My Ultimate Roast Lunch
I know I’m late to the party with this and I’ve really enjoyed grunking through all your thoughts and ideas on roasts. For me, I can only have a roast on a Sunday. I like to sit down and have it around 2-2.30. I don’t like eating it in the evening, too heavy. I always cook extra meat and roasties as I like them cold, sprinkled with extra salt and sometimes dipped in gravy
My Meat of choice is beef. Secondly, roast leg of lamb and thirdly is loin of pork or belly pork with major crackling. Chicken to me doesn’t make an epic roast, I think it’s good in its own right and I prefer roast chicken with a jacket potato, Creme fraiche and chives.
Sirloin or fillet of beef, cooked medium rare. Sliced quite thin. I like hot horseradish with mine and also a delicious sauce made with watercress and mustard from the ottolenghi cookbook (highly recommended to have this in cold roast beef sandwiches)
Gravy made from the beef roasting juices, red wine, shallots and beef stock (homemade or from one of the supermarket fresh pouches, (Heston at Waitrose does a very good one).
Carrot purée. I think carrots work really well with beef. I make a wicked purée , it’s dead simple but you do need a nutri bullet or similar to obtain an ultra smooth, whipped texture (very Cheffy and not at all slop à la Jackie)
Roast potatoes cooked in a mix of beef dripping and sunflower oil. I sometimes add semolina for extra crunch. I always use Maris Pipers and they are parboiled for a good while before gently draining and left to cool and dry on a tray.
Roast parsnips. These are halved or quartered according to size and roasted on a separate tray. Sometimes I add honey towards the end of cooking if they need a little help caremalising. I don’t always have parsnips, sometimes I fancy swede and roast cubes of it with salt and pepper.
Creamed leeks. SO delicious..!! I like to add a sprinkle of celery seeds in mine, and seasoned with salt and white pepper.
Greens, either green beans cooked fairly al dente (just past the squeaky stage) then tossed in a teeny bit of butter
Or spring greens, shredded and steamed and again, tossed in some butter
Epic yorkies. These are a must for me with any roast. I’ve finally discovered the perfect recipe for them so they rise like a dream (see attached photo) and don’t collapse when you take them out of the oven. (James Martin’s granny’s recipe) ALWAYS cooked with dripping and either one giant pud or the shallow 4 pan Yorkie trays you can get.
All this talk of dry roasts..? With modest amounts of gravy, a tablespoonful of carrot purée and the creamed leeks, this combination is certainly not dry, but not sloppy either. For me, it heaven! Washed down with a few glasses of red
Apologies for the essay, I just love talking and writing about food, because I’m greedy goblin!
**FYI, I shall affectionately and not at all pretentiously be referring to this work as ROASTIES in any future correspondence to my agent or press **