The Best Roast Beef… Ever.
I’ve made a beef roast or two in my time. My repertoire ranges from a quick yet elegant tenderloin to an extremely slow roasted brisket, braised in a tangy liquidy base.
This weekend I was in the mood for a slow roasted cut of beef. Not a stringier brisket, and yet not a fattier prime rib. I headed to the local butcher shop, Kens, in Monona, in search of the perfect cut of meat. I found a five pound sirloin tip roast and knew that would do the job.
My idea was to roast it like a prime rib – put it in a blazingly hot oven for a short period of time to sear it, then drop it all the way down to around 225 degrees and let it go for a few hours. In preparation, I did a little bit of searching to see who else in the blogosphere was making their roast beef in that manner. I found Elise, who is always doing something interesting. While the method wasn’t quite what I had in mind, she did add an element which I would not have if I had not found her entry. She put the beef roast directly on the oven rack.
Well, ok, I could add that to the mix easily enough.
And so I pulled the roast beef out of the fridge and let it warm up at room temperature on the counter for about 45 minutes. I turned the oven on to 500 degrees and let it heat up well in advance.
I cut slits into the roast and studded it with garlic – a trick which I have resorted to often, with good results. Then I rubbed the roast with rosemary, Penzey’s smoky sea salt, pepper, cumin, and a Penzey’s roast beef seasoning. It was popped into the very hot oven, which was left at 500 degrees for about 20 minutes. I had placed a pan on the rack immediately underneath the roast to catch the drippings. In that pan I placed beef broth, onions, and garlic.
Then I dropped the temperature to 200 degrees and let it go. Using my temperature probe, I monitored the progress. After about 3 hours, it began to get up to around 120 degrees. I had planned on leaving it in for at least 4 hours, and so I turned the oven off completely, without opening the oven door. This held the oven temperature nicely, and the roast ever so slowly inched its way up to 131 degrees.
As I estimated that my roasted root vegetables would be done shortly, I again turned the oven up high, to about 450 degrees. The roast temperature rose to 135 degrees. At that point I pulled it, let it sit a very short amount of time, the sliced it. I had made a pan gravy from the drippings, broth, onions and garlic that had simmered in the drippings pan, adding some red wine as a finish.
This was perfectly done, melt in your mouth tender, with the best flavor I have ever tasted out of a beef roast, bar none. This will be repeated, there is no question.
Served alongside roasted root veggies – turnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes and onions, with some cauliflower thrown in for good measure.
Oh man – this looks good – and I am so hungry right now!
I was just reading that the reason really really slow methods of roasting create that taste and tenderness, as there is a bacterial reaction as the meat goes past room temperature to pretty warm inside, over a long period of time – and that you can in fact mimic the effects of dry aging through this lengthy cooking style.
Looks great anyway!