Traditional British cooking at it best.

Being British, more over English and as the French do call us English "le roast beef" I feel that I am on natural territory when I write about roast sirloin of beef. A dish that is part of every Sunday if you are luck and one that is to me the very best.

You will need

Some rib of beef for as many as you are going to feed .
Some salt and pepper.
A little dry English mustard powder if you can get it.
A splash of oil.
2 large onions.

First you must get a piece of meat that has been hung for at least one week. If you can get it that has been hung for over twenty day even better. But make sure that it has been hung and not sealed in a bag for twenty odd days as that is not the same.
There is something about a piece of beef that has been hung and allowed to mature in the air of a chill. If you are going to spend good money on a piece of meat make sure that it id a good piece of meat. Buy the best you can afford.

Take your beef and rub salt pepper and a little dry mustard powder all over it on the out side use a little oil so that you can make sure that it gets in to every part of the out side of the meat.

Then take a very heavy roasting tin and cut the onions in to half and lay them at the bottom of the roasting tin so that you will be able to place the beef on them when you are roasting it. All depending on the size of the piece of meat you might need more onions.

Take a frying pan and get that as hot as you can on the stove top and then take the meat and seal the joint of meat that you are going to roast. By this I mean that all the raw exposed sides of meat want cooking on the out side before you put it in to the oven to roast. This will seal in all the juices when you are cooking the beef and it will help in the flavour.

Once you have sealed your meat you then want to put it in to a medium oven to cook. Now how you cook it is up to you but as a glide for about one pound of meat or four hundred and fifty grams you want to cook that for forty to forty five minuets. This will be cooked about very rare. For well done you will need to roast it about sixty to seventy minuets.

Personally I like to have the oven as cool as I can and cook it long and slow. This means that the meat does not shrink to fast and that the meat has time to tenderise in cooking and not go to tough. It really depends on the time that you have to cook the meat and if it is sirloin you should not have to many problems with the meat as it should be a good cut of meat.

Keep your eye on the roast as it cooks and when it is done take it out of the roasting tin and lay the meat to one side while you get ready to make the all important gravy.
Take your roasting tin and place it on a gas ring and turn up the heat. Add a little flour to the pan and work it in to the fat that is in the pan after the roast has been removed. You will see it form a thick stodgy dark roux. Add a some water a bit at a time. This will slowly thicken and make a sauce, your gravy.

Do not worry about lumps for what I do is take all the gravy and the lovely onions that have been under the beef and place it in a jug and then set to with a hand blender and blitz it all up. This rich onion gravy is full of the roast juices and real flavours of the beef.

Now your beef has rested as you have made your gravy carve and serve with roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. That is what Sunday lunch is all about.