Eat This MF Roast Beast

You know what MF means. I know you know.

We called it the trough.

It was our children’s highchair for joining us at the dinner table. Once the child was safely secured in said chair, their own private plastic table was snapped into place. It had a rim around the edge to assist in the prevention of food getting all over the fucking floor. Often, it was easier to just plop food directly onto the trough then clean the entire thing afterward, since it was gonna be covered in glop anyway.

My daughter is loud, and she talks a lot. Yet this tale is from a time when she did not yet talk, and her lack of ability to communicate her wishes verbally was frustrating for her.

We were having a meal of roast beast. In this case, the beast was leg of lamb. It was a get-together of family and friends and my daughter was in her seat behind her trough, placed next to me. She was pointing at the table and making “want” noises and gestures. There was plenty of food smeared around the trough so I couldn’t figure out what she was after.

“What do you want, Sweetie? More meat?” I held it up and she gave a frustrated shake of her head.

“More mashed potatoes? More carrots?” Increasingly aggravated shaking. This was one pissed-off nine-month-old.

I wish I could effectively describe via the written word what happened next, but this is a case of you having had to be there to truly appreciate the imagery. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to create the scene for you.

Realization finally dawned. I held up the gravy boat. “Do you want more gravy?”

It was like a baby gorilla occupied her highchair. From behind the giant trough, she waved both arms toward herself making an excited sound that loosely translates to “Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!” Gimme that brown fuckin’ sludge, she demanded.

Dear reader, you are about to learn to prepare the best muthafuckin’ gravy you ever had. Maybe. No promises. Everyone I serve it to likes it a lot.

Before we get to the making of delicious brown sludge, there needs be a discussion of

Choosing the Motherfucking Beast
Alas, Charlie is no longer with us.

Charlie was a good boy who lived a long and glorious life. Dogs are the best, but they leave us too soon, tickled to death by their own hearts.

Oh shit I hope you don’t think we’re eating dog meat. We are not.

Charlie was a standard poodle / golden retriever cross who lived up the street. That dog loved me. I could have broken into their house and stolen everything and he’d have let me. This is because I always brought him the bones from the beasts I cooked. The owners said they could tell when I was bringing him a leftover roast beast bone, with a generous amount of meat purposefully left attached, because he had a certain bark / howl reserved for just such occasions.

I loved that dog.

This recipe works the same (except for internal temperature) whether it’s a lamb leg or a beef roast, but there is one reason why lamb is amazing, and that is the motherfucking gravy. I make an awesome gravy, and lamb gravy is the best. It will make you too behave like a nonverbal baby gorilla in your desire for more.

Actually, wait. There are two reasons to choose leg of lamb. The second is price. I live in Alberta, and we are known for our cow. But Jesus fuckfarts beef roast is expensive these days. I may be doing well financially many thanks to an assload of you motherfuckers buying my books, but rib roasts are stupid expensive now, even at fucking Costco. I used to do this recipe all the time with rib roasts because they’re amazing if a bit pricey, but a “bit pricey” has become “you have got to be fucking kidding me.” I’m not paying that much just on principle.

And yet, a fresh leg of lamb from the other side of the fucking planet is super cheap at Costco. They’re not cheap at my local grocery store, but Costco has some deal with Australian sheep farmers like maybe they got video of said farmer committing unspeakable acts or some shit and they’re blackmailing that dude.

Anyway, recently I was at Costco and rib roasts were still expensive so fuck it we did leg of lamb roast last night and it was both gluttonous and glorious.

Coating the Motherfucking Beast
Your house is about to smell wonderful.

Last night’s dinner has always been my daughter’s favorite meal. She’s 22 now, and I remember a time when she was much younger, when coming home from school she said she was still thirty feet from our front door and she could tell I was cooking roast beast. She burst inside and said something to the effect of hooray my favorite dinner except with much added profanity yes she learned those words from me.

I’m not real big on precise measurements unless it’s for baking. You can wing this part. Here is what you need, assuming it’s a sizeable chunk o’ beast. We had seven people for dinner last night and the leg was 4.5 lbs and there are leftovers. Based on that:

·      About 6 tbsp of Dijon mustard

·      About 6 tbsp of olive oil

·      About 4 tbsp of white flour

·      About 6 or 7 cloves of garlic, crushed to absolute shit

·      A fuck-ton of rosemary

Just like I won’t shame people for using pasta sauce from a jar in their muthafuckin’ lasagna, I likewise won’t shame you for using dried rosemary, or jarred crushed garlic, for that matter. But if you can get the fresh stuff, do it. Cuz better. Chop the rosemary up pretty good, but don’t get too carried away. DO however get carried away with the amount of rosemary. Assuming my grocery store and your grocery store sell it in similar-size bunches, use the entire bunch.

Mix the shit out of this stuff and create a paste. Put the beast, preferably on top of a little rack thingy, in a big ass cooking dish with the fattiest side of the beast facing up. Use a silicone spatula to spread the past o’er the beast as much as possible. I have a Baby Yoda spatula I got in my Christmas stocking last year. Just thought I’d mention that. Here’s a pic. Isn’t he cute? Might as well throw in what my paste shit looks like too. It’s Baby Yoda approved.

Oh, shit. I was supposed to tell you to preheat the oven to 425 (NOTE: You’re only gonna cook the beast for 15 minutes at that temp.) After 15, minutes, open the door for a few minutes to cool down the oven by about 100 degrees and warm up the house in the process cuz it’s fucking winter. Lower the oven temp to 325.

Does that 15 minutes at a higher temp “seal in the juices”? Don’t fucking know. Someone told me it did a long time ago pre-Google so I didn’t google and have just gone on believing it. If you’re skeptical go ahead and cook the fucker the entire time at 325 I don’t care I’m not the boss of you.

Oh but if you have convect, use that setting.

While you wait for things to warm up, grind some black pepper on top and it should look like this. I mean, if you went with the lamb leg it looks like this. By the way, I always name lamb legs “Orlando,” because Legolas / leg o’ lamb … never mind. Say hi to pre-oven Orlando:

Charlie is no longer with us, and that is a tragedy. If he were, I’d feel guilt over my choosing of the cheap Costco Australian farmer blackmail meat, because Orlando here is boneless.

Add about half an inch of water to the bottom of the pan. It will boil down and you’ll need to add more after about an hour. By the time it’s done you want a layer of liquid in the bottom that is around a quarter inch deep. This is muy importante. 

You’ll need a meat thermometer. Stab it deep. If you’re cooking beef take it out when it hits around 135, but if it’s lamb cook to 145 or 150. Unless you like your food burnt in which case fuck you no James stop that let people enjoy shit the way they want.

Don’t just focus on the beast. You need to be doing other important shit while it’s cooking. Such as …

Preparing the Motherfucking Yorkshire Pudding
Not long ago I posted a photo of my Yorkshire puddings, and some proclaimed, “I don’t know what those are, but they aren’t Yorkshire puddings.”

Let me tell YOU something. My great-grandfather, Harrison Fell, was born and raised in Yorkshire Motherfucking England and if I say it’s a Yorkshire pudding, then it’s a goddamn Yorkshire motherfucking pudding. The fact that the recipe is my mom’s and she was born in London is irrelevant.

Dammit. I was supposed to tell you to do this a long time ago. Well, hopefully you’re reading well in advance, because you should do this way before dinner. Well, maybe. The oil heat is the real critical thing. But if you can, make the yorkie batter early and put it in the fridge for a few hours. That increases the likelihood you get puffy and not pucks. Puffy > pucks.

By the way, we do call them yorkies and no we’re still not talking about eating dogs.

Moving on, I know olive oil is a super food, or some holistic nutritionist bullshit, but you DON’T use olive oil when making yorkies. The reason why has to do with its smoke point. You need to get the oil screaming hot and smoke detectors give me a migraine. Just FYI, having your olive oil smoke probably doesn’t cause cancer, but canola oil is a much better choice for this job because of the high smoke point. I have seen some recipes that recommend you use the pan drippings from the beast to cook the yorkies in, and that is the worst fucking idea since invading Russia in Winter. The reason for this will soon be made clear. Just use canola oil.

Start off preparing this recipe by bitching to Craig. Because if you bitch to Craig about having a shitty quality dish for cooking these suckers where they always get burnt to the bottom, he will become tired of your whining and buy you high quality yorkie pan for Christmas or whatever you celebrate and then the yorkies will be much better than if cooked in the shitty six-dollar pan you saw on the grocery store shelf sitting next to the flour and the sugar.

In the bottom of each cup pour just enough canola oil so that it slowly spreads to cover the bottom. When the beast is getting close to being done crank the heat up to 450. Wait. No. Cancel that mofo. Turn off convect and switch to regular bake at 450. Convect can fuck up the yorkies.

This requires some careful timing.

Ideally, you’re gonna yank the roast beast—I didn’t mean for that to sound icky—and pop in the yorkies at near the same time, and you want that pan screamin’ fuckin’ hot don’t burn yourself not my fault if you do actually you cook these enough times you’re gonna fuckin’ burn yourself at some point choose your fate.

When you’re about ten or so minutes from taking the beast out of the oven, put the pan with the oil in it in the oven with the beast, and crank on the bake setting to 450. Unless you have a shit oven that takes forever to go from 325 to 450 cuz it doesn’t have that power preheat setting thing, in which case maybe a bit longer than ten minutes. It’s gotta be at 450 when the pan goes back in though.

I said canola has a high smoke point, but it does have a smoke point. Don’t hit its smoke point, or you might die. Or at least scream motherfucker a lot because if cold batter hits that shit and it explodes on you, profanity will definitely happen.

Screamin’ hot not stupid hot, got it?

Shit I haven’t even told you the fucking ingredients yet. ADHD and mild hangover will do that. Booze comes later in this recipe I do advise mixing drinking and cooking and also some fucking airpods leave me alone I am preparing a feast and this is my private drinking time.

Here is what you need:

·      1 cup white flour

·      4 eggs

·      Pinch of salt

·      1 and 1/4 cup milk. 1% is okay, but don’t use non-fat if you can help it. The non-fat ship sailed a long fucking time ago.

Use a whisk and only whisk it enough to get the lumps out. It should be smooth, but do not over whisk it. Again: fridge for about 3 hours unless you forgot in which case it will probably be okay.

Don’t take out of the fridge until the pan is ready. Give it another quick whisk and pour from the bowl into a large measuring cup. Not for the measuring, but for the spout making for better pouring. Use anything with a spout measuring cup or not it doesn’t fucking matter you gotta wing this part.

Take the beast out of the oven and set aside, covering either with a lid or with foil to keep warm. Then take the not quite nuclear hellfire temperature yorkie pan out of the oven and get your ass in gear. You need to do this quickly.

It’s a “Well, duh!” that you should be wearing some high-quality oven mitts.

Pour 1/12 of the mixture into each cup and do it fast. How much is 1/12th? It takes practice. Sometimes you end up with only 11 yorkies, in which case it sucks to be you. Fill them about 2/3rds of the way up, although that’s a relative measure quit pressuring me to be exact.

Again, be fast. Fill the cups and put them back in the oven (again: should be at 450) and start the timer for 17 or 18 minutes.

Turn the oven light on so you can see what’s happening. Do NOT open the oven door until it’s time to take them out. When they look like this, they’re done.

Or maybe like this, depending of what you like:

Except sometimes they are hockey pucks and it doesn’t mean you did it wrong it just means life sucks sometimes but they still taste pretty good.

Anyway, everything else should be done as well. Yorkies are the very last thing. All the other dishes should be on the table just minutes before, and then the yorkies come out and it’s time to chow down.

Let’s talk about the other shit you should have been doing while the beast / yorkies were cooking.

Other Motherfucking Dishes
Mashed potatoes are good, especially as a gravy receptacle. Speaking of, in case you didn’t know, the aforementioned motherfucking yorkies are the epitome of gravy receptacles. Unless you’re my wife. She loves the gravy (shut up) but only puts salt on the yorkies she is my soul mate but what the fuck?

Back to the potatoes. Red or golden or purple or white I don’t care keep the skin on. Add in some butter, a bit of milk, and about a half tablespoon of horseradish. You want them to be done just before the beast is because you’ll be busy doing other stuff. SAVE THE WATER.

When draining the potatoes do it into a measuring cup in the sink.

The potatoes will probably cool a bit by the time the yorkies are ready, so feel free to pop them in the nuker for a minute prior to dinner being served. And maybe do some carrots / asparagus or whatever too. You can figure that shit out I’m just covering the important parts. Speaking of important …

The Motherfucking Gravy
This is what it’s all about. This is why you don’t make yorkies with pan drippings. You need those pan drippings for gravy.

Take the beast out of the pan and put it on a serving plate. Cover with tin foil. Pour the drippings into a medium sized pot. If you made lamb, the gravy is going to be outstanding as opposed to merely “excellent” if you cooked beef.

You’ll need at least three (or perhaps four, because you can never have too much gravy) packages of gravy mix. I prefer McCormick International brand. If I’m using four I’ll have three of the “roast gravy” packs and one of the “green peppercorn” packs.

Now these packages are not inexpensive, which I why I watch for them to go on sale and buy several. If you know a way to emulate them closely with raw ingredients and save a lot of money, do not hold back in the fucking comments. I admit that I’ve not tried that hard to find a low-cost replacement, because I’m a lazy mofo I found an easy option that works well so I eat the cost.

Throw in the packages with the drippings into a medium-size pot and whisk in an appropriate amount of the potato water to a little less than desired thickness.

If you’re drinking, throw in a splash of red wine. A splash, not half a glass, drunky.

This part, in my humble opinion, you must do: Add about an ounce of Drambuie. Grand Marnier will suffice, but Drambuie is way more better, as my father would say.

When the yorkies have five minutes left, transfer the beast to a cutting board. Take the juices than ran off into the serving plate and pour into gravy. No that’s not blood it’s myoglobin actually that doesn’t sound any better I mean it’s the stewings of a once living creature what do you fucking expect?

Whisk some more. You want it pretty hot and may need to add a little more potato water or another splash of red wine to get the right consistency, but don’t you dare make that shit watery. The gravy goes in the boat (or two boats so people don’t have to wait as much for the best fucking part) at the last minute, when you’ve just taken the yorkies out.

Serve those Motherfuckers
A few minutes before the yorkies are done, carve the beast up quick and put on the table with tin foil on top to keep warm.

While you’re putting the gravy on the table the yorkies are still in the pan doing a bit of collapsing inward, which is a good thing because it’s creating the glorious gravy hole. The lamb gravy on the meat and potatoes approaches otherworldly, but this entire culinary endeavor has been mostly about lamb gravy + yorkies.

Again, not the dog.

So that recipe was way longer than it needed to be. Perhaps you read the whole thing because you enjoyed the journey. If you do not yet subscribe to my Substack, either free or paid, I’d like you to continue this journey with me—ack barf hack wheeze additional vomiting—just gimme your fuckin’ email I post a lot of free shit like this and you won’t be at the whim of some billionaire’s algorithmic fuckery and miss any of it. Please just do the thing so I can one day tell you to buy my sweary recipe book:

In the mean time, it would please me if you purchased my sweary fucking history book ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN. Makes a cool gift.