OK my belly belly cooking genius's Roast beef and potato

Hey there girls,
Well, tomorrow MIL is looking after Ava-Jayde. So since the house is a pigsty and im feeling just down about it being gross, I'm going to clean the house and spend some time on myself painting nails and what not.. NOW I want to cook dp a roast dinner cause the poor bugger hasn't had a home cooked meal in agggges. Well if it has been a home cooked meal it's been really quick and easy. SO, my MIL cooks the best roast she does hers in the electric frying pan with the lid on. And I swear to god it's the best roast I've ever had in my life!!! It's always so tender and juicy... my oven is crap it's like 20 years old and my roast always comes out dry or just bleh... SO my question is, have any of you lovely ladies cooked a roast in an electric frying pan? If so, do you use oil or water. Also... how do you girls do your potatoes.. Im the first to admit that i'm a good cook with everything else EXCEPT roast... my roast potatoes never ever turn out crunchy or golden I end up just giving up. So yeah if any ladies can help it would be muchly appreciated... much love xox

what were you going to roast? ie. what kind of meat and which cut?
(I am having questions dictated by my DH the bear! he is a fabulous cook)

Hey darl.. It's beef roast.. it's one of those woolies ones that are already seasoned.. dp says it's rump

Ohhhh I have no idea with the meat part but for the roast taters I cut them up and then boil them for about 10-15 mins and then put them in the oven with the oil and seasoning until they are toasty on the outside. I am such a cheat when it comes to these things :lol:

I don't do beef roast LOL I prefer steak I'm a weirdo but I love pork, chicken, turkey and lamb LOL ;) Try not to overcook it, and make sure you let it rest for at least 10-15 mins so all the juices don't run out when you cut it. You can also make slits in the beef with a knife and poke in garlic cloves, and sticks of rosemary. I personally think the best way to roast beef is to seal it in a hot pan and then transfer to a dish and cook for the remainder of time at about 180-190. Too many people think a roast should be not pink at all and this is why you get dry roasts.

I have some awesome potato recipes. I tend to parboil my spuds for about 7 minutes in boiling water before cooking, and for the best roast veg put about 1 cm of oil in the bottom of the pan and put in the oven for the last 5 minutes of the spud cooking time. Then drain the spuds and season with salt & pepper, you can add a tablespoon of plain flour or semolina if you have it and then put the lid on the pot and shake it around to rough up the edges and so they get coated in the seasoned flour/semolina. This will ensure a lovely crunchy coating. Cook in a hot oven (220C) for about 40-50 mins don't turn them first until they are all crunchy on the bottom or they might stick or break up, then only turn them once again and you will have the best spuds ever! If you want to get fancy and extra yum cook in duck or goose fat instead of oil.

The other spuds I do, are in the electic frypan, I put in about 1cm of oil, cube the spuds add fresh rosemary and garlic cloves (crushed but still whole) into the oil, cook the spuds on a medium heat for about 30 minutes and they will be golden and lovely. Transfer to paper towel and salt generously. These are another requested spud I do.

Cheats hassleback potatoes. Cut potatoes in half and parboil as above. Then put potatoes onto a lined (with baking paper) tray. Scratch the potatoes long ways with a fork to create lines and then brush generously with olive oil and salt and pepper (cook in a hot oven 220-240) for about 30 - 40 mins, basting every 10 minutes with more olive oil. Do NOT turn the potatoes over ;)

OK -
The bear says that the key to really succulent beef is to cook it very gently... beef can get very dry if it is raised above 70 degrees, so what you're aiming to do is gently bring the temperature of the whole joint up to 70 degrees. The mistake most people make is to try to cook it too quickly in the oven. You can cook it in your frypan if you have a ceramic insert or some other thing to prevent the heat from underneath burning the bottom of the beef.
He says: get the beef out of the fridge a couple of hours before you want to cook it. This will bring it from 4 degrees in the fridge to room temp. then place it in your frypan or the oven at around 150 degrees - no hotter. If you let me know how big the piece of meat is then I can give an accurate cooking time.
Once it is cooked it is very important to let the beef rest so the juices are reabsorbed back into the flesh.
For the potatoes the trick is peel and boil as per LMS's suggestion. Once you have drained the water out of the pot, put the lid on and shake the pot while holding the lid on. This will roughen them up a bit. Then lay them on a tray and coat with olive oil salt and pepper, and lay a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary on top. Cook in the oven until crispy. The potatoes will need a hotter oven than the beef, so if you are doing the beef in the frying pan run the oven at 180-190 degrees.
Hope that helps
And just a note from me sweet, I read your other post today and it sounds like you have been having a really hard time. Make sure you take it easy and give yourself a bit of TLC.
Hope you have a great day xxxxx

KL I do all my roats in the elctric frypan.

If it's beef put in hmmm... 1/2 to 3/4 cup of water - that keeps it's moisture so it doesn't go dry. And i always cook mine on six (i have a kambrook).

Ooh Kirsty, thanks for asking the question, it's inspired me to try roasting in the frypan tonight, just gotta go to the shops to get some yummy meat now!

As for the potatoes, I do mine like pixie posted, but before putting the potatoes back in the saucepan for a shake, I add some oil to it and heat it up, then add in the potatoes, and shake :)

Does anyone do anything special with the pan juices for a gravy? I'm thinking a little red wine, but not too eager to do it while breastfeeding...

Nic

Nic, I can't answer your question re special gravy from pan juices (wish I could! Pan juice gravy is delicious I think), but what I was going to say is that if the alcohol in whatever you use is cooked off, then I thought it would be okay. I was wondering the same thing (but for my toddler to eat and me been pg atm), and hope someone might be able to confirm that?

I've noticed that the gravy powder boxes have directions for pan juice gravy on them.

I think to be safe it is wise to avoid cooking with alcohol. I was watching Whats Good For You yesterday and it showed that you can blow over the legal limit eating foods cooked in alcohol and it included steaks, roasts and fish as well as Christmas pudding which was the worst offender :S

Little Miss Sunshine, that is sooo true. I know someone who ate some rum balls on Christmas, and was pulled over and blew over the limit. Try explaining THAT to a police officer.

You will boil off all the alcohol whilst making the gravy, so it's fine to use a little wine. You will be able to smell any remaining alchohol as you boil it off.

Gently fry some onions or mushrooms in a sauce pan in a little butter, when they start to look done dust them with a little flour (no more than a couple of teaspoons) and stir well - the flour should make all the juices stick to them.

Once the roast is done, lift it out of the roasting pan and put it to one side to rest, put the roasting pan on the stove top and put a good heat underneath it.Add wine, stock or water to the roasting pan and use a wooden spoon to scrape as much of the gooey bit from the bottom of the pan into the bubbling liquid, stir well - let it boil hard for a good minute or so to drive off the alcohol and reduce the gravy down a fair bit. Then pour the gravy into the saucepan containing the mushrooms or onions and bring it back to a simmer whilst stirring - season to taste. The flour will thicken the gravy up and the mushrooms and/or onion will fill out the taste a little.

Or if you would like a really good pepper sauce then try this instead (this goes really well with steak) although it's not good for the diet.

Fry a chopped onion in butter until soft and transparent then sprinkle a tablespoon of flour over it
Stir well to mix in the flour, then add a whole bottle of Worcester sauce (just trust me on this)
Let it cook down until the onion mixture is thick, then add 300ml of double cream, a stock cube and a tablespoon of dijon mustard and stir well as you bring it back to the boil and reduce a little further.
Pour the sauce through a sieve to remove the onions and add a few green peppercorns before serving.

KL, rum balls aren't cooked though (well, not to my knowledge anyway), so it would have all the alcohol content of the rum, but I thought cooked alcohol was greatly reduced. Hmm, thank you LMS.

I just found this on the internet now, trying to research this question. From a site called exploratorium.edu "the accidental scientist, science of cooking". Now, lets see if I can quote this thing properly. I always have trouble doing this kind of thing...

:

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Alcohol?s boiling point is lower than that of water, and many cooks assume that little or none of its potency remains after cooking. Research tells a different story.

Cooked food can retain from 5 to 85 percent of the original alcohol. The amount of alcohol left depends on how the dish is prepared, when the alcohol is added, and how thoroughly it?s incorporated with other ingredients.

In general, the longer the cooking time, the less the amount of alcohol that remains. Fast methods of cooking, such as flamb?ing, leave about 75 percent of the alcohol in the food. In contrast, a dish that has been baked or simmered for fifteen minutes contains about 40 percent of the original alcohol. After two hours of cooking, roughly 10 percent of the alcohol remains.

If you wish to avoid alcohol in cooking, there are substitutes, but substitutes don?t contribute the same depth of flavors as liqueurs and wines. Use 7/8 cup of meat or vegetable broth (or apple, tomato, or white grape juice) for each cup of wine in a savory dish. To mimic wine?s acidity, add 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice or vinegar. In desserts, replace the wine with fruit juice plus a dash of balsamic vinegar. If a recipe calls for orange liqueur, try frozen orange juice concentrate and the grated zest of fresh orange instead.

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Well, I didn't end up using wine, I felt funny about doing it while breastfeeding, so I just made a plain gravy from it, but it was still yummy.

I had a bit of a disaster with the rest of it though. I walked to the shops, went to the butchers, wasn't happy with what they had, so went to woolies, grabbed some meat, walked around the shop and then realised that the meat had that netting all around it, so put it back and went back to the butchers. Got home heated up the oil in the frypan, put the meat in and realised that the lid wasn't going to fit on top! Stuck it in a roasting dish and put it in the oven. Wasn't happy as I wanted to do the frypan, so took it out and cut the meat (rolled rib roast) in half...except it was more like 70/30 so I was then worried about it cooking unevenly.
DS was doing his usual, screaming, so i didn't get to roast the potatoes or pumpkin so cooked and mashed them, then decided to add my cup of tea to the mashed potato instead of the milk and butter i had heated up! Hopefully next time it will go a lot smoother lol.

Lol nic... sounds like a disaster!!! WELL I had roast tonight. I cooked it in the fry pan too :D i'm so proud of myself.. I put it in with half a cup of water and just made sure that it didnt go dry (the water i mean) put it on at 2pm on low.. and let it cook till 5.30.. did potatoes.. they turned out perfect.. AND made my own gravy with the juices left in the pan!! Thanks for your advice girls dp absolutely LOVED it

Nic - Sorry it didn't work out - the string bags aren't a problem, it's fine to roast meat inside them.

Kirsty - glad it worked out for you!