Wednesday night, last week, I couldn't go out with Tom Cruise, because I was cooking lamb roast. (Not that I would want to go out with Tom Cruise. Also I don't know if the Lamb people would choose him now - getting a bit old, scientology fanatic, crazy jumping on the couch incident on Oprah etc.)
Anyway...it's the first roast I've cooked in quite a while for a number of reasons.
a) time factor - not actually me having to stand there cooking, just it takes a fair bit of cooking time, which means I need to be home a couple of hours before dinner. Which when I was working, didn't usually happen. And since having kids I just haven't been bothered planning for.
b) past failures - back early in our marriage, we (back when Peter and I had time to cook together) tried to do roasts a few times and always had trouble getting it cooked all the way through. Now I think about this it might have something to do with the previous point - and us not factoring in enough time for it to cook properly.
c) no need - Peter's mum used to do roasts a fair few times when we were there for dinner, so we weren't totally missing out on them, even though we weren't cooking them ourselves
d) Peter doesn't like all the dishes/washing up that cooking roast creates (dish for meat, potatoes, other veg, with associated baked on sticky oil/meat juice etc.)
e) only small part of year when weather is suitable in Brisbane. Don't really want to be cooking roasts between September and May as it's too hot to have the oven on. (Which is actually a reason I'm thinking of having roast more often over here, it helps to warm the house up!)
I now remember the last roast I cooked. It was for Christmas day 2007 (I did the catering for the main meal for my family's Christmas lunch) - it was a beef eye fillet roast and it turned out really well. a) because it was being served cold we cooked it the day before and therefore had plenty of time; b) being a pretty good (and expensive) cut of meat, it was easier to get it to turn out nice.
Anyway this time I used an 'oven bag' to help cut down on the mess and hopefully help it to cook more evenly. To flavour the lamb I just cut a few slits in the top and stuffed a whole garlic clove in each and sprinkled fresh rosemary on top. I used a recipe from 'Destitute Gourmet' for the baked potatoes which meant they cooked in the correct amount of time and were nice and crispy on the outside - for the first time ever!
The family verdict was overwhelming approval. The favourites were:
Ben: potatoes and mint jelly (I bought a bottle of this from the supermarket)
Joanna: pumpkin and potatoes
Peter: potatoes and lamb and pumpkin
Me: all of it - potatoes, lamb, pumpkin, gravy...
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4 comments:
I've had great success with my roasts since recieving a roast themometer. Though you still have to make sure you have placed it in the right place.
I also do a very similar seasoning of the lamb, garlic in slits & a rub of salt, pepper & herbs.
I would like the recipe for the potatoes. I haven't quite found a recipe that works for these.
how would you use the thermometer when the meat is in the oven bag?
we love oven bags! fantastic for keeping the pan clean, roast moist, and for making the gravy. :D :D :D
for potatoes - we dice em chunky, melt some butter & oil (and salt) in a pan and turn em over every 20min or so (40min cooking) - nice and crispy and salty and tasty...
I just put it through the top of the bag. You could also put it in the meat before you put it in the bag. It's one of those ones that has a probe that goes into the meat & then a cord that comes out of the oven & attaches to a digital thermometer.
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