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Food and Drink

Celebrating the roast beast
glendabyline

Raconteur, eccentric, socialite, gastronome and all-round practical woman extraordinaire, M.F.K. Fisher once remarked that her idea of being rich was having a whole roast chicken in the fridge.

I’d second that and add that there’s something luxurious about having a cold roast anything — lamb, pork, beef, whatever — on hand, to be picked at and sliced on anytime, particularly by the light of the fridge at 1 a.m.

Now that the annual roast turkey or two is long gone, a reminder about the goodness and ease of roast meats is warranted, especially for those of a certain age.

Once upon a generation or two ago in the WASPier sectors of Canada, a cozy Sunday dinner without the family gathered round a hearty roast beef or pork complete with gravy and a side dish of roast potatoes, carrots, celery, onion and maybe even a parsnip or two would have been unheard of.

Roasting a roast on Sunday meant a house filled with goodness and warmth, metaphorically and otherwise, and, for the moms who did most of the meal planning, cruising all week: Leftover roast beef dinner on Monday, roast beef — or roast beast, as some used to tease — sandwiches for bagged lunches, and, as the week wore on, bits of beef in gravy served over mashed potatoes or toast.

Hot roast beef sandwiches — a slurry of beef slices piled on white bread   and swimming in rich brown gravy — were a staple of the best corner diner. Some might say it was a rather ignoble fate for roasted meat, once considered by the French and English to be the centrepiece of any feast.

But times and food fashions evolve, and I’d bet my best sandwich bread that most people out there under the age of, say, 25 barely know how to roast a roast, never mind make gravy.

Roast anything isn’t difficult. Covered pan, uncovered, low oven, high — there are as many approaches as there are moms and cuts of meat. So with help from two expert roasters — Grant Cousar, co-owner of Whistler Cooks and Eric Bamberry, Nesters Market butcher — we’ll share a few of them here.

Essentially, roasting means cooking meat in a way that preserves the internal juices. Of course, the original method was on a spit, likely a sword, over an open fire and, if you’ve ever been to a lamb or pig roast, you’ll know how good that is. But now we’ve learned to roast by radiant heat, that is to say in the oven, which most of us have along with a pan of some sort.

First thing — choose a meat or fowl you’ll enjoy. Eric points out that preferences usually line up culturally, with French-Canadians going for roast pork, Aussies and Kiwis for lamb, WASPish Canucks for beef, and people like me and M.F.K. Fisher, roast chicken. (A 350-degree oven, 20 minutes per pound of bird rubbed with thyme and garlic, the breast salted and peppered, in a small, covered, dented, 50-cent-garage-sale black enamel roasting pan with a few chunks of onions, carrot and celery, and out comes a golden, savory chicken you can slice up anytime. How easy is that?)

But older cookbooks point out how limited our choices have become. Roast quail, anyone? (10-12 minutes in the oven, 12-15 on the spit); grouse, 20-25 minutes on the spit, 15-18 in the oven; pintail, and there are a few out on the water right now, pigeon, pheasant, blackbird, teal — all were once candidates for the roaster. Even Ernest Hemingway survived one tough, pre-fame season in Paris by catching and roasting fat pigeons that frequented a particular park.

Even given the above, Grant’s roast of choice would be a nice beef rib-eye roast, no smaller than three pounds, with a bit of fat on it for flavour, preferably a deep, rich red-purple colour, which means it’s been well-aged, ergo very tender.

Pre-heat your oven to 275 degrees. Rub the outside with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic as you like, or finely chopped herbs like thyme or tarragon. On the stovetop, place your heaviest-bottomed pot — a cast-iron skillet will do. Turn on the fan and open the windows because you’re going to sear this roast on high, for a minute or two on each side until it’s lightly browned.

“When you put some fat or oil on the outside, the more likely you are to get a really hot temperature to sear that roast as opposed to just kind of boiling and graying it,” explains Grant.

Next, put your rib-eye into a roasting pan — anything ovenproof, even a baking sheet will do. Don’t cover it, but do put it on a base of a couple of handfuls of diced carrots, onions and celery.

Grant’s method uses a meat thermometer. Check it after the first hour; after it reaches 100 degrees it will cook quickly. Remove your rib-eye roast when it hits 120 degrees, and let it rest for half an hour under the cover of tin foil. It will be rare inside, but as it rests the heat will continue to cook it to a nice medium-rare/medium. Then gather up friends or family, slice and enjoy.

Eric agrees there’s more than one way to roasting paradise, but his first choice is a nice prime rib. Look for marbling and, again, a deep purple-red colour. For each person you’ll need eight ounces of meat, prior to cooking.

Unlike Grant, Eric just drizzles a wee bit of olive oil over the top and sprinkles on crushed garlic, sea salt and pepper. Then take a fork and stab the top all over and put your prime rib, uncovered, in a pre-heated, 450-degree oven for 15 minutes. Turn it down to 325 degrees, and cook it 15 minutes per pound. The result: a perfect prime rib, medium-rare/medium in the middle and medium-well/well done on the outside.

“The top crusts and it seals the juices so they can’t come out, so it cooks evenly through the whole piece of meat,” Eric says.

While your roast is in the oven, you can throw in some potatoes to bake, whip up a salad and still have time to catch up on some reading or just veg out on the couch.

Is your mouth watering in anticipation of the fabulous dinner and leftovers you’ll have? Then hop down to your grocery store. If you’re still confused, butchers like Eric are happy to help you on your way to your own really good roast.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer with a cold roast pork stashed in her fridge. Contact her at gbartosh@telus.net.