• Home
    • About us
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact Us
      • Why Best Sunday Roast?
      • How do we score?
  • Friends of Best Sunday Roast
    • Non-Sunday lunch review sites
  • Gourmet Society Card Promotional Code

Best Sunday Roast

Looking for a Best Sunday Roast in London, Kent or in South East? Find a new favourite Sunday lunch pub here

  • Deals
    • Gourmet Society Card – Promo Code & 3 month trial
    • Whittard of Chelsea special offer, voucher codes and information
    • Twinnings Special Offers, Voucher Codes and info
  • Reviews
    • * Top Rated Reviews
    • Berkshire
      • Marlow
      • Reading
    • Buckinghamshire
      • Gerrards Cross
      • Iver
    • Coventry
      • Bulkington
    • East Sussex
      • Brighton
      • Hastings
      • Rye
    • Essex
      • South Ockendon
    • Hampshire
      • Eversley
    • Herefordshire
      • Upton Bishop
    • Kent
      • Ashford
      • Bexley
      • Bromley
      • Canterbury
      • Dartford
      • Dover
      • Hythe
      • Medway Towns & Maidstone
      • Romney Marsh
      • Royal Tunbridge Wells
      • Sevenoaks
      • Westerham
      • West Malling
    • London
      • Bethnal Green
      • Brent
      • Camberwell
      • Central London
      • Chiswick
      • Dulwich
      • Ealing
      • Greenwich
      • Hanwell
      • Holland Park
      • Islington
      • Kensal
      • Lambeth
      • Lewisham
      • Notting Hill
      • Shoreditch
      • Southwark
      • Tower Hamlets
    • Middlesex
      • Brentford
      • Greenford
      • Slough
      • Staines
    • Oxon
      • Burford
    • Surrey
      • Godstone
      • Guildford
      • Ockham
      • Redhill
    • Suffolk
      • Ipswich
    • West Berkshire
      • Newbury
  • Recipes
    • Roast Beef – Hairy Bikers Adaptation
    • Roast Chicken – Lemon & Garlic
Home > Recipes > Roast Beef – from the Hairy Bikers’ Family Cookbook

Roast Beef – from the Hairy Bikers’ Family Cookbook

March 22, 2013 By John

The finished roast beef, with honey roasted carrots, parsnips and beetroot, roast potatoes, runner beans and flower sprouts

I decided to give the Hairy Bikers’ Family Cookbook Roast Beef recipe a go, with some adaptations.

Ingredients:

1Kg beef joint (try to buy organic if your budget stretches, much better for both you and the animal)
1 teaspoon of mustard powder
Dried rosemary
Crushed garlic
Freshly grated horseradish (optional)
Salt and pepper
Olive Oil (get mild and light, it has a higher smoking point which means you can cook with it)
1 carrot, chopped
1 onion, halved
2 small glasses of good quality red wine (one for the gravy, and one for the chef!)
1 dessert spoon of cornflower
Beef stock
Meat thermometer (ideally, but optional)

Ingredients for the roast beef recipe
Ingredients for the roast beef recipe

First thing to do is get the beef up to room temperature – so, leave the meat on the side for an hour or so.  Turn on the oven to 220 degrees, to get it ready for the joint.  Then, use kitchen roll to get ride of any “shine”.

Rub the olive oil over the meat, giving it a good coat.  Then, heat up a frying pan to a high temperature and slap the meat in.  Turn/roll the meat so that each side is “browned”, make sure you don’t burn it though.

Beef joint browning in frying pan
Beef joint browning in frying pan

Once it’s finished transfer to a plate.  Mix the mustard powder, salt, pepper, rosemary and horseradish together, then rub all over the beef joint.

Put the carrot and onion in a roasting tin (I used a pyrex dish), poring in water to reach about 5mm deep.  Put the roast beef in the tin, push the meat thermometer into the middle of the meat and put in the oven for 30 minutes.

Roast beef in the oven!
Roast beef in the oven!

After this time, decrease to 160 degrees, and cook for the time below (I actually cooked mine for 25 minutes to get medium rare).

160 degrees at the following times:
20 mins / kg – rare
25 mins / kg – medium rare
30 mins / kg – medium
35 mins / kg – medium – well
40 mins / kg – well done

The Hairy Bikers’ cookbook also has a table of temperature guides for beef (see below).  They say that the beef should be taken out of the oven when the thermometer registers 10 degrees below that level, to then “rest” in a warm place for 15 minutes – and the temperature would reach the desired level.  My thermometer has beef at medium rare around 70 degrees, and keeping it in the oven for the time period they list put the needle in 60 degrees, 10 below the desired level on my one…

Temperature Guide: Beef
Rare: 45 degrees
Medium Rare: 50 degrees
Medium: 60 degrees
Medium well done: 68 degrees
Well done: 72 degrees

If you are cooking potatoes etc in the same oven, then put the meat tin perhaps in the (upper) grill section, or even just on top of the oven (where it’s a bit warm).  As we have two ovens, I actually turned the heat off and kept the oven door open (with the tin inside).

Vegetables, ready to be smashed into gravy
Vegetables, ready to be smashed into gravy

Next, home-made gravy.  Pour away some of the fat from the roasting tin, then put on the hob and add a glass of wine.  Leave it to boil for a minute or two.  Add the cornflower in with some beef stock.  Add the rest of the beef stock, then the cornflour mix.  They then say to mash the veg and add any juices from the meat – when mashing, make sure you have a good “masher”, the handle came down on mine which meant the gravy went ALL over the kitchen!  Considering I spilt a whole glass of red wine the night before on the sofa, I wasn’t having much luck with wine as of late :-)

Roast beef, cooked and waiting for carving
Roast beef, cooked and waiting for carving
Roast beef, carved and ready for eating!
Roast beef, carved and ready for eating!

Carve the meat into thin slices (I personally purchased an electric carving knife, the meat I was carving wasn’t going very far because of too thick a slice), sprinkle over the freshly grated horseradish over the beef.  Add any potatoes, vegetables, yorkshire pudding etc.  Strain the gravy, and pour over the roast… and voilà!

The finished roast beef, with honey roasted carrots, parsnips and beetroot, roast potatoes, runner beans and flower sprouts
The finished roast beef, with honey roasted carrots, parsnips and beetroot, roast potatoes, runner beans and flower sprouts

My thoughts on the recipe – the beef was very tender and cooked medium rare through quite a bit of it.  It was the first time I had made gravy, I didn’t realise quite how simple it was!  The gravy came out very nicely and I am not sure if I would actually change anything with this…

Click here to buy the Mum Knows Best: Hairy Bikers’ Family Cookbook from Amazon UK.

Rating:5 out of 5 plates

Share the love of a Sunday lunch!

About Best Sunday Roast

Welcome to Best Sunday Roast. We anonymously review roast dinners and post our findings on here. We are aiming to cover the whole of the UK at some point, currently have Sunday lunch reviews in London, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Coventry, Essex, Hampshire and Oxon. These include Bromley, Chiswick, Ealing, Guildford, Islington, Notting Hill and West Malling. Remember to check out our deals with the Gourmet Society Card promotional code - well worth it if you dine out often!
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Twitter
Roast Beef - The Swan, West Malling in Kent

The Swan, West Malling

The George & Dragon, Chipstead in Sevenoaks

The George & Dragon, Chipstead

The Crown & Castle, Orford in Woodbridge, Suffolk

The Crown & Castle, Orford in Woodbridge

Tags

Afternoon Tea beach Birthday Carvery Celebration Central London Christmas Country Inn Dog Friendly Easter Easter Sunday East London Elite Pub Group Family Friendly Fathers Day Garden Gastropub Great Value home made cooking Hotel Hotel du Vin group Lunch With Friends Manor House Mothers Day North London North West London Pub Recommended Restaurant Restaurant review in East Sussex Restaurant Reviews in Kent Restaurant Reviews in London Review Roast Suitable for Vegetarians Romantic Silver Service South East London Special Occasion Tea Room The Gourmet Society Card accepted Top Rated top rated restaurant Unusual Location West London Youngs Brewery

Have a read…

  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • How Do We Score
  • Why Best Sunday Roast?
  • Friends of Best Sunday Roast
  • Gourmet Society Card Voucher Code
  • Twinings Special Offer
  • Whittard of Chelsea Special Offer

Recent Reviews

  • Malmaison, Charterhouse Square in Farringdon
  • The George, Egerton
  • Island Restaurant at Holiday Inn, Brentford
  • Eden @ Pinewood Hotel, Slough
  • The Poacher and Partridge, Tudeley
  • Bistro at Hotel Du Vin, Brighton
  • The Perryvale, Forest Hill
  • The Oxford, Whitstable
  • The Swan, West Malling
  • The George & Dragon, Chipstead

Tags

Afternoon Tea beach Birthday Carvery Celebration Central London Christmas Country Inn Dog Friendly Easter Easter Sunday East London Elite Pub Group Family Friendly Fathers Day Garden Gastropub Great Value home made cooking Hotel Hotel du Vin group Lunch With Friends Manor House Mothers Day North London North West London Pub Recommended Restaurant Restaurant review in East Sussex Restaurant Reviews in Kent Restaurant Reviews in London Review Roast Suitable for Vegetarians Romantic Silver Service South East London Special Occasion Tea Room The Gourmet Society Card accepted Top Rated top rated restaurant Unusual Location West London Youngs Brewery

Copyright © 2022 - Best Sunday Roast