Wing Rib of Beef

One thing I've never cooked is a Sunday roast. I'm not sure why, but I think I've been a bit scared of it to be honest - I guess it could be the amount of conflicting advice about the 'best' way to do everything. But with the next cook-off being British-themed I figured I should face my fears and get some practice in.

After a bit of Googling I found a recipe by Heston Blumenthal for slow cooked wing rib of beef:

Obtain a two-bone joint of wing rib beef. The butcher helpfully part-boned this (with a giant hacksaw!) and stringed it for me.

Coat in ground nut oil and rub in plenty of salt and freshly cracked black pepper, then sear the outside of the joint. The picture above shows my unconventional technique for doing this. (I did buy a brulee torch but they omitted to tell me it didn't come with any gas, so I had no choice really).

The joint, ready for roasting. You might notice I burnt through a couple of the strings while searing it. Oops.

The recipe calls for cooking the joint at 55°C for 20 hours (yes, twenty) so I bunged this in the oven at midnight on Friday night.

After a little snooze, followed by a pop down the shops for groceries it looked like this at about 16:00 Saturday afternoon. Slow cooking it means hardly any of the juices run out and it keeps the meat moist and tender.

It came out of the oven at 20:00 Saturday, and was left to stand for half an hour while I cooked the veg. After carving it looked like the finished product above - slow cooking means there's no chemical reaction which would normally brown the meat. That's why the recipe says to blowtorch the outside to start with to get the aesthetics right.

It tasted amazing, by the way. The peppercorns added a nice spicy touch, and my "generous" carving meant the slices were more like thin steaks. I had a couple of friends over to guinea pig for me as well and they went home smiling. Yay.