Late-Summer Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding for 8

This, I think, is one of my favourite Sunday lunches, and you can get away with it at any time the sun is warm enough to make a cold roast fillet of beef seem a treat. It’s certainly too expensive to produce if you believe people will think cold food a disappointment or an easy option.

Most of this lunch can be made in advance: you can cook the beef the day before, and boil some beans in readiness for a quick sousing in sage and olive oil just before you eat. Make the mayonnaise on Sunday morning and all that will need doing around lunchtime is a tomato salad or green salad to go with it. I don’t think you need potatoes. You do, you see, have Yorkshire pudding coming too, not with the beef but after, as pudding, served searingly hot with golden syrup poured over and thick whipped or, even better, clotted cream with. This is heaven. When I was young there was, tucked behind Fulham Road, a restaurant called the Hungry Horse where it was considered frightfully fashionable to go for Sunday lunch. One of the highpoints of its menu was Yorkshire pudding for every course.