British Beef and Yorkshire pudding

For a long time British cooking has had a terrible name. It is much parodied around the world, characterised as being grey, tough, and tasteless. The British go to France and Spain for good cooking, oh those fabulous langoustines cooked simply in butter.

I think that this is terribly unfair, and is well illustrated by the fantastic dinner that Marion cooked today. It was the typical British Sunday roast, but it was fabulous and a complete culinary masterpiece. However it was simplicity itself underpinned by great high quality ingredients.

The centrepiece was a joint of beef, consisting of two ribs. This was not cooked to death but rapidly at a high temperature so that the centre of the joint was pink, oozing lovely juices. It cut beautifully, was moist and just melted in the mouth. Yorkshire pudding accompanied this; these had risen brilliantly being light and fluffy. Originally designed to be a cheap filler before dinner to enable people to serve smaller pieces of the expensive meat. However they perfectly complement beef absorbing all the juices on the plate.

The roast potatoes were perfect, fluffy on the inside and crisp on the outside. Roast potatoes are one of those dishes that are almost impossible to recreate in a restaurant. The home cooked versions are almost inevitably better. Lots of fresh vegetables accompanied the dish, green beans, parsnips, cabbage, and swede, all perfectly cooked. The final juxtaposition was gravy made from the juices that the beef had cooked in.

Suffice it to say that all three of us cleared our plates, and came back for more. It was a great British dish cooked to perfection.

Any downside, while the perfect drink to have with roast beef is red wine. It is impossible to get a good British red wine. Instead we had an excellent Argentinian Malbec that perfectly accompanied the meal.

So British cooking can match the best in the world, and it can be recreated in the home. Bravo.