Saturday, November 25, 2006

Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding



After eating pounds and pounds of turkey and ham for Thanksgiving, we're ready for something different for the Christmas food fest. For the past 15 years, it has been a standing beef rib roast for us. The leftovers are delicious for sandwiches, or you can make your own roast beef hash. The following is a summation of the roast beef dinner.


Roast Beef

This may seem like a very different way of roasting a prime beef cut, but I can guarantee you will never go back to your standard method.

Prime Rib Roast or rib eye at room temperature (very important)

Dijon or brown mustard

Fresh thyme (Lots of it)

Fresh garlic cloves minced

Kosher salt

Freshly cracked black pepper

Place the rib roast, bone side down, starting at the tail or narrow end, make a flap by cutting the fat strip on top of the meat, going toward the thicker part, as far as you can without severing it. Lay the fat strip back, and set aside. If you can get a roast with the ‘lip’ on, that’s the way to go. Mix Dijon, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper in a small bowl.

Spread this mixture on the meat underneath the flap/lip which you just made. Replace the flap and use kitchen string to loosely wrap the meat to keep the flap in place as it roasts, otherwise the flap will curl up. Place the roast in the oven in a shallow roasting pan.

Make sure your roast is at room temperature before you place it in the oven, otherwise you will have an under cooked roast at the end of the cooking cycle. Set the oven temperature at 500° degrees F.

Multiply the roast poundage on the package times 5 minutes to determine the amount of time the meat will roast at 500° degrees F. Be as accurate as possible! Example: if your roast weighs 5.53 pounds, then multiply 5.53 (pounds) times 5 (minutes) which equals = 27.65. This means you will roast your meat for (27.65) or 28 minutes.

At the end of the 28 minutes, turn the oven temperature off. Leave the roast in the oven for at least 2 hours - or more according to your liking as to doneness. During this 2 hour+ time, do not open the oven door as the meat is still cooking. This time is primarily for rare.

Serve with steamed asparagus, green beans, or Brussels sprouts. Mashed potatoes and gravy are aslo recommended. Plan for having brown and serve rolls. Yorkshire pudding is strongly recommended and is posted here further down on the list.



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