how many will these joints feed?

pavlovs_dog

popped into asda on my lunch break today and they had loads of yellow stickered meat.

i picked up a 500kg joint of topside beef and a 800kg joint of pork for under £5 :j but as i have never done a 'roast' with anything other than a chicken before, i have no idea how many reasonable servings i should expect to get out of it.

im not concerned about the idea of rubber meat as our lot [STRIKE]are gutsy [/STRIKE]have healthy appetites just dont want to invite the inlaws to join us for dinner only to find there isnt enough grub to go around :eek:

so are there guidelines out there on how many people a joint of a specific size should serve?

HariboJunkie

Are you absolutely sure they were 500 and 800 kg???????? :eek: That's 78 and 125 stones.

I think you mean grams in which case, if you're big eaters I wouldn't make them stretch. Maybe that's just my greedy family but we would manage a 2lb (just less than a kilo) joint between us failry easily. If you bulk it out with veggies and yorkshire puds then it might be fine.

Stephen_Leak

ASDA show weights in Kilos and as, for example, 0.500 and 0.800.

~Chameleon~

I usually allow about 250g per person when doing a joint of meat which allows a generous portion each for dinner, plus a bit left over for sandwiches if [STRIKE]the pigs aren't dining[/STRIKE] we're lucky!

thriftlady_2

500g is just over 1 lb -so you have barely 3 lb of meat there. I would expect my family of 5 to eat the lot at one sitting I'd cook lots of roast spuds and veg if I were you and you'll have enough

Debt_Free_Chick

Hate to say this, but the joints will probably shrink too - so the cooked weight will be less than the raw weight.

Me & OH would certainly scoff 500g of beef down in one sitting :eek:

Debt_Free_Chick

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

i picked up a 500kg joint of topside beef

Careful - topside is not an ideal roasting joint, despite what the Supermarkets have you believe*

Ideally, it needs long, slow cooking and benefits from added liquid - think of "braised beef" rather than roast beef. Smother it in fat/oil first and baste regularly - topside is from the muscle, so it has no/little natural fat to keep it moist.


*Because Supermarkets make a lot of money selling cheap quality meat at premium prices :mad:

pavlovs_dog

cheers for the advice guys - must confess im not in the habit of buying roasting joints at the mo, so had no real idea what was a good size. my thought was that at less than a fiver for both, if my first attempts of roasting them were disasterous then at least it hasnt cost the earth!

think i will treat the OH to the beef as he loves it, and he's been an absolute treasure these past few weeks whilst ive been drowning in coursework. then the pork can be stretched, or used for sarnies other idea is to cook both, and then everyone can have the choice of one, t'other, or bit of both

chardonnay_2

i think your second idea sounds great. you could serve both sliced thinly on platters / serving dish and let everyone help themselves. you could do roast potatoes & mash or boiled, with yorkies, gravy, apple sauce for pork, loads of diff veggies and i'm sure you'd have a feast.