Sunday Roast: Beef Topside

Hello lovely readers! These next couple of posts have been a very long time coming! Why the long delay? Basically, life happened. Work has been busier than I anticipated (in a good way) and my PhD work takes up a lot of my remaining time so cooking hasn't been as much of a priority. Actually, I've been cooking - it just hasn't been convenient to take the time to properly photograph or write out recipes unfortunately. I'll try to make more of an effort I promise! Also, as a side note, my previous post mentioned the food challenge I do with some of my friends every month... and promised the recipe would be up soon after. However, that month's ingredients (ham, ricotta and tofu) combined to a not so appealing lasagne so I thought I'd save you all from that. This month's ingredients are tuna, cheddar and onions so I'll be trying to think outside the tuna melt shaped box... 

Ready to roast!

Anyway, moving on! This recipe was my first ever attempt at a Sunday beef roast and I have to admit I was a little scared of it. In the past if I wanted to make a roast dinner, I always opted for roasting a whole chicken because it's pretty simple and offers lots of great leftovers. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how equally simple this beef topside was. The only slightly fiddly bit is figuring out when it's cooked to your liking but luckily my lovely friends Laure and Eurydice were content with the slightly pink but mostly well done version we ended up with.

Finished product lined up with the other offerings

I had a quick look around the internet for cooking tips and finally ended up merging a few simple recipies that included mainly salt, pepper and olive oil. I like the idea of roasting meat on top of vegetables so I threw in some carrots and onions since that's what I had on hand. The key to this recipe is really just the cooking time. Everything else takes care of itself. Perfect! We served this along side your usual Sunday roast options: red cabbage, honey glazed carrots and parsnips, yorkshire puddings (unashamedly store bought!), mashed potatoes and a store bought gravy jazzed up with some caramelized onions. I think it was on the whole a pretty successful evening and I'm looking forward to trying more of these roasts at home! Finally, a good tip is to remove the beef from the refrigerator 20-30 minutes before you want to roast it so that it can come up to room temperature. 

Ready to eat!

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: Varies

Serves: 4

Ingredients: 

Beef Topside (weight will vary)
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Carrots
Onions
(assorted other vegetables)
Large roasting tin

Method: 

Preheat the oven to 230C/

Cut the vegetables into large pieces and place in the bottom of the roasting tin. Next drizzle the beef with the olive oil and liberally season with the salt and pepper. Place the meat on top of the vegetables and place into the preheated oven.

After 20 minutes, turn the oven down to 170C and continue roasting depending on the following:

- 12-15 minutes per 500g for medium rare
- 20 minutes per 500g for medium well

My roast was nearly 1,000g so my total cooking time was 50 minutes. After removing from the oven, leave the rest for 20 minutes while you finish up the other dishes. Enjoy!