Irish Roast Beef with Guinness au Jus

My husband and I get together once a month with two other couples for an International Food Night we call "Secret-Secret Geography Club". We thought "Geography Club" would sound boring to deter other friends from joining (yeah we're snobby like that :) ), and "Secret-Secret" because....well because it's a secret. Duh. The first rule of Geography Club is not to talk about Geography Club....so I'm letting you in on some pretty privilege information here.

Ok. So now that we have that established, I'll tell you about our night. We got together on Sunday for "Irish" food. I know, Irish food sounds kinda boring, but it was our best night yet! We had Guinness and Soda Bread with Smoked Salmon and Colcannon...but the crowning victory of the night was Dan's Irish Roast. Which is why I'm sharing the recipes with you. Because it was easy, and tasted unbelievable. We were all fighting for the last couple pieces of beef...after we had each eaten 2 or 3 pieces already.

All credit goes to Dan for this recipe. He created it, then he passed it on to me. Now I'm passing it on to you.

Blade roast or other cheap cut of beef
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp Montreal Steak Spice
1/2 freshly ground black pepper
6-8 slices of bacon
1 can/bottle of Guinness or other stout

Set the roast into a bowl and pour over the Guinness. Let the beef marinate in the fridge overnight and get all drunk and happy on the stout. Turn at least once, so both sides can get happy.

The next day, put the roast into a roasting pan, along with the stout that the beef has been sitting in. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Put your spices into a mortar and bash them with a pestle a bit so they release their fragrance (you could also chop them up if you don't have a mortar and pestle and put them in a small bowl). Finely mince your garlic and add to the mortar and bash together with the spices to create a paste. Slather the garlicky rosemary paste all over the top of the roast. Lay the strips of bacon over the top of the garlic smeared roast. Cover loosely with tin foil and poke a few holes for the steam to escape. It's ready for the oven.

After approximately 3-3 1/2 hours you can take it out of the oven. You want the beef to rest before you cut into it, or else the wonderful juices will be all over your counter instead of in the beef. We don't want that.

While the beef is resting, pour all the stout/garlic/rosemary/beefy juices from the pan into a small pot. Turn heat to medium and reduce your juices until it becomes more of a sauce. This will take about 10 minutes. Taste your sauce and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. This sauce will have you peeing your pants it is so good. In my friends Lindsey's words "I would drink this in a smoothie".