I was cooking a large meal for friends the other day. I fancied roasting some beef, and fortuitously, a leg of beef was half price in the supermarket.

As I have grown older, I have liked my beef rarer and rarer. I now prefer rare or medium rare beef, as I think it is more juicy, succulent and has a better flavour than overdone beef. It is also more pleasing to look at, more vivid and strong than a well done grey piece of meat.

Beef doesn’t need any extra flavours to go with it, so I just seasoned it well with pepper. To roast the beef, I wrapped it in cheese and bacon, which I hoped would keep it more moist. The cheese tended to just burn, so would probably be better inside. The bacon was fantastically tasty - baking is definitely a good way to cook bacon.

With the beef I cooked some roasted potatoes. I cut the potatoes into discs and boiled them before roasting. Boiling first makes roasting a lot easier as there are no worries about them being done, and they produce a nicer outside when boiled first. I boiled them with a cinnamon stick, which was a nice surprise when eating them.

Ingredients

• 2kg leg of beef
• 2tbsp mixed peppercorns (try and get some black and some pink or green)
• 100g Brie
• 6 rashers of smoked bacon
• 2 onions

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• 1.5kg potatoes
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4tbsp oil

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C.
2. Rub some salt and pepper into the beef, and spread the peppercorns over it. Push some into the meat by stabbing with a knife or filing any natural cavities.
   
3. Cut the cheese into thin slices and smear over the top of the beef. Place the bacon rashers over the top of that, covering the cheese and beef completely.
4. Slice the onions and place in the bottom of a oven proof dish. Place the beef on top of the onions.
5. Cook the beef for 30 minutes at 220 degrees C, then reduce the temperature to 200 degrees C and cook for another 30 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and slice into round discs, about a centimetres thick.
7. Boil the potatoes for about 12 minutes, with the cinnamon stick.
8. Place the potatoes in a roasting dish with the oil and spread the oil over them. Add to the oven.
9. Cook the beef and potatoes for another 30 minutes (so the meat has 1 hour 30 minutes altogether).
10. 

    Remove the beef and place to rest somewhere warm (a top oven is ideal). Check the potatoes are crisp; if not, give them a few more minutes.

11. Get the beef onto a plate or board to carve it. Put the juices and onions from the tin onto the plates for serving.
12. Carve the beef into thin slices. It should be nicely pink inside, as you can see below. It’s easiest if you pull all the bacon off before trying to carve.
    
13. Serve the potatoes and beef. Give everyone a piece of bacon as well!

This served 5 people very well, with lots of meat left over for about 6 servings of sandwiches!

This dish combines sweet and savoury flavours in a main meal. I normally don’t like to combine sweet and meat, especially orange meat sauces which usually end up sickly sweet, sticky and the sour orange flavour is totally opposed to the juicy meat flavour. Apple based sweetness usually compliments the flavour of the meat much better.

This recipe also explains a nice way to cook chicken which leaves it tender and juicy with a nicely browned outside. I really recommend buying organic or free range chicken - it has a much better texture and actually tastes of something. People often comment that things “taste like chicken.” I’d say that is because all the chicken they eat tastes of very little, so anything bland tastes like it.

I’d serve chicken like this on a hot day, with some green salad, probably including spinach or rocket. It would also go well with some nice light bread.

Ingredients

• 4 chicken breasts
• 1tbsp oil for frying
• 75g salted butter
• 3 cloves of garlic

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• 3 crisp red apples
• A little lemon juice to stop the apple browning
• 300ml yoghurt
• 2tbsp light runny honey

Recipe

1. Heat the oil in a frying or griddle pan over a low to medium heat.
2. Crush or finely chop the garlic. Make several cuts half a centimetre deep across the chicken breasts. Rub some salt and black pepper into the chicken breasts.
3. Fry the chicken for a few minutes on each side, then add the butter and garlic.
4. Reduce the heat and turn regularly for about 10-15 minutes until the chicken is not pink inside and only clear juice runs out(check by stabbing with a knife). Keep basting the garlic butter over the chicken and into the slits you cut in it.
5. While the chicken is frying, or before if you can’t handle doing both at the same time, chop the apples into wedges (check out my Perfect Potato Wedges recipe for how to cut something round into 12 neat wedges.)
6. Add the lemon juice the apple wedges and then arrange so as to cover a serving dish one layer thick.
7. Mix the yoghurt and honey, then spread over the top of the apples.
8. Serve the chicken on top of the apple and yoghurt. Pour any garlic butter left in the pan over the chicken.