Is your Roast Beef nice? Please give me your advice

[changednameagain1234]

Hi

I buy topside (is this where I am going wrong?). Sear it, roast it at 180 fan oven for 55 minutes (1.1kg).

I then cover it and put it in the top oven to keep warm for about an hour while I do the roasties and ypuds.

It is always chewy!! I would love to be able to cook lovely tender beef that doesn’t give everyone jaw ache from chewing!

Please help me 🤞🏻

Most are in one of two camps so it depends how you like your beef. Many people are talking about long, low and slow for a well done but moist joint with rich gravy. You are saying that’s not an option so try the advice from the other camp initially.

Which seems to be, mostly, take it out of the fridge and bring it to room temperature. Don’t sear. Put it into the oven at a very high temp to begin with for the first third of the time ish before turning it down to a lower temperature for the remaining. Reduce your cooking time by about ten minutes due to the higher temperature in the beginning. Rest it but only for half the time it took to cook and don’t rest it in the oven, rest it on the side. Try those things first and see what happens.

I wouldn’t season meat before I wanted to cook it, as a pp says about salting and putting back in the fridge. Salt will draw all the moisture from the meat so you want to season it at the last minute before putting it in the oven (unless you are making crackling where you want to salt it a few times on purpose to get the moisture out)

I sear it , put it in a trivet of onion carrots pour water underneath ( not touching the beef) cover the whole thing w foil. Roast it
remive the foil only for last 15 min and blast it.
rest it for 30-60min before slicing as then the juices go back in

for a one kilo joint 40min for rare and 50 for medium rare, 1h5 for med we’ll ( these include the last 15 min without foil) last time I did this I found the 40 min a bit too French rare for my liking tho so maybe it should be 43 for rare

OP a friend of mine recommended the Aldi beef roasting joint to me and she was absolutely right. It’s tender, flavoursome and not expensive. Her family member is a chef at a local popular restaurant and she said that’s what he uses!

When we have roast beef, I wouldn’t buy anything else.

I’ve seen me buy an expensive cut of topside from an expensive local butchers and it was awful, hard, chewy and a
complete disappointment.

Agree. This is pretty good.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/roast-calculator

I think you’re roasting your beef for too long at too high a temperature (your searing it will add more heat on top). Then resting it in the top oven to keep warm might be heating it a bit too much.

What colour is it in the middle when you cut it? If it’s not pink, it’s going to be tough with topside, and you’ve cooked it for too long. As someone said above - beef should be either cooked quite quickly so it’s pink in the middle, or v slowly so it falls apart and is tender.

Also, it’s harder to keep a small joint tender than a larger one.

Try the calculator, go somewhere inbetween rare and medium timings. And def let the meat get to room temp before starting.
And use your top oven to get your potatoes started rather than keeping your beef warm in it for ages. If you cover your beef with foil it will stay warm for ages.

Two ways.
either treat like a brisket type snd do it in a slow cooker / stew type thing.
Jamie Oliver’s mothership brisket recipe is a good basic one. It’s essentially just a giant stew.

or
pink sliced roasted. That one use a thermometer for (I’ve got a MEATER it’s incredible). It probably takes much less time than you think and let it rest at room temperature not in the oven as it’s continuing to cook. Just cover it in foil and a tea towel.
When I do mine (I’ve one oven) I basically roast my potatoes to just getting colour, carrots and parsnips and the beef goes in when I do the cheesy leeks / cauliflower. Then it comes out resting, crank it up and do the yorkshires.

It's chewy because of how you are resting it. The combination of covering and putting it in a warm oven will mean it is steaming.

Instead, put it on the chopping board you will carve it on, cover loosely with foil leaving a gap at the top so steam can escape and just leave it on the countertop.

I also do this, I think unless you have a large roast joint they easily dry out, my kids also love the beef as it falls to pieces too - yummy 😋

Room temp to start, oven on high. Little oil, salt and pepper. Cover with foil. Cook on high for 20-30 minutes to seal it then turn down to about 170°. Cook for way longer than 55 minutes though. Depending on how pink you want it, keep checking til you're happy. 55 minutes for me is far to quick and makes meat that would give you jaw ache to get through.

Best is sirloin or rib of beef for roasting