Tag: Roast beef

Leftover roast beef with spaghetti and tomato sauce

Leftover roast beef with spaghetti and tomato sauce for want of a better name!

Last night I made dinner with a slow cook family roast (beef).  

Tonight I’m using some of the leftover meat with spaghetti and a tomato sauce.

Leftover roast beef with spaghetti and tomato sauce

Ingredients

  • Leftover roast beef
  • Spaghetti
  • Iodised salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • Cooking sherry
  • Olive oil
  • Butter
  • White onion (diced)
  • Garlic
  • Red chilli flakes
  • Mutti tomatoes
  • Dried oregano
  • Basil leaves
  • Capers
  • Black olives (pitted)
  • Pickled jalapeño peppers (chopped)
  • Spring onions (sliced)
  • Provolone cheese (grated)
  • Nutmeg
  • Broccoli (steamed)

Instructions

Spaghetti

  1. I cooked the spaghetti early in the afternoon to induce resistant starch production to improve my microbiota.
  2. Bring some salted water to a rolling boil.
  3. Add the dried spaghetti and cook for the time recommended on the packet.
  4. Scoop about a cup of the starchy pasta water for adding to the tomato sauce.
  5. Drain the spaghetti, and then put it into a bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic film, and place it into the refrigerator.
  6. When it’s time to reheat the spaghetti, remove the bowl from the fridge, remove the plastic film, and add the cold spaghetti to the developed tomato-based sauce.

Leftover roast beef

  1. Remove one of the containers of leftover meat and choose one or two of the muscle bundles.
  2. Cut the meat across the muscle bundle’s grain to ensure tenderness when you place your meat in your mouth. You’ll find because the beef was a slow cook family roast, the meat will lose its integrity when stirred through the tomato sauce. The loss of muscular cohesion is a good thing.

Tomato-based sauce

  1. In a stainless steel skillet, gently sweat some onion, garlic, and red chilli flakes in butter and olive oil. I don’t like to aggressively sweat onion and garlic, because I don’t want the onion and garlic to impart a burnt flavour.
  2. Turn up the heat to make some fond, i.e., the brown stuff that sticks to the pan’s bottom.
  3. Deglaze the fond with some cooking sherry.
  4. Add the tin of Mutti tomatoes and bring it to a simmer.
  5. Add in the oregano leaves, basil leaves, capers, olives, and pickled jalapeño peppers.
  6. Cook for a few minutes while everyone gets to know one another in the skillet.
  7. It’s now time to put the cold spaghetti into the sauce.
  8. Stir the spaghetti through so the sauce coats and adheres to the surface of the pasta.
  9. Add in the slices of meat and stir through, so the skillet contents all get to know one another intimately.
  10. Add in the saved cold pasta water to help thicken the sauce a little.
  11. Turn off the heat and add a couple of nudges of butter and stir through.

Plating up

  1. Transfer the skillet contents into a shallow bowl.
  2. Add some grated provolone cheese.
  3. Add some freshly grated nutmeg using a Microplane.
  4. Serve the steamed broccolini as a side dish in the style of my BFF.

Final thoughts

  1. How would you name this meal?
  2. Did you know the brown stuff that forms on the bottom of a pan is called fond?
  • Leftover beef and dripping
  • Leftover roast beef with spaghetti and tomato sauce
  • Leftover roast beef with spaghetti and tomato sauce
  • Leftover roast beef with spaghetti and tomato sauce

Slow cook Family Roast

Slow cook Family Roast

I wasn’t sure what to cook today. It’s a colder day and overcast with some poor weather in Sydney.

At Coles, I saw some short ribs, and then I saw what I assume is an eye fillet roll.

Slow cook roast beef in packaging
Slow cook roast beef in packaging

Ingredients

  • Slow cook family roast (1.5 kilograms of meat)
  • Carrots (diced)
  • Onions (chopped)
  • Celery (sliced)
  • Beef stock (1 Litre)
  • Cooking sherry (1 cup)
  • Mustard powder (2 teaspoons)
  • Worcestershire sauce (2 tablespoons)
  • Brussels sprouts (halved)
  • Horseradish cream
  • Broccolini
  • Baby green peas

Instructions

Meat instructions slow cook family roast

  1. Heat your oven to about 150 °C.
  2. Unwrap your meat from its tight plastic coating.
  3. Dry your meat with absorbent kitchen paper.
  4. Season your meat with lots of iodised salt and freshly ground black pepper.
  5. Prepare your carrots, onions, and celery and place them into the bottom of a large casserole.
  6. Place your seasoned meat onto the bed of carrots, onions, and celery.
  7. Pour in the litre of beef stock as well as the cooking sherry and Worcestershire sauce. 
  8. Add in the mustard powder.
  9. Place the lid on the casserole and put it into the oven for four hours.
  10. After four hours, remove the lid from the casserole and continue to cook for 45 minutes.
  11. Add the halved Brussels sprouts to the casserole around your meat and atop the hot fat rendering from your piece of meat.
  12. After 45 minutes, remove the casserole from the oven and rest your meat. Because your meat will be firm with heat, you want your meat to relax and loosen up for that perfect mouthfeel of fatty, juicy and moist meat on your tongue.
  13. Lift your meat from the casserole and place it into a shallow bowl and cover with aluminium foil for 15 minutes.
  14. Remove the Brussels sprouts and place them into another bowl.
  15. Once your meat has rested, dissect it along the muscle planes. Place the large muscle bundles into plastic containers for the refrigerator for future meals. 
  16. Place half of the Brussels sprouts into plastic containers, too, for future meals.
  17. Leave aside the fat cap, which has become crunchy on top during the final 45 minutes of cooking. You’ll notice the fat has rendered, and the remaining connective tissue has become crispy. The fat cap meat may be cooked well-done, but because of the amount of fat and the loose muscle fibre structure, this meat is not only tender but delicious.

Vegetable instructions for the slow cook family roast

  1. Wash the broccolini and then saute in a skillet.
  2. Add the frozen baby green peas to the same skillet and some of the fatty meat liquid from the casserole and put a lid on the skillet for 3 minutes.

Plating up instructions for your slow cook family roast

  1. In a shallow bowl, spoon in the peas to act a comfy bed for your meat.
  2. Place your meat atop the peas.
  3. Place the broccolini next to the meat on one side of the bowl and the Brussels sprouts opposite.
  4. Add a large dollop of horseradish cream to your meat.

Final thoughts on your slow cook family roast

  1. What’s your favourite way of cooking large pieces of beef?
  2. What other vegetables do you enjoy with beef?
  3. Do you like horseradish cream?
  • Slow cook roast beef in packaging
    Slow cook roast beef in packaging
  • Slow cook roast beef sans plastic wrapping
    Slow cook roast beef sans plastic wrapping
  • Slow cook roast beef sans plastic wrapping
    Slow cook roast beef sans plastic wrapping
  • Slow cook roast beef seasoned with iodised salt and black pepper
    Slow cook roast beef seasoned with iodised salt and black pepper
  • Carrots, onions, and celery
    Carrots, onions, and celery
  • 1 L of beef stock
    1 L of beef stock
  • Slow cook family roast cooked in a casserole with Brussels sprouts
  • Slow cook family roast resting
  • Slow cook family roast resting
  • Slow cook family roast resting
  • Slow cook family roast with horseradish cream, Brussels sprouts, broccolini, and baby green peas.
  • Slow cook family roast with horseradish cream, Brussels sprouts, broccolini, and baby green peas.
  • Slow cook family roast with horseradish cream, Brussels sprouts, broccolini, and baby green peas.