I am a total novice at roasting beef -- until yesterday I think I'd done it once. So we decided that for a treat, since we didn't have anyone else to please, we'd have roast beef for Christmas lunch. S bought a 1 kg fillet roast from the butcher (planning on leftovers!). We also have a digital thermo-sensor, so I did a bit of googling and the consensus seemed to be that if you want your meat rare, the internal temperature should be 49-52C, and that the temperature might rise by another 2-3 degrees while it was resting. Estimates for the amount of time roasting would take ranged from 40 mins to an hour. Whereas the butcher himself said 20 minutes in a hot oven.
Took the meat out of the fridge well in advance, preheated oven to 220C, stuck the sensor in the meat. At this point it read 15C. I set the timer for 20 minutes -- at which point the sensor was at 27. So we gave it another 10 minutes, at which point it had reached 38C. We checked the meat, and all the evidence of our eyes and a skewer said that it was cooked. So we set it aside to rest while we did the Yorkshire puddings and finished the veg. After 15 minutes, the internal temperature had risen 14 degrees to 52C!
So we were glad we took it out when we did, because it was absolutely perfect, the best rare roast beef I've ever had. But it makes me wonder how you are supposed to judge it, if the temperature can increase so much after you've taken it out of the oven. If I'd trusted the temperature reading and my googling, instead of the evidence of my eyes, it would have been horribly overdone. I've googled some more and not really found any answers.
So any roasting experts here? How do you determine how long to cook it so that it's just right? Should I have cooked it at a lower temperature?
I have never tried measuring the temperature, Veronica, but I am pleased that you allowed your common sense and cooking experience to override the evidence of your instrumentation! There is nothing to beat a great joint of beef.
My method is really simple too - basically very hot to start with and then turn it down, That gets the outside nicely browned.
Unfortunately, we tried a new method for our turkey and I did not use common sense when it was obviously a bit of a disaster. Still, we enjoyed the trimmings and it was not as bad as it should have been (way overcooked).
Never knowingly underfed
I'd forgotten that there was a recipe for perfect beef on the blog! Duh. Should have looked there first. It's interesting to compare; I didn't add any fat to the tin because the roast already had a nice layer of fat on top. Nor did I salt it; just black pepper and a thin smear of mustard. But I did make sure it was perfectly dry and at room temperature.
Your timing for 1 kg is longer than mine (40 mins as opposed to 30), but then you turn the heat down much lower than I did, so they probably come to pretty much the same thing. I think your version is probably more evenly cooked because of the lower temperature. So all in all you have confirmed I'm on the right lines 🙂 I think next time I might put some veggies under the meat to flavour the gravy, as I do with roast chicken. We made onion gravy, with chicken stock and the juice from the roast.
Shame about the turkey! I've never liked turkey, so one of the pleasures of being at home for Christmas for once was not having it 🙂 We did have sprouts; I roasted them with shallots as per HFW's veg book and they were really good. Plus roast spuds and Yorkshire pud, all done in copious amounts of duck fat.
I know I thing or two about beef. I am a beef farmer and food business owner. Try taking a look at my beef cooking guide http://www.traditional-beef.co.uk/article/Recipes_and_guides hope this helps
Superb article....ought to give this to my local ladies but I think they put the hooves in as well....and simmer for four days....
Who lives long sees much : The diary of my life in Bulgaria
Same here hee hee!
Never trust a vegetarian with meat I know but OH has never complained about the result! Brown the meat first then throw in the oven either alone or with whatever takes your fancy, onions, other veg , the odd cat that walks in at the wrong time! I also trust my eyes for when it is finished.
This will be a bit like the boiled egg thread, we all have different methods but get the same results.
Trying to enjoy life as it is
Sort of thought it was a plug for a business but forgot after I had done my post. Didn't look at the link as not interested in beef farming! How do these people find us?
Trying to enjoy life as it is
Toffeeapple said:
Did no-one think that that post might have been spam?Â
Surely spam is pork based
Visit my blog for food, drink, photography and hamsters.
What always gets me about spammers is their cheek.....they don't even have the decency to put their first (and usually only!) post in the introductions thread. You'd think it might occur to them that if they introduced themselves properly and were nice and friendly, it MIGHT make people click on their advertising links, and give their posts a fighting chance of not being deleted
I guess they just post so many one off links, on so many random sites, that they just work on the principle that maybe a few will get through the net and acquire a few hits.
learning to love veg…..except celery :-O
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