Len's Recipe of the Month - March 2017

When I was growing, there was just one family meal that we ate together. Sundays at 2PM.   Ironically, it was my dad who shepherded the cooking while my mother sat at the kitchen table and fiddled with a crossword puzzle.  

Usually the Sunday meal was a roast of some sort.  Chicken.  Loin of pork. But, most of the time, it was roast beef.  And specifically an eye round.

Now, as I have learned, eye rounds are not the most sought-after cuts of beef. That is reflected in the price which is considerably cheaper than, say, a beef tenderloin which I have prepared the last two Christmases.   Tenderloin filets can cost up to 90 bucks for a three pound slab.  

Eye rounds at the cheaper price are also not as great a cut, taste-wise.  If simply roasted, it can be very tough and dry.   Trust me, I know.   That's how it got served on Sundays in my house.   My father would throw it in a pan with some potatoes, onions, and carrots.   Dinner.   The meat showed up on my plate as gray.

Now look above at the eye round roast I recently cooked.   You see the pinkish color?  It is possible to do an eye round with this end result.   It took a little research on my part.   Sorry, Dad.

Get yourself an eye round roast and pay attention to how much it weighs.   This is important.   Let's say yours is at three pounds.

Here's one key that never happened in my house.   Remove the meat from the refrigerator and let it stand at room temperature for at least an hour.   While it's on your counter, brush on liberal amounts of EVO, Kosher salt, and pepper.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.   Yes, you read that correctly.  Now, to do the whole dinner like I did above with the veggies, you hopefully have two ovens.

Place the meat in a pan and put it in the oven.   Yes, at 500 degrees.  You want to cook it five minutes for each pound.   In this example, that would be 15 minutes.   You'll hear all the spattering going on at this high heat.   At the end of the fifteen minutes, turn off your oven.   Yes, you read that correctly as well.   Now you keep the meat in there for the next two hours.   And this is important...

DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR FOR TWO HOURS!

Now, you can throw all the veggies in the same pan but I can tell you that they don't cook as well as they would in their own oven.   Ideally, for the last hour, you want to roast whatever veggies you want in a pan at 300 degrees with nothing but some EVO, salt, and rosemary sprinkled over them.

At the end of the two hours, pull the meat out and let it rest for ten minutes so all the juices get absorbed by the meat.   Carve and serve.   You will get a nice medium rare piece of beef from a cut that is almost impossible to cook.

You're welcome.

Dinner last night:   From my freezer...leftover homemade beef vegetable soup.