Christmas roast beef

Last Christmas (2009), I had planned to make the seafood paella I learned from the Sydney Seafood School course I took, and spread a bit of Spanish tapas for the holiday feast. But as I had to do last minute shopping and was still working till the 23rd, I had to postpone my tapas plans for another day.

And so Roast Beef had to be the mains with roasted vegetables on the side (carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes and halved onions). I did have the slab of scotch fillet in the refrigerator, as alternative to the seafood paella. For a long time, I have postponed trying on roast beef recipes for fear of the unknown. Roasting after all takes a bit of perfection - slight changes in the oven temperature can make the meat jump from being tender and juicy to being hard and jaw-breaking. The roasting made it easy and the meat was perfect. Thanks to the meat thermometer that Tito Amiel brought home "just in case". Such a great useful tool!

It was not a fancy roast beef recipe that I would have wanted to try like Jamie Oliver's Best Roast Beef featured in recipezaar.com here. Or Gordon Ramsay's recipe here, with Yorkshire pudding. Or the common roast beef with mustard marinade like the one here.

But as the holidays left me with no time to plan for an elaborate menu, I opted to follow what recipe was the quickest I could get my hands on. A clipping from Woolworth's monthly Fresh magazine.

Roast Scotch Fillet

Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 1 hour 10 minutes
Serves: 4
(what it said in the recipe, but this was good for a family of 6 adults and 5 kids)

Ingredients:

1.2kg piece scotch fillet

2 tsp olive oil

sea salt flakes

freshly ground black pepper

horseradish cream, to serve (optional)


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Place beef onto a flat surface. Tie lengths of kitchen twine around beef, every 3cm along the length of meat, securing tightly, to hold the beef in place. Place into a roasting pan. Rub oil over and season with salt and pepper.


2. Roast for 1 hour and 10 minutes for medium rare. Remove meat from roasting pan, cover and rest for 10 minutes before slicing. Serve with vegetables and horseradish cream (optional).


Roasting Tips

• It is important to buy meat that has some fat as the fat will keep the meat moist during cooking. If you are concerned about the amount of fat, you can cook your roast in an over bag which will also help keep the meat moist.

• Some leaner cuts of roasting meat are: Heart Smart Roast, Roast Beef Silverslide or Beef Bolar Blade. If you use one of these, consider using a marinade as it will boost the flavour and help stop the meat from drying out.

• Make sure you preheat the oven well before putting your roast in. This ensures that the meat is sealed which helps retain the moisture.

• A heavy-based roasting dish is an asset in any kitchen. Although the initial cost can seem expensive, a good quality pan will last many years and give you a better result.

Roasting time for beef:

• Rare: Cook for 20 minutes per 500g

• Medium rare: As above + extra 20 minutes

• Medium: Cook for 25 minutes per 500g

• Well done: Cook for 30 minutes per 500g

The roasted vegetables were:

500g potatoes, cubed

500g sweet potatoes, cubed

3 medium carrots, chopped

3 medium white onions, halved

To roast the vegetables, the hard ones were added about half-way through roasting. The carrots and onions were added last about 10 minutes before roasting is done.

While the recipe was simple, the roast was excellent in itself, that we didn't need any gravy or cream as side. It was an absolute delight!