This is Nigella’s alternative to fillet of beef and I am making it for our dinner on Saturday night. I know that this entry will appear before that of the consommé, but trust me, there is a good reason for this, mainly involving many hundreds of hours devoted to purchasing a boiling fowl. Finally, one is on order, but whilst I wait for it, I thought I would just get on with the rest of my cooking. This weekend is probably going to be another beef marathon, as I am making this on Saturday night, cottage pie for Sunday lunch and consommé in the week. It is just the right time of year for a roast, I think. Although it is meant to be summer, here in the UK, we have seen more rain than in the midst of winter, and it just makes me want to stay indoors with a hot meal!
I must admit that although I have eaten topside roast beef before, I don’t quite know the importance of asking for the corner-cut, but, devotional to the point of obsessive, as always, I researched it and found from a butcher’s on-line website that the “…best joint for a succulent rare roast beef is a corner cut of beef.” With this information in mind, I am quite looking forward to trying it, now. As I say, I have eaten topside roast beef before, but have never tried corner-cut, and so am looking forward to trying it for the first time. Furthermore, as you know, I have been gradually opening Chris’s eyes to the joys of cooking and eating rare beef; a journey which is set to continue with this recipe as Nigella provides cooking times for “bloody” meat – my favourite. Another reason that I am looking forward to trying this recipe is that Nigella provides a recipe for gravy to make with the beef. Although this is only a recipe for “thin gravy” in Nigella’s own words; gravy, nonetheless, it is, and I am looking forward to trying a recipe for it.
Again, Nigella serves this part of a meal, with new potatoes with truffle oil, peas or a dark leaf salad and rice pudding. Once again, I have decided to serve this with roast potatoes (which my OH has kindly offered to make) and roasted asparagus (yet again!). Also, this meal is designed to serve 3, but I have decided to keep quantities the same for just the 2 of us. This makes it a lot easier, in my opinion, as it means that I don’t have to work out the weight of the joint, and can be more confident in my request to the butcher. Yes, there probably will be leftovers, but not only does Nigella gives suggestions for leftover salad, but there is nothing nicer than slabs of cold beef with horseradish sauce in a sandwich.
This, then, is a recipe for a joint of corner-cut topside of beef roasted rare in a tray with a tomato, an onion and two unpeeled garlic cloves, served with gravy made by putting the roasting dish on the hob and adding beef stock and red wine to the pan.
Ingredients: The most important ingredient is obviously the beef. As it is the focal point of the meal, it is worth going to a butcher that you know and trust. Once again, Chris and I went to W. A. Bidder & Sons; our local butcher. We were given a wonderful, big, thick, meaty piece of beef, which only cost £8.00 for the pleasure. My OH has put a link up to my local butcher. I am not sure if they do deliver, but it is worth asking them, as they really are wonderful butchers. As an aside, my dad is a Coeliac, and they also do some fresh gluten-free sausages. All other ingredients can be purchased from any supermarket; I brought mine from my mum’s local Tescos, although we did have a great deal already at home. Nigella specifies 125ml red wine. If you don’t have a bottle open, bear in mind that most supermarkets now sell little bottles of wine, specifically for cooking. I brought a small bottle of French dry wine called “Cellier.”
Price: The beef, tomato, onion and red wine totalled £10.12. However, I had no need to purchase the beef dripping, garlic cloves, beef stock, salt, pepper or sugar.
(Lovely corner-cut topside of beef- YUM!)
(Beef in roasting tray with an onion, tomato and two unpeeled garlic cloves)
Method: Basically, this is exceptionally easy to make and this is even so for the gravy, which I find notoriously difficult to make well. Firstly, one starts by pre-heating the oven with the roasting dish in it and then 5 minutes before one wishes to put the beef in, one puts in a dab of beef dripping and returns to the oven.
Then one calculates the roasting times. Following the same method as before, Nigella calculates 30 minutes per kg. Our beef was 1 ¼ kg and I calculated the roasting time to be 37minutes approximately. Our butcher once again verified this. I then simply bunged the beef in the roasting tray with one tomato, cut in half, one onion, ditto and two unpeeled garlic cloves. I must say, when the beef was removed it was the perfect texture; soft, tender and bloody – just the way I like it.
It is worth bearing in mind that Nigella says that the beef should be left to sit for 10 minutes prior to serving, which is a bonus for this recipe, as it gives ample time to make the gravy. This is a very simple process and simply involves removing the vegetables from the pan, adding beef stock and red wine, salt, pepper and sugar, allowing to bubble away for a while and then sieve into a jug. I tried to remove the tomato with a slotted spoon, which inadvertently pierced the skin and all of the tomato seeds freed themselves into the juices. Therefore, it is very important to remember to sieve the gravy! Nigella doesn’t mention how long to bubble the gravy for (I’m not sure if bubble can be used as a verb, but never mind!), but I left it for about 5 minutes, until it had slightly thickened. This is not the kind of gravy that will thicken a great deal, though, so just be aware of that fact!
(Beef out of oven; resting)
Result: This meal was absolutely lovely, but I couldn’t help thinking as I was eating it, that it just wasn’t as good as the cold roast fillet of beef. The texture of the beef was absolutely divine. The cooking method must have been ideal, as the beef really was the most perfect piece of rare beef in the world. The beef was soft, yielding, tender, very juicy and rare and absolutely gorgeous. I was looking eagerly on as my OH was slicing it, and it just had the perfect colour – ruby red in the centre. I am certainly going to use Nigella’s roasting times for beef in the future; even after I have finished this blog. It is such a useful and practical guide to have. The flavour of the beef was wonderful – it was juicy and meaty and just lovely. It was nice to eat hot roast beef after the cold fillet – it is impossible to say which temperature was “better;” better being such an elusive concept, anyway, but it was certainly nice, warming and comforting. The beef also went perfectly with the hot roast potatoes and asparagus, and although raised a vegetarian and thus not brought up with weekly roasts, eating this couldn’t help but made me feel that I should have been!
I must say, now, though, that the beef was not nearly as tender or easy to cut as the fillet. This is unsurprising as the fillet is the more expensive and tender cut. Perhaps I should have eaten the fillet after this recipe so that my expectations were not too high; but I just couldn’t help think of the tender fillet whilst I was attacking my slices of topside beef with a knife and getting nowhere fast. It was very difficult to cut – it was like trying to slice elastic – although delicious once in the mouth. I struggled so much that my OH had to search for our one and only steak knife for me. With said knife, it was much easier to eat, which made me think that we should actually invest in a set.
The gravy was very nice. It was, as Nigella said, quite thin, but the flavour was still lovely; the fat and juices from the beef were certainly discernible, as was the red wine, which highlighted the flavour of the beef even more. I certainly think that red wine and beef belong together. I didn’t drown my meal in the gravy and neither did my OH; but what I did have complimented the ruby thick slices of beef very well indeed.
(Making gravy; beef juices, beef stock and red wine).
Other person’s perspective: My OH said that this roast beef was not as good as the fillet that we had earlier in the week, but the way that it was cooked and prepared more than made up for it. He said that he loved the taste of the beef, and loved the way that it was cooked. Like me, he said that we probably did not like it as much as the fillet because it was a cheaper cut, and therefore naturally tougher. However, he is more than coming around to rare beef, and I don’t think that he would ever go back to his previous preference for well-done beef. He, like me, said that the gravy was nice, but that it was too thin and runny.
Future changes: It is probably obvious, but the main point that I would want to address is the consistency of the gravy, which was far too thin. My OH, who knows more about the technicalities of cooking than me, said that he would have added some flour to the roasting tin on the hob to keep the gravy and the beef dripping together, so that it wouldn’t separate as much. I am sure that this would kill two birds with one stone, as flour naturally thickens gravy. I would also say here that steak knives are an absolute must. I am certainly going to invest in some.
Rating: 4/5. This meal was lovely, but my OH and I would opt for the fillet every time.
Labels: Beef
