Proper Sunday Roast

There's nothing we enjoy more on a Sunday than a plate of roast beef, with crispy roasted potatoes, yorkshire pudding, lots of gravy and all the trimmings! Here's how to whip up the perfect beef roast dinner.

20 minutes prep, 4 hours 40 minutes, plus resting cook

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

For the topside:

1.2-1.5kg beef topside

Vegetable oil

Kosher salt and black pepper, to season

For the gravy:

2 shallots, finely chopped

Sprig of thyme

t tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp salt

375ml red wine

1 litre beef stock

1 tsp Marmite

4 tsp soy sauce

2 tbsp tomato ketchup

For the roast potatoes:

800g Maris Piper potatoes

20g sea salt

50ml goose fat

For the vegetables:

1 hispi cabbage cut into four

Sea salt

2 heads of garlic finely sliced

50 ml olive oil

Other seasonal vegetables (green beans, broccoli, carrots)

Method

An hour before roasting, remove your beef from the fridge and bring it up to room temperature. When ready, season the topside with a pinch of salt and black pepper, and sear in vegetable oil until it’s well coloured on all sides. Put on a roasting tray and place into a preheated oven at 55°C. Leave it in the oven at this temperature for 4 hours. This will give you a perfect medium rare. If you prefer medium, set the oven to 65°C. If your oven doesn’t go this far down, roast at 150֯֯֯°C for 4 hours. Take the beef out and let the meat rest. There are other cuts of meat you can try, such as a beef chuck roast, a rib roast or a roast sirloin of beef - either way, go 'low and slow' for the perfect roast beef, with tender meat.

For the crispy roast potatoes, increase the temperature to 200°C. Peel the potatoes (reserving the peelings) and cut them into chunks. Pour 2 litres of water into a saucepan, add 20g salt and bring it to the boil. Add the potatoes and the peelings and cook for 20 minutes until very soft. Strain carefully and cool. Pour the goose fat into a roasting tin and place it in the oven for 15 minutes. Place the potatoes, cut side down, to the hot oil in the roasting tray and carefully cover with the oil. Season the potatoes with the remaining salt and roast for 60–90 minutes, turning them a few times.

To make a delicious gravy, sweat the shallots and thyme, then add the red wine. Reduce until it’s almost all evaporated. Add the stock and reduce by half until thick. Finish with the rest of the gravy ingredients, and also add the meat juices to the pan. You'll end up with a rich gravy, packed with flavour.

Steam your seasonal vegetables for a couple of minutes until beginning to soften (don't overcook or they'll get soggy!) For the cabbage, get a griddle pan very hot and colour on all sides, but do not cook too much so that the vegetable has some crunch. Place the garlic and olive oil in a cup and microwave on full heat for 30 seconds until soft. Drizzle this over the cabbage and season with sea salt. Slice the beef, pour over the delicious gravy, season with salt and pepper and quickly flash it in the hot oven, then serve with the roast potatoes and cabbage.