Roast Beef on the Road

We stayed overnight at my father-in-law’s house and I had to cook for seven adults and two children on his kettle barbecue.

Roast Beef on the Road

Without a lot of space in the car I had to choose a limited set of equipment. The key items I chose was my chimney starter, extendable bellows, my thick, heat resistant gloves and my remote thermometer with probe and barbecue temperature sensor.

I hate using firelighters or lighter fuel, so the chimney starter was a must-have. It got things going quickly. His barbecue is a little challenged with air flow and can get cool suddenly. I had to keep a close eye on the things and occasionally needed to kick start it with a little blowing through the bellows.

As you can see in this photo. the meat took up almost all the space on the barbecue and I just about had enough to allow for indirect cooking, with the coals piled on one side and the meat placed opposite.

Everything went well and we ate a delicious meal. The brining phase of this recipe helped to give the meat a deep luxurious flavour which just soaked up the smokey flavours. Here’s the recipe and steps.

The brine is simple enough. This was a large cut and I could have given it more time to soak up the brine. Combine the following ingredients:

  • Worcester sauce
  • soy sauce
  • juice and zest from a lemon
  • chili flakes
  • ground pepper
  • garlic cloves, crushed.

After mixing the ingredients, I just about managed to squeeze it into a 3 litre zip-lock bag. It got about three hours to soak, but overnight in the fridge would have been better.

As the barbecue coals were lighting in the chimney started I drained the brine, discarding it, and rinsing off any excess. The next step is to apply the dry rub.

For this, you need less salt than usual, as the brine will leave a decent amount behind. But you can still add a lot of ground black pepper. As usual, most of the herbs are cut fresh from my modest herb garden.

  • Black pepper
  • Cumin seed
  • Garlic powder
  • Onion salt
  • Chilli powder
  • Celtic sea salt (less than usual)
  • Dried parsley
  • Fresh thyme
  • Fresh chives
  • Fresh rosemary

Cooking time was slow. This was a large enough cut of beef, weighing 2.3 kg and I give it almost three hours cooking time on the barbecue, turning regularly, to get it to 60˚C internal temperature. The temperature was not stable, but I kept it as close to 180˚C as I could.

This cut of beef has a tapered end which meant that those that prefer a more well done slice of meat were catered for as well as those that prefer a medium to rare slice, which was available at the thicker end.