I Roast My Case

Recently, I've been trying my hand at roasts. Generally, you can get a fairly decent roast for a good price, and get good mileage out of them. Last night was my second recent attempt. My first attempt was well... a tad overdone.

It's almost a funny story really. I thought I remembered Serdad saying that beef roasts were around 45 minutes a pound, so I figured the 2 lb roast I'd gotten was about 90 minutes. What Serdad had actually said was 20-25 minutes a pound at 325F. Guess it's time to clean that wax out of my ears. So, while it was still edible, it was a tad overdone for my taste.

Last night was much better. I secured a 4lb top sirloin roast from the Real Canadian Superstore, and was determined to bring out its beefy goodness. I started by marinating it in a mixture of red wine, garlic, pepper and rosemary for about three hours. I can only imagine how it would have turned out if I'd let it sit longer.

Firsts, I trimmed all the fat from the roast and coated the beef in seasoned salt, garlic, and pepper. Next, I placed some of the fat underneath the roast in the pan and the rest of the fat I draped over the top. Finally, I poured about half the marinade over the roast, covered it and put it into the oven.

It cooked for about 70 minutes, at which point I uncovered it and let it go for another 30. In the mean time, I parboiled some potatoes (8 minutes), drained them and put them in their own pan with some seasoned salt and oil, then set them roasting. The potatoes went in when I uncovered the roast.

I reserved some of the potato water to be used in steaming the broccoli, and also to be used in the gravy. Yep, that's right. Gravy from scratch, which is easier than I thought... or at least mine is.

I take 2 tbsp oil and 2 tbsp flour, and mix them together over a medium heat. I guess the idea is to cook the flour some. I then add the pan drippings (minus the fat which I had to skim), some soy sauce and enough potato water to bring it to the thickness you prefer. Mine seems to end up pretty thick, which I'm trying to work on. The idea is that you use 1 cup of drippings/liquid, and I'm working based on the recipe found here.

While the roast was on the expensive side, I'm looking at getting 6 meals for about $20, which about what you'd pay for one roast beef dinner in a restaurant. Yay food! Yay saving money!