Skip to main content
Main

How to Roast Meat

A method for roasting a beef roast, seasoned with coarse sea salt, by searing and baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

How to Roast Meat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and sear

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the clean cut side of the beef on a smoking hot pan over a quick fire.

  3. Press the meat until seared and slightly browned, then reverse and sear the opposite side.

Roast

  1. Transfer the meat to the oven and roast undisturbed.

  2. Cook for 20 minutes per pound for rare, reducing 30 minutes for searing time.

  3. For a 5-pound roast, cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes; for a 6-pound roast, cook for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

  4. Check for gentle sputtering in the pan; adjust heat if necessary.

Make gravy

  1. After cooking, add stock or water to the drippings for gravy.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Beef roast
Forms the main body of the dish; its searing and slow roasting develop the browned crust.

The step that matters

Searing on a smoking hot pan. A very hot pan browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, adding flavor and color. If the pan is not hot enough, the meat steams instead of browning.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More roast beef recipes

You might also like