Recipe ideas to stretch beef joint

[Shesnotveryself]

Don't normally buy joints, but it was on offer and I had grand ideas of being thrifty and making several meals out of it. It's arrived, and I'm clueless. 0.8kg to feed 2 adults and a toddler.

We're not really a roast dinner type family, which are the only kind of recipes I can find when searching. I have an instantpot if that helps? Thanks

Look for recipes for slow braised beef, then shred it and add whatever sides you like.
But honestly, 800g of meat for 2 adults and a toddler isn’t exactly enough t for several meals. In my house it would be two at most

Apart from the fact it seems bonkers to buy a joint as an economy measure, if you don't actually want a roast, I use up leftovers by "mincing them" in the food processor and making bolognaise or shepherds pie, but I'd guess 800g of mince would have been cheaper than your joint..

depends on the cut - topside id roast for 40 minutes, whereas tougher cuts i would pot roast it. With pearl barley ideally. If its the later id eat it as stew removing the meat and letting it stand, cooking dumpings for one meal in the gravy, shredding the meat and adding it back then eating it for one meal (including all the dumpings) then putting the remainder into a pie or two with a puff pastry top. This will keep for 4 days in a fridge or freeze.

If topside you can use in fajitas, serve with mash and veg, chopped up in a tomato sauce with pasta, stir fry

It depends on the cut. Possibly salt beef or beef Wellington if it’s brisket or fillet.

This is a nice alternative to a Sunday roast:

Sunday Roast Salad

You could roast it to make the salad then Google leftover roast beef recipes for inspiration eg cottage pie, braised beef, stroganoff, Thai beef salad. I suspect most of those dishes would be thriftier and tastier made with a cheaper cut though.

Mince the leftovers to make mulligatawny soup. A little bit goes miles.

Depending on the sort of joint, you can slow cook and pull it, make beef tacos, lots of cheese, veg, soured cream, etc would easily do 2 meals. Or make a beef ragu to serve with pasta, green veg and garlic bread.

You have to think about meals where beef is a component but not the main one in terms of volume. But that should easily feed you two meals plus leftovers if done right. We are a family of 2 adults, 2 dc (1 secondary and 1 primary age), and I made a beef ragu in the slow cooker with 700g of brisket a couple weeks ago. That did us two dinners and Dh and I an extra lunch each.

Lots of advice about cooking a beef joint on this thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5304984-i-always-fuck-up-the-beef?latest=1

Yes it's topside. I realise beef joint isn't cheap, but I thought it would be an affordable treating I could stretch it a bit.

Just roast it and after the first dinner keep it for roast beef sandwiches or filled yorkshire puddings.

Or re-heat some diced bits the day after with some black bean sauce.

BBQ pizza. BBQ sauce base, red onion and red pepper chopped finely, small amount of chopped beef and topped with cheese. My go to home baked pizza. Or for lunch tortilla wrap, smear some mayo, add the chopped raw red onion & red pepper. Add chopped beef and drizzle with BBQ sauce. Again my go to at home wrap.

Here Delia Smith Rissoles... Yum!! 💕

I too was going to suggest just cooking it as a roast, but keep the centre rare. You then have leftovers for sandwiches, to add to fried rice, make a beef/noodle soup or this Thai beef salad.
https://www.recipetineats.com/thai-beef-salad-2/

https://donnadundas.co.uk/leftover-roast-beef-fried-rice/

Our roast beef goes like this

roast beef dinner
roast beef sandwiches
french onion soup
potted meat with a crust of clarified butter

But we need at least 2kg for the above for five people (teens and adults)

@MockTheGeek Out of interest, how do you incorporate the beef in a French onion soup? In the actual soup or something on the side?

French onion soup is made with beef stock
whenever we have beef we make the soup with the stock and open wine

If you do decide to roast your topside joint, one easy thing to do to stretch it a bit, is to serve generous portions of Yorkshire puddings and onion gravy as a first course before the main meat course.
You can use individually made puddings or slices of a large pudding. The individual puddings look more appealing, but large slices of the more stodgy large pudding will be more filling. You will need lashings of gravy.

When I was a child this is how we always had our Yorkshire puddings and roast beef.
My Mother was the absolute Queen of Yorkshire puddings!

Ahh of course! The stock! I was thinking it was somehow a recipe with pieces of steak floating about in it! 😆

I ended up making this salad and it was perfect, over half the joint left so I'll either do fried rice or beef noodles and maybe even squeeze a sandwich out of it. Thanks for all the suggestions