Follow these tips from delicious. magazine's editor, Matthew Drennan, and soon you'll be serving restaurant-standard roasts.
1. Allow the joint to come up to room temperature before roasting.
2. Take note of the weight of the joint before roasting.
3. Season the joint well before roasting.
4. Let the oven heat up to the required temperature before putting the joint of meat in.
5. Leave the joint to rest before carving (20 minutes for large joints, 15 minutes for small joints).
Try our recipes for leg of lamb, loin of pork and beef fillet, below, or consider these cuts that are also suitable for roasting.
Lamb
Shoulder: An inexpensive roasting joint because it carries more fat than a leg. The bone can make it difficult to carve but it can be boned and rolled. Benefits from long, slow roasting.
Best end or rack of lamb: This has the very best flavour, and is made up of lean meat that cooks very quickly. It is the most inexpensive cut of lamb.
Loin: A lovely joint for roasting because it carries a little more fat than the leg but not as much as the shoulder. A boned loin of lamb is ideal for stuffing.
Pork
Tenderloin: A very lean cut that benefits from being wrapped in streaky bacon before roasting.
Chump: This can be roasted on or off the bone and cooks to be slightly moister than other joints. If you can’t find it, ask your butcher as this joint is often sold as chump chops, so you may need to order ahead.
Leg: Often cut into small roasting joints, a leg is very large, but if you’re feeding a crowd, ask your butcher about a whole boned leg. It’s lean and carves well but is one of the more expensive pork roasting joints.
Beef
Fore ribs: One of the prime roasting joints because the meat is nicely marbled and has a good layer of fat. Ask the butcher to take the chine bone off (but keep it to rest the beef on while roasting), so it’s easy to carve.
Sirloin: Usually boned and rolled, it’s very tender so it’s quite an expensive cut.
Topside, silverside and top rump: These are all prime cuts for roasting: good, tender meat that’s easy to carve. They have very little marbling, so are usually sold ‘barded’, which means that sheets of fat are cut from the flank and tied around the joint with string to add moisture when roasting.