This weekend, I celebrated my birthday by cooking for 16 people. Y’know, low key. Anyway, I wanted to do a summery, English-y lunch, so one of the things I wanted to cook was cold, rare roast beef with peppery rocket and radishes. A pink and green triumph – so long as you can keep the beef rare.

I called upon He Who Knows, Mr Thomas Blythe, in a panicky late night text conversation and I have to say, the man delivered.  Now, this is a test of nerve… for a scarily large 2.5kg lump of meat, it needs shockingly little oven time. For an English cook, albeit a rare-meat loving one, it’s slightly counter intuitive. But, daring won out and it worked.

Here was the advice, pretty much verbatim:

Me: “I have a 2.3k lump of topside that i want to roast quite rare and do cold, thinly sliced. How the f*** do I not overcook it?”

TB: “Brown on all sides, cook for about 20 minutes on a rack over a roasting tray. Turn out of oven, open door, slide out shelf so it’s warmish, rest for 20 mins.”

Me: “WOW. Only 20 mins full on in oven after browning??”

TB: “If you want it RARE. Give it 30 if you want it more med/rare. Resting is the key and bear in mind that means it won’t be oven hot when served but that’s secondary to texture.”

Me: “When do I baste?”

TB: “Give it 10m in the oven and baste really well [Note: I used the pan juices here and seasoned really well again]”

And that is it. So go on, dare to rare. I served with a bowl of good bought mayonnaise mixed with Dijon (about 60/40). There was none left.