Calculating the cooking time for a piece of beef

Speaker 1: So this morning, Anucha, I'd like you to cook this beautiful piece of Cumbrian beef for me.

It's 35-day aged and it's very, very expensive.

We're going to use it for a sirloin carpaccio which is one of the starters on the menu.

And I'd like you to have a look at this.

This is three cooking times each for the same quantity of meat.

OK, so you'll first need to weigh the piece of meat and then work out how you're going to cook it.

And I'd like the meat cooked to medium, please.

Speaker 2: Yes, Chef.

Speaker 1: Good luck!

Speaker 2: Thank you. (TO AUDIENCE) So first I will need to look at my recipe which says I need to cook, for medium 25 minutes per 450 grams plus an extra 20 minutes.

And the next step I will need to weigh this beef.

Which comes up to… 3 kilos and 23 grams.

I will round the total weight down. 3 kilos, which is 3000 grams.

And I look back at my recipe which says I need to divide the total weight of the beef by 450 grams.

So with my calculator 3000 grams, which is 3 kilos, divided by 450 which comes up to 6.6 which I will now round up to 7.

So now that I know that there are 7 by 450 grams that goes into this 3 kilos of beef.

Speaker: So to double check my calculation I will now take a piece of paper and draw myself a diagram.

So first, I will draw a piece of sirloin divided by 7 pieces.

In each piece, I know it weighs 450 grams by my calculation.

And each 450 grams takes 25 minutes to cook.

So to find out the total cooking time I will times 25 minutes by 7 plus an extra 20 minutes of cooking time.

Which equals 195 minutes. Which I will divide by 60.

Which is 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Speaker 1: OK, Anucha, the main piece of beef is resting over there and this is our sample piece.

Shall we have a taste?

Speaker 2: Yes, Chef.

Speaker 1: Brilliant, well done. It's cooked perfectly.

Any more and it would have been a little bit overcooked.

And we would have used it for a sauce or something a lot less valuable in the kitchen.

But we will now use this for a sirloin carpaccio which will be chilled and then thinly sliced for a starter on our à la carte menu.

Well done.

Speaker 2: Thank you, Chef.