Perfect Sunday lunch: roast rib of beef with watercress, Yorkshire pudding and gravy

Ingredients

1 rib of beef (250g per person on the bone, raw weight)

Watercress

• Rub the top fat with a few pinches of salt.

• Roast the rib of beef in the oven for 20 minutes per 450g for medium (16 minutes for rare) at 180C/350F/Gas 4.

• Remove from the oven and rest for 45 minutes before removing string and fat.

• Keep the meat somewhere warm while resting, regularly brushing the rib with the cooking juices.

• Carve and serve immediately with a handful of fresh watercress.

Yorkshire puddings

Ingredients

7 medium eggs

313g of strong flour

725ml of milk

A few pinches of salt (to taste)

• Combine all the ingredients together using a hand blender.

• Strain the mixture through a fine sieve and allow the mixture to rest overnight.

• Once rested, preheat a little vegetable oil in Yorkshire pudding trays until the oil is hot.

• Pour the mixture into the tray and cook at a temperature of 180C/350F/Gas 4 for 15 minutes, and then turn the temperature down to 160C/325F/Gas 3 and cook for a further 20 minutes until they rise.

• Serve alongside the rib of beef.

Gravy

Note: this recipe makes enough gravy for numerous meals, so serve and then freeze the rest in sealable zip lock freezer bags, to be reheated later.

Ingredients

3kg beef bones, chopped (ask your butcher to prepare these for you)

100g tomato purée

100g carrot (peeled and roughly chopped)

100g onion (peeled and roughly chopped)

100g celery (washed, peeled and chopped)

100g leek (washed, peeled and chopped)

100g sliced button mushrooms

200ml red wine

• Smear the tomato purée over the beef bones and roast in trays in a preheated oven at 180C/350F/Gas 4 for 20 minutes.

• Remove the bones from the tray and drain off all the cooking juices.

• Once the fat is set, remove it and keep the juices to finish the gravy before deglazing the roasting tray with the red wine.

• In a pan, lightly colour the vegetables (apart from the mushrooms).

• Add the bones and mushrooms to the pan and then cover with cold water before leaving to simmer gently for 12 hours.

• Skimming off any fat from the top of the mixture, strain through a fine sieve and reduce over the heat to the required consistency – adding the roasting juices from the bones to give more depth of flavour.

• Strain the gravy again and serve.

Ian Rudge is the head chef at The Rib Room in Knightsbridge, London SW1 (theribroom.co.uk)