Roast Beef with Yorkshire Puddings

Ingredients

• 2kg beef rib on the bone or boned and rolled sirloin
• 2 tbsp English mustard powder
• 2 onions, cut into thick rounds
• 2 carrots, halved lengthways
• 2 tbsp beef dripping
• 2 tbsp plain flour for the gravy
• 300ml red wine
• 600ml beef stock
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 140g plain flour for the puddings
• 4 large eggs
• 200ml whole milk
• 4 tbsp beef dripping or sunflower oil for the pudding tin
• Flaky sea salt
• Coarsely ground black pepper

Before you cook

• Take the beef out of the fridge two hours before cooking so it comes fully to room temperature.
• Pat the beef dry and rub it all over with the mustard powder, then season heavily with flaky salt and coarse pepper.
• Whisk the pudding flour, eggs and milk together with half a teaspoon of salt until smooth, then leave the batter to rest at room temperature.
• Cut the onions into thick rounds and halve the carrots to make a trivet.

Steps

1. Heat the oven to 240C fan.
2. Lay the onion rounds and carrots in the centre of a roasting tin and sit the beef on top of them.
3. Smear the dripping over the beef.
4. Roast the beef at high heat for twenty minutes to build a crust.
5. Turn the oven down to 170C fan and continue roasting, allowing about twelve minutes per 500g for rare and fifteen for medium rare.
6. Push a thermometer into the thickest part of the meat after an hour; you are looking for 50C for rare or 56C for medium rare.
7. Lift the beef onto a warm board, tent it loosely with foil and leave it to rest for at least thirty minutes.
8. Raise the oven to 230C fan.
9. Spoon a teaspoon of dripping into each hole of a twelve-hole bun tin and slide the tin into the oven for eight minutes until the fat is visibly smoking.
10. Whisk the rested batter briefly and pour it into a jug.
11. Pull out the hot tin and fill each hole halfway with batter in one quick pass.
12. Return the tin to the oven and bake the puddings for twenty minutes without opening the door.
13. Check that the puddings are tall, dry and dark gold, then bake for a further three minutes if they look pale.
14. Set the roasting tin with its vegetables over medium heat on the hob and pour off all but two tablespoons of fat.
15. Stir the gravy flour into the tin and cook for two minutes, mashing the onions as you go.
16. Pour in the red wine and scrape the base hard, then let it bubble for four minutes.
17. Add the stock and Worcestershire sauce and simmer the gravy for ten minutes.
18. Strain the gravy through a sieve into a warm jug, pressing the vegetables to extract everything.
19. Stir any juices from the resting board into the gravy and season it.
20. Carve the beef across the grain into slices and serve with the puddings and gravy.