recipes

PREP TIME 5 mins
COOK TIME 3 hrs
BRING ROAST TO ROOM TEMP 90 mins
TOTAL TIME 4 hrs 35 mins
SERVINGS 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients
3 to 3 1/2 pounds(1.3 to 1.6 kg) of Boneless Rump Roast (pick an end cut with a layer of fat if you can) or Sirloin.
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
8-10 slivers of garlic (3 to 4 cloves, sliced in half or into thirds)
Salt, pepper and thyme

For the gravy:
Red wine, water, and or beef stock
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Method
Salt the roast and let sit at room temp:
The beef should be brought to close to room temperature before you start to roast it so that it cooks more evenly. So, remove it from the refrigerator at least 1 hour, preferably 2 hours, before cooking. Open the wrapping, sprinkle all sides with salt, and wrap it up again.

Preheat your oven to 190°C.

Insert slivers of garlic into the roast:
Pat the roast dry with paper towels. Use the tip of a sharp knife to make 8 to 10 small incisions around the roast. Put a sliver of garlic into each cut.
Rub olive oil all over the roast. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and thyme.

Place roast on rack, fat side up, with pan to catch drippings below:
Place the roast directly on the middle oven rack, fatty side up, with a roasting pan to catch the drippings on the rack beneath it.

Placing the roast directly on the rack like this with a pan on the rack below creates a convection type environment in the oven, allowing the hot air to more easily circulate around the roast, so you don’t have to turn the roast as it cooks.

Place the roast fat-side up so that as the fat melts it bathes the entire roast in flavor.

Roast initially at 375°F, then lower the heat to 225°F:
Cook the roast initially at 190°C for half an hour, to brown it. Then lower the heat to 110°C). The roast should take somewhere from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours additionally to cook.

The shape of the roast will affect the cooking time. If your roast is long and narrow, rather than a more round shape, it may take less time to cook, so keep an eye on it.

When juices start to drip from the roast, and it is browned on the outside, check the roast’s internal temperature with a meat thermometer. Remove the roast from the oven when the internal temperature of the roast is 57°C to 60°C.

Place the roast on a cutting board and tent it with aluminum foil to keep it warm. Let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes before cutting.(Resting the cooked roast is important. If you cut into it too soon, the roast will lose more of its juices.)

Thinly slice the roast to serve. (A sturdy long bread knife works well for slicing roasts.)

To make the gravy:
Remove the dripping pan from the oven and place on the stove top at medium heat. Note that if you are pulling the roast out early, for rare or a medium rare level of doneness, you may not have a lot of drippings. Hopefully you will have some. If not, you may want to leave the roast in a little longer at even lower heat, to ease some more drippings out of it.

Add some water, red wine, or beef stock to the drippings to deglaze (loosen the drippings from the pan). Dissolve a tablespoon of cornstarch in a little water and add to the drip pan. Stir quickly while the gravy thickens to avoid lumping.

You can add a little butter if there is not a lot of fat in the drippings. Add salt, pepper and thyme to taste.