To ask you to help me be better at cooking

[Trollsinthedungeon]

I'm not a bad cook, but I'm not great either. We had an aga in our old house and omg I miss it so much.

We need to replace the thermostat of the oven as it says it's 200 but the thermometer in the oven that I use ex to use in the Aga says it's at 150 so obviously that's an issue.

But I made a roast today and the meat thermometer said it was medium rare but then I let it rest and when we carved it it was like leather.

I want to buy a chateaubriand but not until I can cook a top side of beef without killing it!

I cooked it for 30 mins to begin with then basted it then 30 mins and then rested it.

Please help me! What books are good? My mum always said she would show me how to cook but then she died and I'm stuck just heating up oven ready meals and killing roasts 🤬

Is delia a good start?

Delia is ace. There was a cook book by Roberta Moore called Larder Lads which was brilliant for timing a roast. However, you need to have a reliable oven.

Cookbooks are such a personal thing. Personally I find Jamie and Nigella excellent over the years but also use the old Dairy cookbook from the 70's.

Regarding your oven, it might be worth getting a thermometer that you can put into the oven until you can get it fixed. 30 mins plus 30 mins doesn't sound untoward for a joint of beef but obviously depends on the weight. For instance I cooked a fire rib of beef at Christmas. It was about 4kg so cooked at max temp for 30 mins and then 15 mins for each 0.5kg to achieve medium. It would've been 10 mins per 0.5kg for rare. I then let it stand for at least 1 hour.

It's hard to say why your joint was tough as this can be due to overcooking or quality of the joint. A thermometer will take care of the cooking. If the quality isn't great then slow roasting may well be the best option.

Personally I love slow roasting as it works well with almost everything. I've gone off a leg of lamb unless it's spent 4-5 hours in the oven at 150°C. Done like this, the fat melts away, the meat just falls off the bone and is usually so tender it's hard to cook it any other way.

It's well worth trying as it's almost foolproof and will help to build confidence. It also works well with cheaper cuts of meat, like a brisket, which doesn't cook well using traditional methods but is delicious slow roasted.

Best of luck and keep persevering as you'll get there.

Fore rib, not fire!

My DH grandmother gave me the Good Housekeeping cookbook

It is spot on for cooking traditional British dishes

Very often quality of meat is an issue too, for example I find Tesco or Sainsbury joints impossible to cook nicely

So was your beef over cooked or the right colour but tough? It couldn’t have been beef for slow cooking could it?

Also agree with the slow roasting

I now prefer lamb shoulder, the fat melts away and you end up with super tender meat (cooked on low for 4-5 hrs)

www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/good-housekeeping-institute/good-housekeeping-cookery-book/9780091753566?gclid=Cj0KCQiA0MD_BRCTARIsADXoopa8GwRB1K7VTajtcMTDddRyWTchW1yWiN_dtA-F8iuE0TacvQEiZUsaAsUCEALw_wcB

Yeah @RoganJosh it was beef topside that I got out of the freezer accidentally 2 days early so it definitely was t at its best I'll take a photo of it after carving

Jamie Oliver ministry of food is a place to start. A good selection of basic dishes that you can build on. There’s even a section on mince.

I basically taught myself to cook with a very old copy of Delia’s complete cookery course. Really good for the basics.

What I do now if I’m trying something new is use the BBC good food recipes, I find them to be tasty and easy to follow.

My advice for cooking a joint of beef is follow a recipe for the correct weight, but use the timings for it less cooked than you want it to be. So if you want it medium rare, follow the instructions for rare.

This is 2 hours after we've eaten.

Do I need to cut the joint in the middle if we wanted medium rare? This is the middle of the joint.

It was tough AF

Did I rest it too long? It was about 40 mins under foil? I thought I had nailed it but oh my god it was so tough

Can’t see a pic

Some may scoff but you can possibly salvage the joint with a leftover stew or chilli. Cooked slowly enough it'll tenderise.

I can't see the pic either.

They need to sort the app out

Delia is a good start - my Mum had all her books- the recipes are very accurate and always work. I would second Jamie Oliver but the recipes in Ministry of Food are really uninspiring. Topside is hard to get right. We had a topside roast at the weekend - medium rare and it was very average. A meat thermometer and resting is the way to go but I would also say that if you want a good roast consider rib or sirloin. Slow cook your topside instead. Also avoid supermarket joints - buy from a butcher.

Personally I think that looks fine. Nicely done on the outside and medium on the inside.

Letting the joint stand for 40 mins is fine and leaving it longer isn't going to toughen it up.

What cut is it? This may be the issue as opposed to the way you cooked it.

As I mentioned previously, I'd turn it into a stew or something where you can cook it slowly and tenderise it.

I’d say it was the quality of the meat rather than your cooking.

Lamb is a lot more forgiving (even if not brilliant quality)

The Hugh Fernley Whittingstall Meat book is excellent. I would get that if I were you.

I personally think Delia overcooks meat like roasts. I'd always go with the timings of Nigella, Gordon Ramsay, or Simon Hopkinson. Simon's book 'Roast Chicken and other stories' is rated one of, if not the, best domestic cookery book by professional British chefs.

More broadly, I learnt a lot about from watching cookery programmes about what goes with what. So I have a reasonable idea what mixes well and what additions to make to recipes or to make up recipes myself. The basics are not to mess with the chemistry of baking and to be very strict about not cooking fish too long, allowing all roast meat to rest before carving, and to always keep testing and tasting and judging whether things are done by taste, temperature and look not so much on time.

Did you manage to slice it really thinly?
I also agree that it’s not a million miles off medium rare. More medium.
I always (try to) undercook ours by a level or two as the inside is better if underdone for leftovers. And then the outside is ok for eating there and then.