Share Sirloin has never been my favorite cut of steak. I have always maintained that you cannot beat the flavor of a well-aged rump of even a rib-eye steak.
I have cooked sirloin steaks before and it was not bad at all, but given the choice, I have always been partial to rump. Well, I think I might have changed my opinion about sirloin......
When cooking steak, you basically have two choices. My first choice would always be grilling , but unless you like your steak "blue" or medium/rare, you have no guarantee of having a soft and tender steak. The other option for cooking steak is to braise or oven-roast it. It takes much longer, but you will always be guaranteed of a soft, almost marrow like steak.
Week before last, my friend phoned me in a panic, she was given a big chunk of meat, vacuum-packed and what is she to do? That's it, that was all the information I got from her. I assumed it was a steak because it was vacuum-packed, but she couldn't give me any details of what cut it was, the weight etc. When she told me, that she was going to cut it in smaller pieces to freeze, I thought "yip, it is time to intervene!". "Why don't you bring the meat over on the weekend, bring all your children(they're all married with children) and I'll cook it for you!"
Last weekend I invited them all here for Lamb Curry and she brought the "piece of meat" and I have to tell you, even I was intimidated by the size of it at first. I am embarrassed to say that I thought it was a hunk of rump, but on closer inspection, I saw it was a whole sirloin, weighing in at 5.8kg or a whopping 12.8lbs! I could feed a crowd, yeah! Cutting the sirloin into steaks and cooking everyone's steak to their preference can be quite an operation that requires fine timing, so for me the only option was to slow roast it in the oven. Sirloin has a thin layer of fat on the top, but other than that, it is quite a dry cut of beef, so it requires serious marinading  and pampering. So, do you feel adventurous? Let's cook this roast together....
Sirloin Roast

For the spice rub

1/2 cup of dry coriander - dry fried and crushed in the mortar and pestle
1/2 cup fennel seeds
2 tbs dry chili flakes
1 tbsp smoked paprika
crushed black pepper
zest of 2-3 lemons
fresh rosemary - chopped
fresh thyme - chopped
about 1/2 cup olive oil - a little more if needed
juice of 2 lemons

Mix all the ingredients and rub on and into the sirloin. Place in a airtight container, if you have one big enough  or just cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for 2-3 days. Let that rub work it's magic!
Roasting the sirloin

Ingredients

2 large onions
2 large carrots 
3-4 stalks of celery
3 cloves of garlic
1 bottle of full-bodied red wine
salt

Preheat oven to 180C.
Normally I would brown my meat first on the stove top, but this sirloin was way to big, so I skipped this stage.
Season the sirloin with enough salt. Make a mirepoix using the carrots, onions and celery. Place the mirepoix in the bottom of a very large casserole dish and lay the sirloin on top. Add the red wine and the garlic and cover with foil of the lid of the casserole. My sirloin was in the oven for about 3 hours. I then took it out of the liquid and placed it in the oven for just a little bit to brown the top, while cooked off the pan liquids to make a delicious red wine jous.