To ask for a roast dinner

[SunComeBack]

I thought I was a good cook but I went for a carvery on Sunday and it was a lot nicer than my roast. It smelt amazing to, I feel like mine sometimes comes out a bit bland and tasteless. Especially the meat, potatoes and gravy. So if you’re bored and fancy enlightening me with your roast dinner tips please do. I want…
Roast Beef
Roast potatoes
Yorkshire pudding
cauliflower cheese
carrots
parsnips
stuffing
And gravy (I had the vegetable gravy at the carvery at it was delicious)

Salting the meat the day before really helps maintain a decent background flavour to it even if cooked simply on the day, take it out and hour before cooking and pat down so it's dry.

Make sure you use a floury potato King Edwards or Maris Pipers, par boil for 10 mins in really salty water, fluff up in ghe colander and leave to completely dry out and cool down, I season them and use beef dripping to roast.

For gravy I use the meat juices with just a tablespoon of fat left in the pan pop it on the hob, add a tablespoon of plain flour and whisk it up to cook it out, add a glass of red wine cook that out and add a pint of beef stock or the veg water from carrots if boiling them, if its too thin add a softened spoon of butter mixed with plain flour into a paste, keep whisking it in and sieve into the gravy jug.

With your Yorkshires use fresh eggs, make the mixture as early in the day as you can and leave in the fridge right up until you need it. I preheat a muffin tray with a little lard in each well to 220C for about 10 mins. When you are ready to pour in the mixture, get the tin out of the oven quickly and shut the door whilst doing so to retain the heat. When putting back in again he quick with the door. After 10 mins (when they have a good rise) I turn the temperature down to 190C. I do this and they come out huge 🙂

With my roasties I parboil & heat up the tin with goose or fat. Once ready I add garlic and rosemary with the potatoes in the tin and then season. They are quite unhealthy so I don’t do often but they taste amazing.

Brown the meat well on the hob before roasting. The caramelisation gives a richness to the flavour.

Glutamates give a full, rounded mouthfeel. (ie natural form of msg). Add a tomato to the roasting pan so the juices form part of the gravy. Mushrooms have huge amounts. Parmesan has a lot of glutamates so add that to your cauliflower cheese. Unless you have someone sensitive to msg.

I parboil my carrots and parsnips and add them to the roasting tin, tossed well. Love a roasted root vegetable. I do. Yorkshire puddings in a muffin pan so I get about 12 even puds. Make sure your pan is smoking so the batter sizzles as you add it.

If you want tasty roast beef it has to be a joint with fat on it, all the flavour is in the fat, otherwise it just drys out and is tasteless. I find all the supermarket joints have all the fat trimmed off these days.

gravy made with the juices from the meat tray

potatoes part boiled and cooked in dripping.

roast carrots in the meat tray

onions pierced with cloves and a couple of bay leaves in the milk for the sauce and brought to boil. Then stand for a while to allow flavours to develop. Add to a butter and flour roue, mustard and salt and pepper to taste. Cheese added at end. Poured on lightly cooked cauliflower and baked in oven.

fat parsnips cut up, not thin ones and par boiled and cooked in dripping

water in the Yorkshire pudding (half water half milk) put into very hot fat. Again dripping is good

Par boil potatoes, drain into a colander and toss them around to really rough them up. sprinkle with seasoning and a little flour. Roast in hot fat of your choice, tossing them every 15/20 mins.

Rest the beef for at least half an hour wrapped up in foil and covered with a t- towel before carving.

Make sure you use really cold yorkie batter mix in really hot oil (i use a ramekin to measure equal quantities of egg, flour and milk. Little bit of seasoning)

Make your cheese sauce in the microwave - literally just chuck all the ingredients in a bowl together, microwave on high for 5 mins, mix with a whisk, repeat until everything has melted and the sauce is thick - no lumps or standing at the stove stirring like mad !

Love a roasted carrot but prefer mine steamed with a bit of crunch for a roast.

Learn how to make proper gravy in the meat pan with the juices and flour, or if using a gravy powder/pot, make it up using the vegetable water and the meat juices (you can get special jugs that will separate the fat from the meat juice) Dash of red wine in there too.

Parsnips - never go right for me so i buy them ready done in a foil tray 😬

Stuffing - just no with roast beef !
Don't forget the horseradish.

The best joint you can buy: sirloin or rib
Proper home-made gravy
Carrots buttered, with 1 dsp water, salt, pepper and a squirt if honey in a tightly lidded dish and cooked in the oven
A leafy green veg
Crispy roast potatoes
Yorkies
Horseradish

Personally, I don't think cauliflower cheese belongs on the same plate as gravy. Stuffing doesn't belong with roast beef.

Always rest your meat properly - applies just as well to sausages as it does to roast beef, lamb, pork & chicken. It makes a huge difference to the end result.

Make your own gravy out of the meat juices

I roast my meat on a bed of carrots onions and celery. Then while it’s resting I makes roux with the veg and fat in the roasting tray and use the veg water to make a gravy. I add gravy browning then blitz and strain to remove any veg lumps. and if it’s chicken or pork based, I add a bit of paxo to thicken it and add a depth of flavour. People rave about my roasts and especially my gravy.

Salt. They use salt in the veg, on the meat, in the gravy, in the sauces.

Some good advice here - just a couple of extra tips. I usually cover the colander I'm draining my par boiled potatoes in with a tea towel as it helps absorb the moisture. Also a teaspoon of marmite improves beef gravy.... FInally cauliflower cheese does not go with a Sunday roast....

Use a strong cheese in the cauliflower sauce. Beef with fat and rub in mustard powder and loads of pepper. Add salt and pepper to the Yorkshire, sometimes I add fresh herbs as well. Butter the carrots. I must admit to using a bit of bisto in the roasting pan along with a glug of wine, you could also add some redcurrant jelly.

Prep the part boiled potatoes the day before, put them in a roasting tray then pour goose fat over them make sure they have all been turned in it. You can leave them covered in the garage or fridge overnight.

Makes the best roasties and you can feel smug you’ve done that prep the day before

Your roast dinner is probably perfectly lovely but when you've cooked it, you've also been smelling it so by the time you eat it your taste will be slightly dulled. When you eat out you've not spent the last two hours with the aroma of it, so you'll taste it more clearly.

So many responses to read through thanks everyone. I definitely need to learn how to make a good beef gravy, I can make a brilliant chicken one!
And I can’t believe some of you don’t believe stuffing or cauliflower cheese (I can make a banging cheese sauce) goes with a roast beef dinner, It’s staying put in my house.

Beef I use Delia's measurements for cooking time. But I marinade the beef in red wine, seasoning and rosemary and garlic for 24 hrs before.

Once it's cooked, Leave the beef to settle for half hour while you finish the rest of the dishes.

Then use the marinade for the gravy. Just heat it with a couple spoons of bisto.

Potatoes need plenty of salt when parboiling and squash them down before adding to a very very hot pan of oil.
Cook them on very high and check and move every 15 mins. They take about 45 mins depending on size.

Season the meat the night before: Salt, pepper, garlic, herbs.
Balance the joint on onions in a roasting tin. The onions sit in the juices that drip from the joint and add flavour. They are also edible if anyone likes them or you can use them to make soup.
Make homemade gravy with the juice and some wine. No bisto.

Peel and par boil spuds, then drain and put a nob of goose fat in the warm saucepan to cost them. Transfer to a roasting tin, sprinkle with seasoning and roast.

If you want to be really fancy and wasteful I know a chef who boils their carrots in orange juice to bring out the flavour.

For special occasions I do a Delia parsnip recipe with a Parmesan crust, but it’s a lot of work.

Stuffing most certainly does not go with beef!

It does! Try it, it’ll change your world for the better I promise.

I think you need to go to a decent butcher and buy a proper rib of beef before making that statement ;) And really, you’ll need at minimum of 2 ribs for the best result…

But, as already posted, the key to carvery type places is not high quality, it’s plenty of seasoning. Far more than you would use at home...and rich sauces with plenty of fat and and sugar as well.

I have stuffing with every roast as my 6 year old son loves it

I’ve tried it. Nasty.

The key to a good beef gravy is using the meat juices, the potato & veg water, a good slug of red wine and some of the Yorkshire pudding batter. It’s fantastic!

Rib of beef is the best for a Sunday roast.
Stuffing with beef is an absolute no, cauliflower cheese goes with any roast though.

Love a roast - rarely bother to make it for myself.
Good - or even bog standard - carvery is a real treat.

You missed red cabbage on your list.