This is the first of three posts that I have written relating to our recent Sunday dinner last weekend exploring different elements of the meal and what I actually do with regard to the leftover meat. I certainly do not waste it. I thought that I would write in a little more detail about my thinking in relation to why I do things in certain ways. Whatever I cook I am after drawing out the flavour in the food that I am working with at any one particular time. The flavour of a good meal always stays with you and often it is created from the simplest of things.
Just before Christmas last year I managed to get a bit of a bargain on the meat front from one of the Butchers I go to on a regular basis. Two whopping big joints of roast beef for £29 each. The equivalent of six small joints for two of us. A considered expense but one which I still maintain is worth doing when you can. We had intended to have one of the joints over Christmas but as we had more than enough meat out on the table I chose not to cook any, reserving the meat for another day as they say. However, nothing goes to waste in this household. I could have cut this into joints, but my own preference tends to be to cook the meat like this in a nice slow oven under foil on a base of thickly sliced onion that give the Beef legs, which allows the Beef to retain its moisture and not dry out. The Beef is then balanced on the onion slices a little water added to the pan, a sprinkling of white or black pepper (or anything else you want to add), foil lid on and off you go. Every so often I turn the tray around so that the meat gets good coverage of heat and cooks evenly.
Meat as it was in its packaging after defrosting.
Meat all unwrapped and on its onion legs.
Meat halfway through cooking. You can see how many meat juices have been released into the little bit of water I added.
The meat after the foil has been taken off to brown the meat up a little bit. Adding the water and letting the meat juices flow into the onion adds a good base for a delicious gravy. More on that in another post.
After removing the Beef from the tray left with all this goodness. I did drain off some of the fat, but the basis of a very good gravy especially when paired with vegetable juices from my three tier steamer.
The meat after it had been sliced and ready for plating up for serving.
Roasted sweet potato from being roasted in the Ninja. Only took 15 minutes. I also separately roasted whole onion chopped into wedges, parsnip and potato.
Needless to say it all went down very nicely and we had a repeat performance of everything for Monday night. We had not had Beef for Sunday dinner for quite some time and it more than hit the spot on flavour.
Needless to say there was a big pile of meat leftover which I am going to turn into my own ready meals. More on that in a later post.
We therefore did exceptionally well on the food front at the weekend.
I choose too cook for two days on the trot to save on my time, and also the energy used for cooking the meat. I also find that the meat cooks a lot better in a larger piece and does not dry up as much which some meat is prone to do. I do prefer to cook joints like this in the oven, or if it is a little smaller say half the size in my Rotisserie cooker which also keeps the meat nice and moist and tender. I tend to use my small cooker unless I am baking at the same time when I have both the smaller cooker and the large oven on the go. I have found the Ninja excellent for making the "Roasties" though and do tend to use that these days as it is time and energy efficient.
The next post will concentrate on how I make the gravy to accompany the dinner. Gravy can be a bit of a debate and different people add different things, but I do not seem to do too badly when it comes to a good flavoured gravy so I thought that I would share what I do in the hope that it will help you achieve the same.
Hope everyone has a lovely evening.
Catch you soon.
Pattypan
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