A Fearless Friday RecipeHome Ec 101 has a great feature known as Fearless Friday. The idea is that you are supposed to stretch your boundaries by trying something different - no matter how big or small the recipe. On Easter Sunday I
tried a recipe for a beef roast that sounded rather odd, but I had come across an eye of round roast on sale and was trying to figure out what to do with it. Roasting beef always makes me nervous, probably because I can't stop thinking about the cost of the meat I'm shoving into the oven. It's like throwing ten-dollar bills in there. But I found this suggestion on the internet and several posters swore it worked, so I tried it.
Take a three-lb (approximate is fine) eye of round roast. Let it come to room temp, or at least let it sit out for 45 minutes or so. Rub with your seasonings of choice - I used
Lawry's Lemon Pepper which worked great. While you are doing this, preheat the oven to 500º F. Then put the roast in a baking dish, put it in the oven and turn down immediately to 475º. Roast for seven minutes per pound. Then turn off the oven and leave the roast in for 2 1/2 hours
without opening the oven. I mean not even for a second or so. Don't cover it with foil or a lid, don't put any liquid in the pan.
It works. The meat will be done but rare. If you want it a little more done you can either leave the oven on for another seven minutes or you can turn it back to 350º after the 2 1/2 hours are up and leave it in for another 30 minutes. Bring the meat out, slice it thinly (thinly is important!) and seve with the rest of dinner.
This recipe is a piece of cake and it forces you to plan ahead, which is a good thing if you are serving a group of people. And if you are roasting three pounds of meat, you probably are; or else you are me and this will feed you all week for lunch (a good thing, you have great lunches to look forward to all week!) The other good news is you can't overcook it, i.e., ruin it. If you like it more well done, that is easy to remedy - see above. Should you come across an eye of round roast on sale, I heartily recommend this recipe.
Labels: Ingestion
posted by Dr. Alice at #
Tried it Sunday: worked ok. It's a variant of the method of Chicago chef Louis Szathmary, an early version of the celebrity chef. In his "Chef's Secret Cookbook" he advised coating a roast with a mix of Kitchen Bouquet and oil, preheating to at least 450, then turning down to 350. The high initial temp and the Kitchen Bouquet sealed the outside, keeping the meat juices in. Works well too.
