Shortloin of Beef

I am not a fan of turkey, it's all well and good in a sandwich or a pie or something but as the centrepiece of the meal of the year then just no and don't play the 'it's traditional' card either, it's not. Have a goose if you want to be traditional. Personally I like to have something a little tastier and this year I was drawn to the shortloin of beef.

The shortloin, is arguably the finest part of the noble cow, the crowning glory. it consists of the spine down the centre with the Fillet on one side and the Sirloin on the other, it is superb.

To cook this I turned to the balded headed genius/nutcase himself with the recipe in his excellent book Heston at Home.

I say recipe, its barely that as there is little effort involved apart from browning the outside at the start which takes some effort depending on the size you bought, ours barely fit in the frying pan.

The meat is then slow roasted and I mean slow roasted for the best part of 6 hours at 60 degrees Celsius. yes, 60 degrees, I've had baths hotter than that.



What this does to the meat is nothing sort of magical, the outside drys up and forms a wonderful seasoned crust but the inside stays moist to the point all the juice gushes out like a waterfall when it's done (collect it and pour it straight into the gravy). The meat cuts like butter because it's been gently warmed and not been blasted with heat. This also allows precision to cook it how you like from 45C (blue) where the cow is still walking round the field to 70C (well done) where you should be eating turkey if you cook it like this. I opted for 55C which is medium rare.

Cooking this way is stressful, not due to the work load but the stress of watching a thermometer creep up degree after degree when all you want to do is get on with eating it, the last couple of degrees I don't think I took my eyes off it.

I can't imagine cooking a joint in any other way after this. Heston, I salute you.