Dinner roast-when,meat and Cut

[wargarden]

When do you usually have a dinner roast?
What meat do you prefer and cut do you prefer?

[suffolk]

We often have a traditional Sunday roast dinner. We tend to vary which meat we have to ring the changes and depending on what looks especially good at the butcher’s.

We buy grass-fed beef and for a rare roast we choose rib (either on the bone or boned and rolled) or for a slower roast I usually choose sirloin or brisket.

When we have lamb we like either rolled shoulder or a leg joint but sometimes if it’s just for the two of us I’ll buy a couple of Barnsley chops to have with roast potatoes etc.

When we have pork we buy local outdoor reared, sometimes we have a piece of belly, or shoulder or a ‘hand & spring’ joint ... always with the rind on to make crisp and crunchy crackling.

When we have roast chicken we’ll get a locally produced free range chicken.

In the game season we’ll sometimes have roasted pheasant or partridge.

[Busybee]

We nearly always have a roast on Sunday, in order of preference

Chicken - whole bird. Top of the list because I love all the accompanying dishes
Turkey - whole bird but difficult to source fresh outside of Christmas and Easter, again chosen because of the accompanying dishes
Lamb - shoulder slow roasted or leg
Beef - rib, served rare and only roast dinner where Yorkshire puddings are served.
Pork - rolled shoulder, belly or leg

99% of meat bought from our local butcher, most of which is reared fairly locally.

What are your favourites Wargarden?

BB

[Herbidacious]

Sunday, nut, cut with a sharp knife

[Badger's mate]

Sundays.

If cooking for the family, topside of beef (I'd prefer rib) or leg of lamb, though I've more recently got some slow-cooked shoulder through the net. I only do YPs with beef. Otherwise loin of pork, or chops for us two. Chicken, guinea fowl, pheasant, partridge. Sometimes venison chops but I do them on the stove so not a roast, although the accompaniments are roast - like and it is to all intents and purposes a roast dinner. All the above from the local butcher apart from the chicken from local FMs and some of the winged game from FMs and our travels. Goose around Christmas, from Great Clerkes via the butcher.

When I lived with Dad we used to have a rolling menu including a bacon joint, duck or rabbit with pork strips as well as beef, pork, chicken & lamb. I often braise rather than roast game. Where once I would have braised brisket of beef I now do venison

[earthmaiden]

I'm with you on the venison, I much prefer it to beef. In the UK it's usually a Sunday tradition - often called lunch but these days often served quite late in the afternoon rather than 12 or 1 after church as it was once. Apart from venison or pheasant I like chicken or leg of lamb best (roasted with rosemary, garlic and anchovies until brown and crispy on the outside . Cooking a roast every Sunday was something that made me very resentful in an earlier life. I'd rather go out for a roast dinner and not have to spend a day cooking it and the rest of the week faffing over leftovers.

Oh, when I was with friends in the USA they called a pot roast a roast. A roast IMO is a prime piece of meat cooked under a direct heat (even if covered loosely in foil). A pot roast is a piece of meat such as brisket which is cooked slowly in a covered pot in liquid, sometimes with onion and carrots and comes out very tender but without crispy bits. Very nice, but not a roast.

[Suelle]

I rarely cook a traditional roast dinner these days - it's not really practical when only cooking for one. The last was New Year's Day, when I had visitors and cooked a shoulder of lamb, which is my favourite roast.

[Seatallan]

My favorite roasts are either roast chicken or roast lamb/hogget/mutton. Oooh- could just eat a roast dinner now!

[StokeySue]

I’m a bit ambivalent about the whole Sunday roast thing
The tradition is certainly that you have a roast at Sunday lunch time, and when I was growing up nearly everyone I knew had one
We alternated lamb and beef, the lamb was shoulder as my parents preferred it to leg and in any case I grew up near a sheep raising area, and a whole leg of south Down lamb would have been too much for us
The beef was sirloin or topside
Either was accompanied by roast potatoes or new potatoes from the garden in season, and a couple of seasonal veg, often overcooked cauliflower. Gravy was made with pan drippings, Bisto powder and the hot water from cooking the veg. Lamb was served with mint sauce, freshly made from garden mint in summer, from a jar when the mint wasn’t growing. Beef came with mustard and horseradish.
The meat was followed by a pudding such as apple pie with cream or custard.
We seldom had pork on Sunday, though sometimes midweek, my father came from a family who fattened a pig in the back yard and didn’t regard the meat as Sunday best, though this slowly changed.

So I don’t routinely cook a Sunday roast, either at lunch time or dinner time. I will sometimes roast a half shoulder of lamb, a piece of belly pork, a chicken or another bird for myself and the accompaniments will vary
If entertaining I will do a roast with roast potatoes, for beef I prefer rib; lamb might be shoulder, leg or rack depending on numbers and what I want to serve with it; pork usually belly or shoulder. I might also roast a duck or a good chicken.

This being a household with a strong French tradition I suppose my signature roast is actually a marinated leg of lamb served with flageolets dressed with some of the pan juices. I should get a half leg of last years lamb ( it’s better with the richer flavour of hogget) and cook it

I liked it when I was small, but I got bored with the whole thing, it was served even when it was far too hot in summer, it made it difficult to do anything else on Sunday, and I developed a strong dislike of gravy, but later realised it was Bisto I didn’t like

[Lokelani]

We only have roasts in the winter. Always Sunday night.
Mostly a whole chicken. Sometimes rare beef rib, sirloin, or rump. If I find a steak joint on a good offer I will cut up & put in freezer. Sometimes loin of pork.
Tonight's dinner will be chicken top crust only pie with the leftovers as I put some ready rolled butter puff pastry in the freezer that I didn't use over xmas.
Last night I thawed some of my xmas chestnut stuffing as a treat and a small tub of bread sauce to go with the chicken. I'd deliberately made too much of each, & frozen two meal's worth of each to have two treat chicken roasts over January. We ate the stuffing but I found the bread sauce in the microwave this morning, where I was planning to re-heat it last minute . Sooo disappointed! I know it's easy to make, but I don't normally, except at Christmas. One tub in the freezer to go, how do I avoid the same happening next time?!

[patpoyntz]

[WWordsworth]

We don't often have a "Sunday dinner" as such but yesterday I was in the farm shop and they had a cut of beef I'm not familiar with. Thick rib.
It looked delicious so I bought some and asked what was the recommended way to cook it.
The young woman behind the counter said to treat it the same as topside.

I looked it up when I got home and it seems thick rib is often sliced and sold as braising steak, so we pot roasted it with a bottle of stout and it was delicious.

Anyone else familiar with that cut?

[Lokelani]

[Badger's mate]

Dad and I would have a midweek roast that might be based on chops, pork strips, a couple of chicken portions, a turkey leg or a stuffed breast of lamb. They'd be done in a roasting tray with potatoes and onions, maybe parsnips in the winter. Served with greens and gravy.

When I was on my own my Sunday dinner was likely to be a piece of confit poultry roasted with potatoes and onions as above. I used to cook ducks or turkey joints (from the local market) in leftover goose fat at this time of year. Alternatively I'd make cassoulet, which would also be served with roast potatoes and would last me a few days.

[PatsyMFagan]