Template for a roast dinner on a match day
Roast beef dinner for 6 people on a match day - kick-off 4pm
What to buy:
Ahead of time, get your roast from Jim Ryan - either a nice round roast, a rib-eye beef or a roast sirloin - aim for a joint of about 4 lbs/ roughly 2kg.
Get lots of veggies for roasting - chose from root veg such as celeriac, carrot, parsnip, or even turnip; then add in some lighter veg such as onion, peppers or whatever else takes your fancy.
Have some potatoes to hand for baking or steaming - best for baking either roosters or records, and for steaming, golden wonders.
We would recommend a nice Bordeaux to go with the dinner - try our Chene de Margot, on special offer at the market on the 27th February with a 15% reduction on the price - now selling at €10.60; if you buy a half dozen there is 25% off.
So, here is how you organise yourself or someone else!
Before the match starts get the roast ready for the oven, by grinding lots of black pepper over it, and placing it on a roasting tin, into which you've thrown about 6 garlic cloves, some thyme and a little olive oil. Put a little extra olive oil over the joint, and leave the joint out of the fridge til half time in the match. Dont add your salt at this stage as it will draw too much moisture from the meat.
Organise your roast veg - chopping the root veg into chunks of reasonably equal size so that they will cook fairly evenly. If you are using celeriac, then squeeze a little lemon juice onto it to prevent the celeriac going brown. Spread them onto a large baking sheet with a little olive oil, and they are ready to go.
Wash the spuds and have them ready to go.
Pour yourself a glass of wine and settle down to watch the first half of the match!
With ten minutes to go in the first half, turn on the oven to about 190 - 200. At the ad break at the end of the first half, put the roast into the oven having seasoned with some salt. If your roast is about 4 lbs weight, it'll take about 1 1/4 hours in the oven to leave you with a pink middle.
Watch the second half, and then in the ad break at the end (when hopefully you'll be having another glass of wine to celebrate an Irish win!), put the potatoes on - either in the oven or on the hob as your choice.
After another 20 minutes (or check that it actually has taken about 1 1/4 hours - in case there have been strange events at the match!), take the meat out of the oven and leave to one side. Put the roast veg in and leave to cook for about 20 - 25 minutes. Your meat needs this time to relax, so dont worry about it!
After 20 minutes, take the juices etc from the beef roasting pan, leaving the meat on the serving platter, turn the heat on again under the pan, and add in a good glass of red wine to create a jus - remember you will also have the flavours of the garlic and thyme in the pan. Reduce the jus by boiling it for about 2 minutes.
And voila - you have your roast meat ready to go, the veg perfectly cooked and the spuds just bursting with flavours! Just hope that the Irish team performance will be worthy of the meal and the lovely wines that you'll be drinking with it!