Roast rib of beef for Easter Sunday

I'm off to Derby today to see my Mum so I thought I'd quickly share with you my one man Easter Sunday dinner from yesterday. I wanted to keep it simple so I purchased a small lean rib roast from Tesco at half price and just had a few boiled carrots, new potatoes and horseradish sauce with it.

Tea spoon added to show size of rib.

The rib joint had a quick browning in a pan containing olive oil. Both sides took no more than ten minutes. Then I put the beef aside and having pre-heated the oven (Gas mark 6) I then placed the beef in a casserole dish with cold water, a cinnamon stick, three whole star anise and a few dried bay leaves for extra flavour. This got covered over in tin foil and cooked in the oven for two hours.

After an hour I took the beef out and basted it in the juices then returned it to the oven. After an hour and three quarters out it came again and I gave the surface a shake or two of ground black pepper. For the remaining quarter of an hour the rib continued to cook and then was released from the oven to rest for ten minutes before slicing.  I took out the cinnamon stick, star anise and bay leaves and used the hot meaty broth to make the gravy.

In the meantime I had boiled my carrots and new potatoes and voila my roast rib dinner was ready to enjoy.