Cooking TipsHow To Cook Perfect Roast Beef ?
There is no great secret to cooking the perfect roast - just a bit of knowledge, the right tools, and the patience to let you meat rest after cooking and you"ll find that it"s actually hard to go wrong.
The are two sections below and you will only need one of them, depending on the size of your cut of meat. Once you start getting above 5kg (11 lb) you need to accept that things will be slower as it takes time for the heat to penetrate to the centre and cook the meat and yet you don"t want to burn the outside of your roast.
One further piece of advice; go and buy a probe thermometer. You"ve probably seen them - they look like a steel meat skewer with a dial or digital thermometer face on the end. They range from $10-$80 in Australia so you should be able to squeeze them into virtually any budget.
Why do you need one ? Easy, they give you much more control by knowing what the actual temperature inside the thickest part of the meat is, rather than guessing or, even worse, cutting into the meat to see if it"s cooked.
The instructions below are written so that you can get by quite well without a probe thermometer, but if you"re going to reach the pinnacle of roast meat on a regular basis, eventually you"re going to want one.
OK, let"s get into it;
For Cuts/Joints Up To 5Kg (11 lb)
* Preheat your BBQ or oven to 220°C (428°F) * While the BBQ/oven is coming up to temperature, using your hands, rub olive oil all over the meat. It doesn"t need to be dripping off, just a thin film all over. * Sprinkle salt and ground black pepper over the meat, and if the urge takes you, rub that in as well ! * Put the meat into a roasting pan if you haven"t already, then put the meat into the BBQ/oven if it"s up to temperature * Roast for 30 minutes at 220°C (428°F) * Reduce oven temperature to 160 °C (320°F) and continue to roast for: o Rare - 20 minutes per Kg (9 minutes per pound) o Medium - 30 minutes per Kg (14 minutes per pound) o Well Done - 40 minutes per Kg (18 minutes per pound)
* Turn off the BBQ and rest the meat for 20-30 minutes before carving
For Cuts/Joints Over 5Kg (11 lb)
* Preheat your BBQ to 220°C (428°F) * While the BBQ/oven is coming up to temperature, using your hands, rub olive oil all over the meat. It doesn"t need to be dripping off, just a thin film all over. * Sprinkle salt and ground black pepper over the meat, and if the urge takes you, rub that in as well ! * Put the meat into a roasting pan if you haven"t already, then put the meat into the BBQ/oven if it"s up to temperature. * Roast for 40 minutes at 220°C (428°F) * Reduce oven temperature to 160 °C (320°F) and continue to roast for: o Rare - 18 minutes per Kg (8 minutes per pound) o Medium - 24 minutes per Kg (11 minutes per pound) o Well Done - 36 minutes per Kg (16 minutes per pound)
* Turn off the BBQ/oven and rest the meat for 20 minutes before carving.
Use this reference table if you have a thermometer probe, checking in the thickest part of the meat;
Blue - 49°C (120°F) Rare - 52°C (125°F) Med-Rare - 57°C (135°F) Medium - 63°C (145°F) Med-Well - 68°C (155°F) Well Done - 76°C (170°F)
OK, that"s everything you need to know.