1. Begin with the beef, you’ll want to prep this the night before. Place the fillet of beef in your slow cooker (you can do this in the oven on a low light in a casserole dish if you do not have a slow cooker), fill with cold water halfway up the beef, finely chop 1 onion & 3 cloves of garlic into the water, add a pinch of salt and a generous helping of pepper. Leave to marinade overnight in the fridge. On the day of cooking you’ll want the beef to cook 4-6 hours depending on how well done you like your meat.
2. If you prepare and chill the Yorkshire pudding batter slightly ahead of time (an hour or so) it gives a crisper finish. To make the batter, whisk the flour, baking powder, Egg’s milk, salt & water in a bowl. Fill a muffin tray half way with cooking oil and put this into a pre-heated oven at 180c, leave this for 5-10 minutes until the oil begins to bubble, then as quick as you can so the temperature doesn’t drop, pour the batter into each hole to fill (this may spill over so I would recommend putting a normal baking tray underneath the muffin tin), it may be easier to transfer the batter from the mixing bowl into a jug for ease. Put them in the oven and don’t open the door for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes take out and leave for a few moments to cool, they should slip straight out of the tins.
3. Onto the trimmings, peel and chop potatoes, carrots & parsnips, boil a pan of water and par-boil the potatoes (approximately 5 minutes until they are very slightly soft), then once drained sprinkle over 1tbs flour & 1tsp mixed herbs, place a colander over the top of the pan and shake, this will break up the outside of the potato and give a good covering of the herby flour mixture. In a deep baking tray, pour in enough olive oil to cover the bottom, then 4tsp of butter and the 4 cloves of garlic (the olive oil will stop the butter from burning) and then pre-heat in the over for around 5 minutes. When the oil is hot, tip the potatoes in the tray with care as the oil may splash and put in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes, turning halfway. After half an hour take the potatoes out and using a potato masher, gently press on top of them so the middle fluffs out and then put them back in the oven for 10 more minutes.
4. Parsnips are sadly considered a Christmas vegetable but they are so tasty, especially with a little bit of effort, like the potatoes you’ll want to par-boil them, once drained sprinkle with 1tbs of flour, Maple syrup & salt (rock salt) then shake, do not shake as vigorously as the potatoes as they will break up more easily. For the carrots, simply shake them in a bag / mix them in a bowl with 1tsp of wholegrain mustard & 1tsp of honey and a little cooking oil. Use the same baking tray to cook the carrots and parsnips as once they heat up, the sticky coatings will not run into each other. These will also take around 40 minutes so can be put in the oven at the same time as the potatoes.
5. Half an hour before serving take the beef out of the slow cooker and leave to rest on a chopping board, cover with tin foil to keep the heat. This gives you time to concentrate on the trimmings. When you are ready to serve simply slice with a sharp knife or I prefer to pull apart using 2 forks and then stuff it inside the Yorkshire puddings.
6. For the gravy, it is best to use normal gravy granules, put enough granules in a jug to make 1 pint of gravy (plus 1 extra tsp to make it extra thick), pour ½ pint of freshly boiled water over the granules and then ½ a pint of the onion water the beef cooked in.
Tips
When chopping the potatoes, try and cut diagonally so there is more of the centre potato showing, the middle of the potato gets crispier than the outside. For the Yorkshire puddings, you can make these ahead of time and heat them up 5 minutes before serving in the oven or batch cook and freeze them.
