My "Top Roasting Tips" or how to make the most of your Sunday roast

All this blogging about cooking has led me to reflect on how it is I cook, and what goes up here as opposed to what doesn't. I've become aware that an awful lot of what I do when I cook is instinctive, all the little tweaks and shortcuts that I just do because I know they'll improve the dish, so they probably never get talked about. I thought I'd try to rectify this by creating my own personal list of what I think is essential when trying to create a good Sunday roast.

This is probably not complete - I guess I can always come back and add more - but I've tried to make it chronological at least, so these are the things I think you need to be worrying about when you think about your roast.

1. Buy Good Quality Meat
   This has to be top of the list. More than absolutely everything else this is the number one factor that will make or break your finished meal, as without a good piece of meat to start with you're never going to have a good finished product. Don't confuse good with expensive either - some of the most fab cuts are wonderfully cheap (e.g. shin of beef) - you just need to know how to cook them.
2. Don't Roast it Straight from Cold
   Roasts are almost always big pieces of meat, and if you take them out of the fridge and put them straight in the oven then meat in the middle of the joint is going to heat up much slower than that on the outside. Sometimes this can be a benefit - perhaps you want to keep the middle of a joint of beef very rare - but personally I always find it best to take the meat out at least an hour (sometimes longer - depends on the meat) and leave it to get up to room temperature. Don't fret too much about it going bad - an hour or so won't hurt (though don't leave it anywhere warm like on a radiator!) and you'll get a better end product.
3. Season Well Before Roasting
   Seasoning is always critical, and this applies just as much to roasts as anything else. You can be quite generous with the salt & pepper. Do make sure you do the inside of poultry and rolled pieces if you can, but don't over do it on pork crackling or it'll be over salted. Also, don't salt early - it'll start to leech juices out of the meat. Do it just before the meat goes into the oven.
4. Know Your Oven!
   You don't necessarily need a great oven for a great roast, but you do need to know what you've got. Some ovens create temperatures that are widely different to what they display or what their controls suggest, so if you're in any doubt over your own oven check it with an oven thermometer. You never know, all those apparent failures may have been the oven's fault and not yours at all!
5. Hot Then Cool
   Many cooks use this technique, and though I deviate from it quite frequently (with slow roasts and spit roasting in particular) it's still the one I do most often. Basically you start the roast off at a high temperature for a short time to start crisping up the outside and force heat into the meat, and then turn it down for the rest of cooking so you don't burn the outisde and the heat gradually permeates through and cooks evenly.
6. It's Done When It's Done
   At the end of the day a roast is ready when it's ready, all you can do with timing and temperatures is try and get some sort of reliable guide as to when. There are lots of ways of checking when meat is ready, a thermometer apparently being the best (though personally I've never used one). For chicken and pork it's the juices running clear when you pierce the thickest piece of meat, for lamb and beef it's pretty much whenever it's gets to the stage you like it at! All I'm saying here is don't just assume it's ready- at least don't be a slave to the timing.
7. Rest the Meat
   Resting is crucial. In fact if I was ordering these by priority then this would be number two after the quality of the meat. Resting allows the meat to 'relax', and ensures that the juices flow back from their excited states back into the fibres where you want them, creating a tender juicy mouthful. All joints could do with 20 minutes or so - large joints even more. Do make sure that you rest somewhere warm - not hot, not cold, but warm. Still in the oven is OK, provided the door is open a little to let some heat out, but you'll need the pan it was roasting on to ...
8. Deglaze for Gravy
   Gravy has been many peoples bugbear, mine included, but no longer. Here's what I do. Once the meat is out of the pan and resting somewhere get rid of most of the fat from the pan (if it's good fat, like beef, then keep it aside for other cooking) and put the pan back on the heat on top of the stove. Add some liquid, and scrape up all the good stuff in the pan into the liquid, and reduce till you get to the consistency you like. That's it. If you like a thick gravy leave a little fat in the pan and stir some flour into it and cook it a little before you add the liquid (a little at a time). If you want to include some other flavours use wine, port, stock, water from vegetables, anything really in place of plain old water, or stir in some mustard, fruit jelly, whatever you fancy, but basic gravy is really quite straightforward.
9. Serve on Warm Plates/Dishes
   Nobody wants to eat food so hot they get burnt, but the problem with roasts is often the opposite - what with resting and all the other mucking about the food can be too cool by the time it hits the table. To get around this you really do need to warm your plates beforehand, and by warm I actually mean quite hot. You don't want the meat to sizzle when you put it on (and believe me I've done that a few times!) but you do want them practically too hot to handle.

Well there are my thoughts on what makes a good roast - love to hear what tips and tricks others have to share!

Spit-roast shoulder of lamb, stuffed with soft cheese and tomato

Been meaning to try another spit-roast lamb, but this time decided to go for shoulder as the leg ended up a little dry. I tend to prefer shoulder anyhow - personally I think it has a better flavour.

I bought one already rolled, but undid it and coated the inside with first a layer of soft herby cheese from Cornwall and then some tomato sauce - basically just a tin of tomatoes I'd cooked down to a thick paste and then flavoured with Oregano. Why this combination? Well, the cheese we'd bought we didn't reckon was too great by itself, but I thought it would work out great in a finished dish.


Lamb rolled out with soft cheese ...



... and now with the herby tomato sauce added as well


The whole thing was rolled back up again and then into the oven on the spit - hot for 20 minutes to get it going and then low for another hour and half or so as I like my lamb well done. Popped a tray underneath so catch the juices for gravy.


Ready to go into the oven


And the result? Well it did get a little overdone on the outside - almost charcoal in some places! - but that was to be expected given the cheesy mixture going everywhere.


A little dark perhaps!


Good flavour overall either way, and it wasn't actually burnt, just dark. B liked it better than me to be honest - personally I thought you lost too much of the lamb itself with all the other strong flavours, but I wouldn't kick it out of bed, so to speak.


The finished dish - and in the sun for once!


The runner beans are our own (with a little help from a colleague - a mole problem, don't ask) and the potatoes were from my Dad. They were leftovers cold in the fridge which I threw in the oven once the meat had come out. Turned into mini roasties with half the hassle, so that's worth noting all by itself.

And the lamb leftovers? Well they're down stairs at the moment - lamb has been minced up and fried off to give it some sweet caramelisation, some more tinned tomato and cheese has gone in, as well as some red onion, garlic, white wine and rosemary and it's about to be dinner with some pasta (and probably lunch tomorrow as well). Actually it's about to be dinner for several nights in a row - I swear I've made enough for about 10 people at least!

Cheap Eats: Why big roasts give you big flavour and big value

I know I've gone on before about the value of a good roast over buying bits and pieces of meat, or heaven forbid some instant meal, but I thought I'd expand a little on my point. 

The reason I started this blog was because I tend to roast a large piece of meat on a Sunday, in true English style, and then use whatever is leftover for food for the rest of the week. Nothing exactly unusual about that - hell, my grans (were they still about) would be surprised if I didn't - but it doesn't seem as common as it used to be.

I reckon I can sum it up in a few points as to why big roasts are a great choice, especially given the current financial climate:

• By buying a big roast you're getting lots of different bits of meat in one package, so you get variation in flavours and textures just from one piece. 
• Buying a larger piece is just about always better value than buying separate smaller pieces, as you're not paying for someone to do the work involved in cutting bits up.
• Making things with the leftovers saves you loads of time - the meat is already cooked, so you can usually turn around dinners during the week in about half an hour or so using leftovers.
  
• The value is amazing - I reckon I only spend at most £1 on meat per meal per person, and that's not some sort of supermarket value meat (like some poor bastard chicken from a huge hen house) but good quality meat from local farms

So to do we do with leftovers to make it stretch so far? Here are some examples:

Chicken

Breast meat is lovely in sandwiches of course, but also great in salads.

The thigh & leg makes wonderful curries.

Just about everything from a chicken can go into a risotto!

Stuffed pancakes or stronganoff - just add some slow cooked onions and mushrooms, a little creme fraiche and you've got a really tasty sauce for just about anything.

Rib of Beef
The rare middle is used for sandwiches or turned it into little steaks.
Tender bits between the ribs themselves can be used for things like salads.
Tougher bits like the meat on top are cut into centimetre cubes and frozen ready for curries or stews.
Anything else left over is minced up and turned into cottage pie or bolognese.


Making curry from leftover rib of beef

Spare Rib

Makes great Schintzel's, tend to have more flavour than the real thing I reckon.

Cubed meat is great for curries again, or pork casseroles.

Shoulder of Lamb

Probably my favourite. I like cubes of it cooked in with rice. You fry up a little onion and garlic in big pieces, add the rice and the lamb and toss around a bit, then in goes twice the amout of water as rice, a little salt, and seal for about twenty minutes until rice is tender. Comfort food!

Also good for curries (reading this you'd think I live off curry!).

Anyhow - enough for now. Just one more thing though - bones! I always try to get meat on the bone, as they make such great stock once you've got the meat off. That stock can be used for soup straight away, but also adds loads more flavour when used for all the dishes above (well, except for sandwiches perhaps).