A beef topside roast is a great cut for slow roasting, braising or pot roasting with vegetables and a little stock. If oven-roasting, serve medium-rare to medium, sliced thinly.
For an oven-roasted 1.5kg topside beef roast
- Take your roast out of the fridge and its packaging at least an hour before you want to start cooking. Leave it loosely covered to come up to room temp.
- Preheat oven to 230°C.
- Heat your baking tray on the stovetop and rub the roast all over with 1-2 T of oil. Season with salt and pepper, then sear the roast all round for about 5 min.
- Place the roast on a rack in a baking tray or create a trivet of vegetables that you’ll sit the roast on by roughly chopping 2 sticks of celery and a carrot into big chunks, peeling and cutting a medium onion into wedges and breaking up half a bulb of garlic into cloves. Put the vegetables into the baking tray with 2 bay leaves and 2 sprigs of rosemary. If you want to make a mustard crust for the beef, see below.
- Roast everything at 230°C for 20 min. Baste the beef with the cooking juices. If the veg looks dry, add a splash of water to the tray to stop them from burning then turn the oven down to 180°C and roast for another 40 min.
- Take the beef out and rest it on a plate loosely covered in foil for at least 15 min or while you make the gravy from the cooked veg – see below.
Extras!
Gravy
- Place your baking tray over a stove element over a medium heat. Sprinkle in the flour, then mash everything with a potato masher, scraping up all the goodness from the base of the tray.
- Pour over 70 ml of red wine (optional) and let it bubble away for a minute or two, before pouring in about 500 ml of beef stock. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down low and simmer for 15-30 minutes, or until thickened and reduced, stirring occasionally.
- When you’re happy with the gravy’s consistency, pour it through a sieve into a pan, pushing all the veg goodness through with the back of a spoon. Keep warm over a low heat while you carve the beef. Skim any excess fat that comes to the surface, then pour into a gravy boat to serve.
Mustard crust
- Place ¼ C breadcrumbs, ¼ C chopped parsley, ¼ C wholegrain mustard, 2-4 finely chopped garlic cloves and 2 T olive oil into a bowl and mix to combine.
- When you’ve seared the beef and placed it on the rack or trivet of vegetables, spread the crust mixture over the meat before you start roasting.
To buy quality beef topside, visit The Butcher’s Block and Smokehouse at 33 Reece Crecent, Wanaka – open Monday to Saturday or order online for home delivery or click and collect orders.
