I love few things more than a really good roast-beef, but being a small household, I rarely cook one myself given that it requires a decently large piece of meat. – Last year’s Christmas, I however put this favorite dish of mine on the menu, counting on the following Christmas days to consume the leftovers in the form of cold meat dishes. I opted for a slow-roasting technique, as it just brings the best result if you like your roast beef really pink through and through.

Beware of one thing: This dish requires time – like all good things! 😀

Sanni

Ingredients:

• 1.5 to 2 kg of short loin or sirloin cut of beef
• 2 tablespoons of concentrated butter
• Freshly ground pepper, salt
• Dijon mustard
• 1 leek, roughly chopped
• 2 carrots, roughly chopped
• 4-5 shallots, quartered
• 2 garlic cloves
• 4 stalks of celery, roughly chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 6-8 branches of fresh thyme
• 5-6 fresh sage leaves
• 4 branches of fresh rosemary
• 2 tablespoons of flour
• 200 ml of red wine
• 800 ml of beef stock

Preparation:

1. In a large roasting tin, let the concentrated butter melt over medium to high heat.
2. Sear the meat from all sides for around 40 seconds to 1 minute on each side.
3. Remove from the heat. Season with pepper and salt and coat with mustard.
4. Place the vegetables and herbs evenly in the roasting tin, and place the meat on top. Spread half of the rosemary and thyme on top of the beef.
5. Insert an oven-going meat thermometer into the roast and put in the oven at 80 degrees Celsius. Roast for 3-4 hours (depending on the size of the roast) until the inner temperature of the meat reaches around 55 to 57 degrees Celsius.
6. Take out the roasting tin, transfer the meat onto a different oven dish and continue to roast in the oven.
7. Place the roasting tin with the vegetables on medium heat. Mix the flour with the juices released during the cooking time, then deglaze with the red wine. Simmer and let reduce to around half.
8. Add the stock and bring to simmer. Leave to simmer for around 30 minutes until the vegetables have softened and the sauce has thickened.
9. Use a potato masher to mush up the vegetables. Then pass the mixture through a fine sieve into another pan. Continue to simmer until you obtain a good consistency, keep warm until the meat reaches an inner temperature of 60 degrees Celsius at which time you take it out of the oven.
10. Cover in foil and give it 5 minutes to rest. Then slice up the meat. Stir any juices released from the meat into he gravy.
11. Serve with the gravy, mashed or boiled potatoes and any type of vegetable.