Irish roast beef with stout au jus

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Llysse

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2009
Messages
81
Reaction score
2
Location
Cairo, WV
This will kick your ass with flavor, and it's so easy to make! Also, it's a good excuse to make Two Rooks' Sweet Blackbird Stout.

Two Rooks' Irish roast beef with stout au jus

roast.jpg


  • 3 pound beef roast--this gets very tender, so we use an inexpensive cut
  • Bacon fat
  • One bottle of sweet stout (or one bottle dry Irish with two tsp brown sugar added). We use our Two Rooks Sweet Blackbird stout.
  • 3 sweet potatoes, cut up
  • 3 carrots, cut up
  • 2 - 3 onions (depending on size), cut into wedges
  • 3 - 4 diced garlic cloves, or to taste
  • bouillon cube (veggie or beef)
  • 1 TBSP tomato paste
  • Bay leaf, rosemary and thyme


Brown the roast on all sides in a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat over high heat in a dutch oven. (I like the enameled cast iron kind, as they hold heat so well and are easy to clean up.) When browned, reduce heat to a very low flame and pour the stout over top of the roast.

To the broth, add the tomato paste and bouillon cube, then the sweet potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic. Season with a bay leaf and rosemary and thyme, and simmer covered for three hours until roast is tender. The juices should mostly cover the veggies, but it's not necessary that the roast is covered. Mine sits halfway out of the liquid; it stays moist because the lid stays closed.

If you use a very large pan, you may need to add more beer, tomato paste, bouillon and herbs. If so, make sure to drink any half bottles of stout while you cook, just for good measure. In fact, it's probably a good idea to have several bottles on hand so you can enjoy the labor of letting every thing simmer while sitting on your butt and posting some drunken ramblings on HBT. If anyone asks about your bleary-eyed state during dinner, just inform them that you wore yourself out cooking such a kick-ass meal for them. Then drink some more beer.

As your roast is cooking, baste a few times with the liquid, but seriously, don't open the lid too often and let out all the moisture. Keep the heat very low.

When it's done, serve with the stout jus spooned over top of the meat, or on the side for soaking. Delicious with spent grain bread!
 
Ok, I'm making this now. I resorted to Guinness Extra as that's all I could get in a hurry. I added two teas of brown sugar. Meat browned, onions and garlic added and starting to simmer. Smells great already! I'll add the carrots in the last hour so they don't get too soft. I'm going to roast the potatoes separately.
IrishBeef003.jpg

IrishBeef004.jpg
 
Oh, my--that looks delicious! You may want to throw in a piece of sweet potato or two with the roast. The reason I say that is just because the sweet potatoes cooked in the yummy stout sauce was one of the best parts. :) Maybe you could compare the two methods, with some roasted separately, and some simmered in the stout jus. Seriously, it was AMAZING.

When I originally made it, all the veggies in the broth helped raise the level of the liquid around my roast. As I said in the OP, even though my roast was out of the liquid about halfway, it still turned out fork tender through and through. So keeping the veggies out and having a lower level of broth may not matter at all, so long as the lid is on for most of the cooking.

Let me say again, too--wow! Your roast looks great; I can smell it from here, and my mouth is watering. Later in the week I'm planning to make this with cut up beef chunks (and maybe a little pearled barley) rather than a roast, for a nice, hot stew.
 
WOW, I am stoked to make this! I have four 3 lb beef roasts in the freezer, I used to make a ton of slow cooked shredded beef tacos but since I am taco'd out, I will be trying this recipe. maybe add some red potatoes in there for variety.
 
FWIW, as the lucky man who got to have Llysse's creation for dinner, I'll add that it was incredibly delicious--the resulting broth was unlike anything I've had before. And Evets, that looks frickin' amazing. Let us know how it turns out. :)
 
You bet! I actually don't have any sweet potatoes, so I'm gonna oven roast some reds with olive oil and onion soup mix.
I used an extra half bottle of stout to compensate for the lower level. Now, at about two hours in, it smells absolutely incredible in my house! I keep going outside and coming back in just to keep it fresh in my nose!
 
Wow, what a great recipe! Very tender and full of flavor, just like you said! I think the best part was soppin up the gravy with a slab of home baked bread!
The left-over gravy is gonna make an awesome base for French Onion Soup as well! Thanks again for the recipe!

IrishBeef007.jpg


IrishBeef009.jpg


IrishBeef011.jpg


IrishBeef006.jpg
 
Thanks for that, I'm hungry again! I am going to try to make this for dinner this weekend. until then I am going to carve off a hunk of bread that I made a few hours ago.
 
Lamb sounds good. I've never actually cooked lamb before. Let us know how it turns out.

I have a couple more sourdoughs rising myself right now.
 
Wow--those pictures look terrific (and so does your bread, YUM!). Tomorrow I'm making a stew version, and I can hardly wait. (I keep thinking how wonderful the kitchen will smell tomorrow...)

I agree: the meat and veggies were fantastic, but the gravy was so good on bread, that could make a meal in itself.

Azscoob, lamb is a great idea. Lamb is so sweet and subtle, I bet this gravy will really complement it.
 
Back
Top