For Boxing day 2106 we ate roast rib of beef. And I must say that I preferred this to the venison that I cooked the previous day for Christmas. Beef is my favourite meat.
I prepared the sauce for the beef in the same way as I prepared the sauce for the venison ( see my previous blog) but this time I added the leftover venison stock. The venison stock could just as easily be replaced by beef stock or chicken stock.
Sometimes we cook beef with just a large knob of butter on top of the joint after we have inserted slivers of garlic into the flesh. We add half an onion to the roasting dish and a good half a glass of white wine to the roasting meat about half way through. The meat can then be basted with the resulting stock. This is very much in the French style of cooking.
Generally we sear the outside of the beef before cooking, but then we don't time the roasting as we do it by feel and by checking that the juices are running rare.
If by chance you are cooking from frozen make sure that the whole of the rib has reached room temperature before attempting to cook. If you want the best beef buy it the day before you cook it and store it in a cool place.
It is best to leave the beef rest for 15 minutes to half an hour before serving; you can cover it with tin foil to retain some of the heat.
If you must then you can see the timings and a recipe below.
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/videos/techniques/how-roast-and-carve-rib-beef
All beef is best eaten rare but rib of beef is very forgiving if you overcook it by trying to please your English and American friends.
My rib of beef tasted gorgeous we had bought it from a local butcher who knows how source and keep his beef properly.
What did we drink with this? Beef goes best with a full body Bordeaux or Rioja or a New World red or even a full body Italian red. A friend had given me a bottle of Beronia 2012 Red Rioja Reserva. This wine is superb; it is full of red fruits with a hint of vanilla and cloves coming from the oak maturation. The plentiful tannin refreshes the palate. It has well balanced acidity, tannin, dryness and body. It is concentrated and complex and you could taste it well after you swallowed it. Above all it is easily recognisable as Rioja. It is a wine of good character and it should keep for a few years longer. What more could you ask for to go with the perfectly cooked beef
I might repeat all this next Christmas with luck.
