prevent excessive browning.

This is cooked now - look at the browned onions.

For JS (who happens to be my other sister, besides Wm!!) and Jess who left comments on the previous post, I will try to answer your questions as well as I possibly can.

Ok, the easy question first from JS. (Thanks for the compliments!!)

Recipe for the crust:

1 heaped tablespoon self-raising flour

8 / 10 tablespoons Japanese breadcrumbs

1 teaspoon dried mustard powder

1 tablespoon grainy mustard

Parsley & any other mixed herbs

Salt & Black Pepper

Olive Oil
(Minced garlic is optional)

Mix together to form a loose mixture and pat all over beef. 15 minutes before beef is done, remove crust carefully (it will fall apart anyway but if you are careful enough, you can have a few largish pieces which will be FOUGHT over). Then brown the fat underneath the crust.

Jess - thank you too for your kind words.

I cook purely by estimation and from experience (believe me, many trial and error sessions have taken place). For a joint of meat that size; 2.55 kg, it went into the oven at 3.30 pm and was ready by 6.45 pm approx, for a medium rare middle and medium sides. I use an electric oven, and the temperature was kept between 6 - 8 throughout roasting. You must cover the meat with foil and keep basting to keep it moist and tender. And I have always gone by the rule of low heat, long roasting for tender successful roasts.

Correct rules can be found here.

These are the onions which I further caramelised in a pan with beef fat and turned into a pepper gravy.

Hope this helps and just leave a comment if you need more help.

Dom's portion.

Before.

45 minutes later.