Home Roast Tips Chat Transcript
11 March 2010
On March 3rd, we hosted a live facebook chat with our Toby Carvery chef Andy. Our Toby facebook fans were given the chance to get advice on any element of cooking a roast dinner and ask the questions they had always wanted to know about Toby. Below is a transcript of all the questions as well as Andy’s answers on topics including Roast Meat, Yorkshire Puddings and Vegetables & Trimmings.
To take part in our next live session, just become a Toby Facebook fan and we’ll let you know when the next web chat is coming up.
Questions and Answers on Roast Meat
Chrissie Cronnolley
I want to know how to cook a joint of beef to perfection, so it's really tender, mine tend to come out a bit tough, it's the only meat I have a problem with…..
Toby Carvery
Chrissie, the choice of cut of meat makes a difference. I recommend a rib of beef or topside joint. Cooked meat that is tough could be because of too high a temperature, I suggest 20 mins on a high temp to sizzle, then 20 mins per kg at 180 degrees Celsius. Do not cook in oil, use water in the roasting tray and use a metal rack/trivet. Rest the meat for 20 minutes and carve.
Robberty Wainwright
How many turkeys do you get through in an average week? What happens to all the meat left on the carkus and do you use british meat? Thanks your the best.
Toby Carvery
An average carvery might cook over 110 turkeys per week at 8kg per bird. Fresh carcass meat goes into our homemade pies. Yes, we do use British meat.
Ken Medwyn
Please can you tell us how to cook the perfect gammon. Is it smoked or unsmoked? Do you soak it overnight; also, do you roast or boil the joint? Why do Toby only offer BROWN gravy with turkey? Turkey meat is, by nature, dry. The last thing I want is to put BEEF gravy on it.
Toby Carvery
Ken, if your gammon joint is heavily smoked, I recommend you soak in fresh water overnight in the fridge. Then boil and finish off by roasting with a honey and mustard glaze. We do 2 main gravies in Toby Carvery, beef and onion and a Country gravy which is made from poultry stock.
How do you make the pork so moist and tender?
Toby Carvery
Zoe, Pork joints need to be cooked slowly, with water in the roasting tray and a metal rack/trivet, no oil is needed in the bottom of the tray. Roast and rest after for 20 mins. Make sure you cook thoroughly and ensure the meat is not pink
do you use pepper in any dishes in the carvery?
Toby Carvery
Kelly, we only use it to flavour the swede on the carvery deck.
Hayley C Harper
Would really like to know how you prep and cook your gammon joints? Also would love the recipe for your cranberry sauce and the recipe for the stunning vanilla cheesecake? I love going to Toby's. Food is excellent and always service with a smile… Keep up the good work? :D :D :D
Toby Carvery
Hayley, we cook our gammon joints in a big roasting oven, over a long period of time, 6 hours as we use large joints. We remove the skin, score and glaze with honey and mustard.
We buy cranberry sauce and wonderful cheesecake from handpicked suppliers. Glad you like them and thanks for your kind comments.
Nicola Clarke
how do you do the gammon? I've tried to do it honey roast but it is never as nice! What’s the secret?
Toby Carvery
Nicola, I recommend you use honey and English mustard as your glaze - about equal portions. Don’t forget to remove the top layer of fat and score before putting on your glaze. Do this after the joint is cooked and back in for 15 mins.
Hi, why is there no roast lamb on the day time carvery menu?
Toby Carvery
Roast lamb is saved as a treat for a Saturday night.
Ally Sharp
Can you please tell me why on your Veggie option for the roast, Tthat the cavery offer a pie on a roast dinner? A pie on a roast dinner?? Never ever heard of that?? Am sure Meat eaters don’t or won’t eat a pie on a roast dinner. Can you not offer Quorn meat? Ie.. Chicken, Beef, Turkey instead? And it’s only cheap. Am sick of eating a pie with my Roast dinner. So i have been giving the cavery a miss for this reason.
Toby Carvery
Ally, we only offer meat pies at the moment. The veggie options are: a puff pastry wellington, chipolte (smoked veg crumble) and on the new menu for Sundays a veg nut roast (new menu on 17th March).
Shelley Dobbs
A Nut Roast would be awesome!
Toby Carvery
Shelly, a new nut roast is on the way with our new Sunday carvery menu from 21st March
David John Leivers
what do you do with all the pork crackling?
Toby Carvery
David, we serve it with the pork on the carvery deck.
Lisa Samtani
what do you do with all the lovely crispy fatty bits off the beef, their my favourite! Keep up the good work
Toby Carvery
Lisa, we serve them. Customers always ask for them. I love them too as they can be the tastiest bits!
Questions and Answers on Yorkshire Puddings
Sandra Haith
how do you get your Yorkshire puddings so good
Caroline Wright
how do you do the Yorkshire puddings
Toby Carvery
Sandra & Caroline … For the perfect Yorkies take your batter and whisk lots of air into it, let it rest in the fridge for an hour before re-whisking it and pouring it into cup cake tins with hot oil in them. Cook at 190 degrees C for 20 – 25 mins. The key is the double whisking and hot oil. Best of luck. Our recipe for the perfect Yorkie mix at home is ½ pt plain flour, ½ pint milk, 6 eggs and a good pinch of salt.
Angela Jayne Hewitt
Any chance of having the Yorkshire pudding recipe please? They're always fab!
Toby Carvery
Angela, at the risk of boring you with all of my recipes - the perfect Yorkie mix is ½ pt plain flour, ½ pint milk, 6 eggs and a good pinch of salt.
Paul Chantler
I am with Angela, brilliant Yorkie's and always perfect. Recipe please. I did look up a site one day on Perfect Yorkshire Pudding's and there is a science to it, but please share anyway. Thank You.
Toby Carvery
Paul, the science is fairly simple - the mixture must have plenty of air in it, hence the double whisking and the oil must be really hot when you pour the mixture into it. The other mistake a lot of people make is to open the oven door too early so give those little beauties a chance to rise before you take a peek.
Liz Curtis
Love your Roast dinners, please can you let me know how you make the wonderful large Yorkshire puddings we have at our local Toby.
Toby Carvery
Liz, we offer two sizes of Yorkies the little ones are made in a 1oz tin the big ones in a 3 oz tin. Use the recipe I posted above and you should do just fine.
Jules Larum
How do you make the horseradish gravy? (Why have you stopped making it!!!!!) and how do you make the Yorkie puds
Toby Carvery
Jules, we add a tablespoon of horseradish to about 2 pints of gravy. Yorkies - so take your batter and whisk air into it, let it rest in the fridge for 1 hour, re-whisk and pour it into cup cake tins with hot oil in them. Cook at 190 degrees C for 20 – 25 mins. The key is the double whisking and hot oil.
Tanith Kim Barrett
Would you be doing the gluten free Yorkshire puds in the near future as i now refuse to go to the Toby Carvery.
Toby Carvery
Sorry but we don't at the moment but we do have quite a few dishes that are suitable for coeliacs - check out my post on the Vegetable and Trimmings discussion. Hope some of the items we do offer will tempt you in.
thank you it’s very hard watching others eat those delicious yorkshires
Toby Carvery
A couple of my friends are coeliac and i know a little about how hard it can be. Are the roasts and vegetables enough to tempt you in then?
Mark Raymond
Toby, is there any chance you could tell me how to make those fantastic Yorkshire puds, I absolutely love them every time I go to the carvery. If you’d rather not tell me that’s fine but its not very often I go there, but it would be nice to have one with me homemade Sunday dinner
Toby Carvery
Mark, as there have been a few posts here's my top tips. See above for all the detail.
1. Prep the batter in advance and leave to rest
2. Double whisk it
3. Hot hot oil
4. No peeking once you put them in.
Questions and Answers on Vegetables & Trimmings
Angela Hensley Evans
how do toby cook their parsnips so delicious ???? is it honey ??
Toby Carvery
Hi Angela. We cook our parsnips in oil and then halfway through the cooking process we glaze them in honey. Glad you like them!
Ive never made any vegetables where do i start?
Toby Carvery
Hi Jeff. What a question! There are many ways you can cook veg; you can steam, roast or boil. Fresh vegetables are key and we steam our veg as it gives the best taste and keeps them looking nice and bright in colour, which is a sign of a tasty vegetable!
How do you make the sauce for your cauliflower cheese?
Toby Carvery
We actually use a top quality supplier for our cheese sauce due to high consumption levels.
Catherine Wright
Can i ask why you dont seem to do mashed potatoes? We recently took advantage of your £5 per person offer, for my mums birthday and my little girl would hardly eat anything, she doesnt like roasts and there wasnt any other choice?
Toby Carvery
Catherine, your local Toby has mash in the evenings after 7pm and both days at the weekend. What is your local by the way?
Zoe Forakis-Burton
how to you peel and chop so many veg in one day?
what happeneds to all the food that gets left over?
Toby Carvery
Hi Zoe. We use a potato rumbler which rumbles the skin off the potatoes and it can do a large number at any one time We also have heavy duty chopping machines that help us chop large volumes of veg. However, we do chop some by hand!
At the end of the night all left over food gets thrown away. We always minimise waste by planning how many customers we are likely to serve each night.
Christine Franklin
My sprouts always taste bitter. What am I doing wrong? I would like roast parsnips, sprouts and mashed potato. Why are these not available?
Toby Carvery
We recommend new (not stored for too ling) sprouts, cooked in fresh water with a little salt and not cooked too long, just tender. Parsnips and sprouts are seasonal veg and we are limited by supply at different times of year. Mash potato is on in the midweek evenings and on weekends.
Plamena Malakova
Is the food at TOBY'S suitable for Coeliacs? If yes, Give us more details whether you use normal flour (for the gravy, roast, potatoes, cauliflower cheese,mash…). Thank you
Toby Carvery
Here is a list of our Coeliac friendly meals:
Starters:
-Fanned Melon
-Tomato Soup
-Chicken Tikka
The vegetarian roasted onion gravy is suitable for coeliacs' but beef gravy IS NOT.
All of our vegetables are fine, except cauliflower cheese and Bombay potatoes (served on curry nights) are suitable for coeliacs.
Cauliflower cheese isn't suitable because the cheese sauce contains gluten.
The Gammon IS NOT suitable at the moment, because the glaze contains gluten, but the Gammon on the new spring menu will be OK. Beef, Turkey, Pork and Lamb are all OK too.
-Honeycomb Dream
-Ice Cream
-Apple Crumble
-Black Forest Sundae
Penny Judge
Have you got a good stuffing recipe for roast pork? My pork always seems to dry out?
Toby Carvery
Penny, we don’t stuff our roast pork. However, I recommend breadcrumbs, diced onion, grated apple, salt and pepper, little water and an egg to bind.
My local Toby cooks the roast potatoes in like a paprika sauce, what is it exactly? its very nice
Toby Carvery
Hi Shelley. We used to use a red oil glaze, which gave them a peppery/paprika taste which wasn't to everyone's liking so we now only use oil and a small amount of salt when cooking our potatoes.
Ken Moore
There never seems a great deal of cheese in the cauliflower cheese. Why is this?
Toby Carvery
Ken. We don't put cheese on top as well any more as we had feedback some time ago that the fat content was then too high.
Lynda Grove
How do you prepare your cauliflower cheese? I always find there's so much water even after it's drained.
Toby Carvery
Lynda, steam your cauliflower rather than boil. Then make your cheese sauce, pour over the cauli and cook in the oven for 15-20 mins.
Shelley Dobbs
The cabbage is yummy,what sort of oil is on it?
Toby Carvery
Hi Shelley, we don't use any oil to cook our cabbage as it is steamed. We do however use butter to glaze the top.
Nicola Clarke
what is the stuffing recipe?
Toby Carvery
Hi Nicola. Our stuffing balls are made off site by a quality supplier. However we will be moving to homemade stuffing soon.
hi, why is there never any mash any more, my eldest hasnt been with us for the past 12months since they stopped making it. And we only go half as much as we used to because of this. Is it because more gets consumed as it is so popular, so to save money?. It seems the most common complaint on the site that people have, please please get it back all the time. My local is chadderton park in chadderton manchester.
Toby Carvery
Mash should be on every weeknight after 7pm and all day on a Sunday. There is mustard mash available after 7pm in the evening - goes down well! The reason we don't have it on all the time is because we want mash to be a special trimming for a special occasion.
Sarah Macmullen
How do you cook your roast potatoes? They are always lovely and crispy on the outside and fluffy in the middle.
Toby Carvery
Hi Sarah, we firstly steam our potatoes for 3 minutes fifty seconds. (If you can't steam them you can pre-boil them). Then we give them a good shake to ruffle the edges. We then add them to hot oil and lightly salt them and turn them after 10 minutes. We cook at 190 degrees Celsius for approximately 20-25 minutes. Crispy on the outside with a fluffy centre is a good tasting potato! Let us know how you get on!
Nigel Scott
What is the gravy recipe?
Toby Carvery
Nigel, to maintain the quality and gallons of great gravy we get through everyday, we use a fantastic supplier. If you are making at home I recommend that you use the meat juices, a little flour, mix and bubble for a while and slowly add water and seasoning. Don’t over do the flour.
Aaron King
why do u do cauliflower cheese and not just normal cauliflower?
Toby Carvery
Hi Aaron. We will happily cook you some plain cauliflower, as we understand that not everybody likes cheese. Simply ask any of the team members or the chefs behind the deck and they will happily prepare some for you.
how do you make your Beef Gravy i can never get it right and end up using instant! Also how do you cook your whole onions its my husbands favorite thing at your retaurant and i'd like to make them for him on his birthday. Thank you x
Toby Carvery
Donna, we serve gallons of great gravy everyday, so we use a fantastic supplier. If you are making at home you could try using the meat juices, a little flour, mix and bubble for a while and slowly add water and seasoning. Don’t over do the flour.
The onions are steamed and then roasted in a tray in hot oil sprinkled brown sugar for 20mins.
Soo France
Do you prep all the veg on site and if not how do you cook it so it's so fresh? And how do you get your roast onions in gravy so blumin scrummy?
Toby Carvery
Soo, yes we buy fresh veg and prep on site, steam to order. The onions are steamed and then roasted in a tray in hot oil sprinkled brown sugar for 20mins. Then we pour over a little veggie gravy. You could use beef or poultry if you prefer.
Chlo Hudson
Hey andy, Have you learnt how to cook the roasts to the best taste, through personal experience?
Toby Carvery
Chloe, yes through lots and lots of practice and a couple of years of catering college!
Kim Mundin
Why can't there be just plain cauliflower available? Thanks
Toby Carvery
Kim, you can ask your waitress for plain cauliflower and it will be freshly steamed for you.
Alan Cooksey
How do you do the roast potatoes
Toby Carvery
Alan, we steam them first or part boil, shake to ruffle the edges and then add to a tray of hot oil, lightly salt, turn and then roast for 25 mins or so. Turn every so often.
David S. Rolph
Hi Andy! Which vegetable do you find is the most popular?
Toby Carvery
David, cauliflower is the most popular, followed by carrots and roast potatoes.
Neil Jebb
why dont u do sprouts on your vegetable section?
Toby Carvery
Hi Neil, Sprouts our seasonal so you'll see them on the deck around Christmas and early Jan.