Beef topside is a lovely piece of meat to have as part of a roast dinner and knowing how to cook beef topside so it's tender and juicy is a must of you like a good Sunday (or any day!) roast. Cooking a joint of beef is also a great way of having something to put in your sandwiches come Monday too!

How To Cook Beef Topside

I used to be a little scared of a joint of meat like this. Although pretty reasonably priced if it goes well, it's too pricy to ruin and so I didn't bother to even try. Roast dinners were a chicken (easy!) or they were something we had when we went out for dinner. Nowadays? I love cooking as roast, and they no longer go wrong!

The problem many of us have with cooking a topside is that it becomes tough. We aim for the tender fall apart type of sliced meat and get something you need a chain saw to cut through. But follow this guide and you'll get a roast that's cooked to your liking (we prefer it on the more well done side but you can have this pink too) and isn't tough, chewy or anything else you'd rather your beef not be!

The first thing you need to do is leave your beef out of the fridge to reach room temperature. This is because having been in the fridge for means it's super cold inside and if you don't let it reach room temperature, the cooking will be uneven. I take the beef out of the fridge a few hours before I'm cooking it, unwrap it and leave it out on the kitchen top to warm up.

This beef topside here weighed 1kg, so it's quite small. Your cooking time will of course depend on the size of your cut so you'll need to adjust accordingly. However, you can take the beef in and out of the oven to check when it's cooked to your liking so it's easy to put it back in for another 15 minutes or so if it's to rare for you. Better to undercook it and give it more time than to over cook it!

No roasting pan? I use one like this.

What Is Beef Topside?

If you're not familiar with beef topside, this is a piece of meat that taken from the cows thigh. It's a lean cut that's quite versatile for cooking. We mostly have this as a roast and cooked as a joint but you can cut it into pieces to use in casseroles, or as stewing beef.

Topside is also more tender than other cuts. I cook this on a high heat for a faster roast but it will become fall apart tender when slow cooked too.

You often find your topside comes packaged with string around it. This is just to keep the joint together as when it's cut it's not usually in a nice neat piece so they roll it and tie it with string to keep it all in a 'roll'. Don't take the string off before cooking it, you can do this after it's cooked, or leave it non a slice the beef around the string to keep the slices neat.

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How To Brown Beef Topside

Browning a topside of beef is really important. For lots of casseroles and stews I've tried browning the meat and not browning it, and to be honest if it's being slow cooked, I've never really been able to see the benefit of browning it first. Topside however, must be browned. This gives you the delicious crispy 'bits' on the outside and avoids the 'beige' meat effect when it finally comes out of the oven.

It's pretty easy to prepare the beef for cooking:

Heat a large frying pan with 2 tablespoon of Olive oil on high so the oil's very hot (not smoking!)
Rub another table spoon of oil onto your beef and season it well with some salt and pepper. Then using your hands, massage the seasoning into the beef with the oil all the way around so it's well worked into the meat
Sear the beef in the hot oil frying pan, letting each side brown nicely, turning it round often to make sure all sides are browned
Don't worry too much about the ends. These will pick up some color as you're browning the sides, if you can still see some red meat on the ends, leave them
That's it, your beef's ready to go into the oven

Should You Cover Topside?

If you're roasting your topside like I have here, don't cover it. When you're stewing beef it's got a liquid in the form of the sauce to stop it from drying out, roasting it like this means it doesn't. This cooks quickly on a high heat so there is not time for the meat to dry out, and covering the beef would stop you getting the yummy crisp edges you want. So not covering a beef topside!

Trivets

If you want to make a gravy for your roast (who doesn't!) then you can cook the beef on a trivet and then use those veggies to make the gravy. A trivet is just a little pile of vegetables that the beef joint sits on the cook. They absorb the juices form the beef and become super soft and all mixed up with the burnt little bits of beef juice, making the most delicious, rich base for a gravy.

If you want to cook the beef on a trivet I'd recommend using onions and carrots for a basic trivet, but you can add any vegetables you like. Onions and carrots tend to give you a good base without adding any unusual flavors to the gravy.

You don't have to use a trivet when you're cooing topside. Just put the beef straight into a roasting tin to cook.

Letting The Beef Rest

After your beef is cooked and done how you want it to be, you need to let the meat 'rest' for a good 10-15 minutes to allow the juices to be reabsorbed into the meat. While I know it's super hard to resist sometimes when the smell of roast beef is wafting through the house, you'll get a much juicier piece of meat than if you cut it straight way.

Any juices that are sitting in the bottom of the pan can be poured back on top of the meat to soak in while it's resting.

After the beef has been allowed to rest, you can cut the string off if you like, however it makes it easier to slice if you leave it on!

Beef Topside Cooking Times

These cooking times are for a 1kg Beef topside. Double or triple your cooking times for 2kg or 3kg topsides. The oven temperature is set to 210° so the oven's nice and hot.

Rare beef topside - 40-45 minutes
Pink beef topside - 50 -55 minutes
Well done beef topside - 1 hour - 1 hour 10 minutes

Making Ahead And Leftovers

Oh how I love having some cold roast beef in the fridge. It makes the best leftovers!

You can cook this ahead of time and even slice it up ahead of time, roughly 2 days ahead of time in fact. Be careful not to over heat it when and if you're reheating it, as it can become dry and over cooked. If you want to make this ahead of time and have it as a roast, I'd recommend taking it out of the fridge an hour before you want it so it reaches room temperature and then use a piping hot gravy to warm it up rather than using the microwave to reheat. If you want to though, 20-30 seconds in the microwave is all it will need to reheat it.

Keep any leftovers in the fridge, covered, for up to 2-3 days depending on the use by date on your beef.

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