COOKING LESSON: Roast Beef with Potatoes and Garlic

I love to teach. What a wonderful way to spend a Sunday. Teaching cooking is always a pleasure. Especially when you those learning take their first bite and it's come out PERFECT!

Enter Miss Dana. She'd had a run in with a roast beef when she was first married... and she lost the hard rubbery fight. It's been four years since she had let a roast beef enter her oven.

Today it was time to thrown off the gloves, shake off the fear and get down to the meaty gritty.

I had no worry that with a little encouragement and a few tricks, she'd make one heck of a roast.

She certainly didn't disappoint!! Look at THIS:

The Roast Beef was cooked PERFECTLY. Thin slivers of garlic slipped in on all sides... potatoes and garlic roasted to equal perfection and the juices, Wow!

The roast was served with an easy and spicy chimichurri sauce and a salad.

Dessert was a basic "what fruit have you got" crumble.

Rating for the meal? An A of course!! Her husband is thrilled to have the possibility of the return of MEAT to his house again.

I know she's already made the crumble again. I may make it today for the folks coming by tonight. Let's see... what do I have left in my coffers?

Printable version of Recipe

The Perfect Roast Beef

Ingredients:

boneless beef roast (we used eye round): 3-4lbs (we used 4lbs)
olive oil
garlic (1-2 heads plus)
salt
pepper

cotton kitchen twine

meat thermometer

Preheat oven to 250°F degrees.

Rub olive oil, salt & pepper into the roast. Tie up the roast with kitchen twine lengthwise first then in rings about 1" apart using the butchers knot. Your goal is to tie the roast so that it's an even size around for even cooking.

Cut slits in roast every 1.5" and slip slices of garlic into slits. Do this on all sides of the roast.

Ideally, you can use a roasting pan that goes stove top to oven and sear the roast then roast in oven in the same pan. Miss Dana had not yet invested in a roasting pan, so we roasted the tied beef in a frying pan on the stove top, searing roast on all sides, and transferred the roast to a 9"x13" pan that we had sprayed a little cooking spray into.

Place the meat thermometer into the roast so the tip will be in the center-most part.

Next you will add the potatoes/garlic around roast (see below.)

Cook until a meat thermometer registers 110°F. (Approx. 45min-1hr)

Once it reaches that temperature, increase oven temperature to 500°F degrees. Do not take the roast out while the temperature rises in the oven.

Cook until the meat thermometer registers 120°F - degrees for Medium rare (approx. 10-20 minutes more.) NOTE: Watch the temperature on the meat thermometer. It will rise faster than you will expect now that the temperature is at 500°F. An internal temperature of 130°F = Medium and so on.) BEWARE: The meat will continue to cook as it rests. ALWAYS rest your meat to allow the juices to settle back into the meat or you will have some very dry bits. (Same goes for poultry, pork, lamb, goat...)

Transfer only the beef to platter. Tent with foil and rest 20-30 minutes.

While the meat rests, reduce oven temperature to 350°F.

Shake pan still containing potatoes and garlic to distribute evenly and return to oven. Cook 20-30 minutes further until a fork

inserted into the potatoes inserts with ease.

Slice beef. Add potatoes to the platter and enjoy with the Chimichurri Sauce (see photo.)


Roast Potatoes & Garlic

Ingredients:
1-1.5 lbs small to medium red potatoes

2 heads of garlic, whole cloves
rosemary
thyme
olive oil
salt & pepper

Cut red potatoes into quarters (or halves depending on how large they are to start with) and place in bowl. Peel whole cloves of garlic and add to bowl. Chop rosemary (discarding tough center stem.) Slip the leaves off of the thyme stems and give a quick chop.

Drizzle olive oil over along with salt & pepper. Toss to coat all evenly and add to roasting pan around the roast.

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