SC - chicken on string

[Philip & Susan Troy]

  I still can't cook a decent roast beef, not even mundanely.  It's
  something we rarely had as a kid, so I can only cook a pot roast.  Of
  course, it's a wonderful pot roast, but beef by itself is something I
  tend to shy away from -- it's such an expensive mistake.

  Any fool proof medieval recipes for a beef roast?  I've got a great pork
  roast recipe that I'll trade for it!

Let's start with the basics, and then we can move on to medieval.

I use the technique I found in (da-da) Joy Of Cooking.  I've not yet found
anything that beats it.  Rub a roast beef with minced garlic, pepper (NO
SALT) and worcestershire sauce.  Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Put the
roast in the oven, and immediately reduce the heat to 325, and bake for
12-14 minutes a pound for rare meat.  Use your temperature probe, to check.
(Lightly, lightly grease the pan with butter in advance, to make cleanup
easier.  Place a couple of cloves of garlic and some quartered onions in the
pan too, and use the juice that runs off to make a gravy.  If you want
gravy, keep the glass pan as small as possible, and put the meat down so it
is kind of like a can on a counter, narrow end touching the pan.)

I may drizzle the meat with wine as it cooks, if it appears to be dry.

Note for the advanced: if I use a glass pan for the beef, I turn the
temperature down a tad further.  Ovens heat up, and cool down in a cycle:
but a pyrex or glass pans have such high heat indices that they keep the
heat, and keep the temperature of the meat higher than an aluminum pan
would.

Remove the roast when done, let it stand on the counter for 10-20 minutes
while you rescue the pan drippings for gravy, slice at the end of the time
period, and serve.  YUM.  Gravy, for me, is taking the pan, deglazing with
wine, using a non-period roux and serving.

I've had a wonderful marinade, about 3 times, made of South Keype Jalapeno
wine and garlic.  Very nice.  Soak the RB in the wine and minced garlic for
about 2 hours at room temperature before cooking.

	Tibor
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