Barbecued Beef Rib

We discussed a variety of options when deciding on something particularly English to cook as a St George’s day celebration. Roast beef is always pretty high on the list in these sorts of situations, and as the weather was forecast to be good, we decided to cook it on the barbecue instead of doing a traditional Sunday roast. We bought ourselves an impressive-looking air dried rib from our local butcher that had been aged for 21 days – we’ve used this partcular cut a couple of times before and always been pleased with the results but don’t remember having one that looked quite so dark from the ageing process. The clouds came and went and the wind was a little chilly when the sun was obscured, but overall it was good barbecuing weather especially for this time of year.

Having put a couple of foil-wrapped potatoes in amongst the coals for about an hour or so, we finally seasoned the beef with salt and pepper, rubbed it with a little oil and laid it onto the barbecue. Dripping fat caused numerous flare-ups, so we moved the coals to the sides and put the lid onto the barbecue so that the meat wasn’t over a direct heat. This worked well and meant the meat was well seared on the outside and cooked evenly. The initial high heat meant that a brilliant crust formed on the outside of the rib and the smoky flavour from the barbecuing ran all the way through the meat which was tender and sliced like butter. The air drying and aging provided a really deep, beefy flavour which meant it didn’t take us long to devour what was on our plates and go back for seconds.

Served with the aforementioned potatoes, mixed salad, some left-over salsa verde and of course mustard, both English and Dijon:

Foolishly, we forgot to buy any English wine so made do with some interesting England’s Gold ale from Badger instead. Like every summer, we resolved to have as many barbecues as possible, even if the weather isn’t great… we’ll see how that works out 🙂