Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large roasting tin
• •12-hole muffin tin or 4-hole Yorkshire pudding tin
• •Large jug or mixing bowl for batter
• •Sharp carving knife and board
• •Meat thermometer (if you want one, though your hands will learn)

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the Yorkshire batter

   Start with the batter, because it needs time to rest. Sift the flour into a large jug or mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Crack in the eggs and add a pinch of salt. Pour in the milk gradually, whisking from the centre outwards, pulling the flour in as you go. You want a smooth batter the consistency of single cream, with no lumps at all. Give it a proper whisk, then set it aside for at least an hour. Two is better. The resting lets the flour absorb the liquid and the gluten relax, which means lighter, crispier puddings that rise with real conviction.

   The batter must be at room temperature when it hits the hot fat. Cold batter in hot dripping won't rise properly. If you've refrigerated it, take it out well before you need it.
2. 2

   Make the horseradish cream

   Peel the horseradish root and grate it finely. Work quickly, because it loses its punch once it's been sitting around. Fold the grated horseradish into the softly whipped cream with a squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Taste it. It should make your eyes prickle and your nose clear. If it doesn't, add more. Cover and refrigerate until you need it.

   If fresh horseradish is hard to come by, a good jarred horseradish will do. Look for one with short ingredients: horseradish, vinegar, salt. Nothing else. Fold it into the cream the same way.
3. 3

   Prepare and roast the beef

   Take the beef out of the fridge a good hour before you plan to cook it. Cold meat in a hot oven seizes up. Room temperature meat relaxes into the heat and cooks more evenly. Rub it all over with the dripping or oil, then season generously with salt, pepper, and the mustard powder if you're using it. Tuck the thyme sprigs against the bones. Set the oven to 220C/200C fan. Place the beef in a roasting tin, bones down, fat up. Into the oven. After twenty minutes, when the fat has started to spit and take on colour and the kitchen is beginning to smell like a promise, turn the heat down to 170C/150C fan. Roast for about fifteen minutes per 500g for medium-rare, twenty for medium. For a 2kg joint, that means roughly forty-five minutes to an hour at the lower temperature after the initial blast. Press the meat with a finger: if it gives gently but springs back, with a softness in the centre, you're where you want to be.

   If you have a meat thermometer, 52-54C at the thickest point gives you a proper medium-rare after resting. But honestly, learning to read the meat by touch will serve you better in the long run. The thermometer is a crutch. Your hands will learn.
4. 4

   Rest the beef

   This is not optional. Lift the beef from the roasting tin and transfer it to a warm board or plate. Cover it loosely with foil and leave it for at least thirty minutes. The meat will carry on cooking gently from its own residual heat. The juices, which have been driven to the centre by the oven's force, will redistribute through the whole joint. When you carve, they'll stay in the meat instead of flooding the board. While the beef rests, the oven is free for the Yorkshires. Don't touch the roasting tin. Don't wash it. You need everything in there for the gravy.

5. 5

   Cook the Yorkshires

   Turn the oven up to 230C/210C fan. Spoon a small amount of beef dripping from the roasting tin into each hole of a 12-hole muffin tin (or a 4-hole Yorkshire pudding tin if you want them large and dramatic). Just enough to generously coat the bottom of each. Slide the tin into the oven for five minutes until the fat is properly, fiercely hot and just beginning to smoke. Open the oven, pull the shelf out quickly, and pour the batter into each hole, filling them about halfway. It should sizzle and spit the moment it makes contact with the fat. That sound is everything. Push the shelf back in, close the door, and do not open it for twenty minutes. Not once. Not to check. Not to peek. They need constant, uninterrupted heat to rise. When they're done, they'll be puffed and golden and tall, slightly hollow in the centre, with edges that are deeply crisp and give way with a crack when you break them.

   The single most important thing is the temperature of the fat. If the dripping isn't smoking when the batter goes in, the Yorkshires won't rise. Everything else is secondary. Get the fat properly, almost alarmingly hot.
6. 6

   Make the gravy

   While the Yorkshires are in the oven, set the roasting tin over a medium heat on the hob. There will be dark, sticky bits clinging to the bottom. That's where all the flavour lives. Sprinkle in the flour and stir it into the fat and juices, scraping up everything from the base of the tin with a wooden spoon. Let it cook for a minute until it smells toasty and warm. Pour in the wine if you're using it and let it bubble away to almost nothing. Then add the stock gradually, stirring as you go, working out any lumps. Let it simmer for five to ten minutes until it reduces to something glossy and rich and the colour of dark mahogany. Season with salt and pepper. Taste it. Then taste it again. Strain it into a warm jug if you like a smooth gravy. I don't usually bother. A few bits of thyme and the odd caramelised scrap from the tin never hurt anyone.

   If the gravy feels thin, let it simmer a few minutes longer. If it's too thick, add a splash more stock. Trust your eye. Gravy should coat the back of a spoon and pool slowly on the plate, not run or sit in a lump.
7. 7

   Carve and serve

   Carve the beef against the grain into thick, generous slices. Don't be dainty about it. This isn't restaurant food arranged in a fan on a white plate. Pile the slices onto a warm serving dish or straight onto the board. Set the Yorkshires alongside, the gravy in its jug, the horseradish cream in a bowl with a spoon. Everything goes to the table at once and people help themselves. That's the whole point. We're only making dinner.

Chef Tips

• •The single biggest variable is the beef itself. Find a butcher who can tell you about the animal, the breed, how long it's been hung. Twenty-one days of dry ageing transforms beef from something ordinary into something with real depth and tenderness. A supermarket joint won't give you the same result, and this is the one dish where the difference is impossible to disguise.
• •Yorkshire pudding batter is flour, eggs, milk, and salt. Nothing else. No baking powder, no bicarbonate, no clever additions from the internet. The rise comes entirely from the eggs and the ferociously hot fat. If your Yorkshires are flat, the fat wasn't hot enough or you opened the oven door. Those are the only two things that go wrong.
• •Resting the beef is where most people lose their nerve. Thirty minutes feels like a long time when someone is asking if dinner is ready, but it's the difference between meat that's juicy and evenly pink from edge to centre and meat that bleeds onto the board the moment you carve. Rest it. Use the time for the Yorkshires. The kitchen will smell extraordinary.
• •Make proper gravy from the tin. Those dark, caramelised bits stuck to the bottom are the foundation of everything. A tablespoon of flour, some good stock, a wooden spoon, five minutes of your attention. It is incomparably better than anything from a packet or a granule. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract, and the gravy is where you listen to what the beef is telling you.

Advance Preparation

• •The Yorkshire batter can be made up to a day ahead and refrigerated. Bring it to room temperature for at least thirty minutes before using, or the cold batter won't rise.
• •The horseradish cream can be made several hours ahead and kept covered in the fridge. It may lose a little of its sharpness as it sits, so err on the strong side when you make it.
• •The beef can be seasoned the night before and left uncovered in the fridge on a rack. This dries the surface, which helps it brown more deeply in the oven. Bring it to room temperature for a full hour before roasting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 425g)