WATER TORTURE: Dominic boiled beef (Image: Steve Finn Photography)
ONE of the highlights of my week has long been the aroma of the Sunday roast as it sizzles in the oven. And I am not alone. Over the years the British love of a beautifully cooked piece of beef has become so synonymous with our national identity that from the mid-18th century onwards the French have been referring to us in that mildly derogatory way of theirs as "rosbifs".
Now a group of scientists based in Boulder, Colorado, claim that cooking a roast with the windows shut gives pollution readings up to 13 times worse than a congested street in central London.
Their tests detected tiny particles called PM2.5s that - if inhaled - can lead to heart disease, stroke and lung cancer, conditions that contribute to 30,000 early deaths in Britain each year. The answer, they argue, is not to roast our beef - or lamb or chicken or pork - but to boil it.
Are these people actually insane? Have they never seared a beef joint before roasting and revelled in its transformation from a deep red to an unctuous brown?
Have they never observed the fat on a piece of sirloin change from greasy white into a piece of chargrilled loveliness?
Have they never cut into a rare piece of roasted fillet and rejoiced in its crimson perfection?
In fairness, they might well respond by asking if I have ever boiled a piece ing of beef. And so, in the interests of balance, I took myself off to Marks & Spencer and bought a "small roasting joint".
In the normal course of events, I would begin by browning the meat in a frying pan in a mixture of hot oil and melted butter. This is a process that brings about what professional chefs call the Maillard effect - the chemical reaction between a carbohydrate molecule and an amino acid that produces the caramelised flavours on the surface of the meat.
But the Colorado killjoys rule out this practice and so the meat goes straight into a pot of boiling salted water. It immediately turns an unpleasant shade
