#8: Best Roast Beef Ever May 27, 2019

This isn’t a fancy roast beef recipe.  It is meant to be eaten at more casual gatherings:  weekend football parties, picnics. And ideal for a family holiday buffet. 

It certainly can be served up at a sit-down dinner eaten off your best China, but my recipe has more humble origins.  That’s how I intend to serve and eat it; however, once you try it, you’ll never cook roast beef and gravy any other way again.

I am from New Orleans, planet Earth’s greatest food city.  The best roast beef po-boy sandwich in New Orleans is served up at Parasol’s restaurant in the historic Irish Channel.  Sure, you can get good roast beef po-boys in many places, but no one beats Parasol’s.  This is its signature sandwich, …rightfully so.  Their secret is in the gravy.  After years of my trial and error experimentation, I have come up with a damned close version of Parasol’s gravy.

The idea is to make a roast beef and gravy combo to be served on New Orleans style French bread.  This bread is virtually impossible to find elsewhere and indubitably impossible to reproduce at home.  Just get the best bread you can find in your city’s bakeries; the sandwiches will be bona-fide good, but not as good as the real thing. 

Now to the recipe.  It’s easy, but this will take hours to do.

Ingredients in cooking the beef:

2-5 lb. bottom round roast (or another solid chunk of beef that is lightly marbled)

Water to cover the meat by an inch or two in a pot large enough to accommodate the roast.

One head of garlic

Optional: a bouquet garni of your favorite fresh herbs to personalize your recipe.  Do not overdo these; the main flavors should come from the beef and garlic.

To cook:

I know it’s called roast beef, but we will boil it instead.  I choose to use a bottom round roast because there is a sheet of fat at the bottom.  Trim this as best you can and place it onto the pot with the beef along with the garlic and bouquet garni, if you wish one.  We’ll be making the gravy from the leftover stock, so the sheet of fat will make it much richer.

After all the ingredients are in the pot, bring it to a rolling boil, then lower it to a medium boil.  Cover the pot and go do something else for a while.  You may need to check it to make sure the beef is still covered by water; if not, add some.

Boiling time depends on your preference of doneness and how big the roast is.  I boil a 2-2.5 lb. roast for 60-90 minutes.  A five pounder is boiled for 2-2.5 hours. 

Remove the roast and place it into the refrigerator to cool.  Remove the garlic head, the fat and your bouquet garni. 

In 30-60 minutes, the meat will be chilled enough to slice.  In the meantime, make the gravy.

I usually bring the stock back to a rolling boil to reduce the volume and concentrate the flavors, but you don’t have to do this if you’re getting impatient.

For the Gravy: 

4 cups beef stock

¼ cup oil

½ cup flour

1 tsp of Kitchen Bouquet to color.

Salt and black pepper to taste–Note that no salt or pepper went into the boiling beef pot; this is your chance.

(Possibly garlic salt)  Be sure to taste the broth.  If you think it needs more garlic flavor, add garlic salt.  This is your call, but you want a definite garlic taste to it.

Strain the stock into a big bowl, returning four cups of it to the same pot or a smaller one.  Add all other gravy ingredients except the flour and return this mix to a low-medium boil.  Reserve whatever leftover stock you have in order to make additional gravy for another occasion, or to add to this pot if your gravy gets to thick.  But if you learn my trick, it will not thicken too much.

Adding the flour a little at a time while whisking will thicken the stock and transform it into your delicious gravy.  This can take 30-40 minutes of constant stirring, unless you use my method.

Flour cooks very fast, almost instantly when it hits the oil-rich water boiling lightly in the pot.  If you add too much at once, the flour will clump, the outside cooking with the inside remaining undercooked to form lumps in your gravy.  Prevention is easy.

I use a tea strainer, held above the boiling liquid.  One teaspoon at a time, I scoop flour into the small strainer and tap it with the spoon, put down the spoon, and whisk for a few seconds.  I tap again, whisk; tap again whisk, and so on until my gravy has reached the consistency, the thickness that I want it to be.

In this way, I am constantly monitoring my gravy, and it is a lot quicker than any other way.  Try it, you’ll be amazed how much time you will save. 

I make all my gravies this way and it is ideal for thickening soups.

Your gravy is ready, so put your burner as low as you can and let’s get back to the meat.  This is enough gravy for a 2-2.5 lb. roast.  If you started with a larger cut of meat, you’ll need to make more gravy by either doubling everything or doing it again.  I do it again to better maintain control.

As everyone should know, cold meat is easier to slice than hot.  So, slice it up.  You’ll want the slices to be paper thin, the thinner the better.  Layer the slices into a 9×12” baking dish; you may need more than one if you started with a five-pound roast.

Layer the beef slices into the baking dish. After every few layers, cover them with the gravy.  Continue until the beef and gravy are used up.  Oh, and invariably you will end up with some meat scraps, “meat crumbs” left on your cutting board.  In New Orleans we call this “debris,” but it is never discarded.  Be sure to put these into the baking dish too. 

By now, your oven has been preheated to 350F.  Pop your baking dish containing the roast beef and gravy into the oven.  Everything is already cooked.  In 30-40 minutes, when the beef is fall-apart tender, this can be removed, and you can make your sandwiches. 

While the dish is heating in the oven, you and your family can prep the bread for sandwiches.  Get napkins, …plenty of napkins.  The sandwiches should be overloaded with beef and gravy. 

As I said, this is a good dish for Super Bowl parties and Holiday get togethers.  For those events, I place the finished roast beef and gravy into a crock pot or something similar on low to keep it warm enough.  I surround the pot with bread, sandwich veggies and condiments then let guests serve themselves.  At these times, I make certain to have at least 10 lbs. prepared and waiting in the ‘fridge to replenish the crock pot.