What to do with an eye of round?

March 14, 2005 4:03 PM

So on Saturday at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market, Prather Ranch had a special on Eye of Round beef. Being a sucker for getting a giant piece of meat at less than half-price, I am now the proud owner of a 5 lb Eye of Round. So, uh, now what should I do with it?
posted by rorycberger to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

Cook it using your favourite Sunday Roast recipe.?
posted by seawallrunner at 4:13 PM on March 14, 2005

I'd slice some filets/medallions/thick slices off--about 1/4 or 1/2, and freeze them individually for broiling/grilling another time.

Then i'd cook the rest as as seawallrunner says--maybe one of these recipes? (you'll have a lot of leftovers for other meals unless you invite people over to dinner) : >
posted by amberglow at 4:23 PM on March 14, 2005

Two ingredients. Brown mustard (like a dijon), and lots of kosher salt.

This recipe should do nicely.

On preview, what amberglow also found. :)
posted by pmbuko at 4:34 PM on March 14, 2005

Dang, that roast recipe looks good.

I'd definitely recommend going with a quicker, high-heat roast recipe for this kind of cut. I find that when I try the loooong, sloooow wet/braising kind of roast--like a Yankee pot roast--with this kind of big "single muscle" cut, I always end up with that dryish, stringy meat. No matter how careful I am, and how nice and rich sauce, it can't mask that ropy texture.

(For that kind of slow, braised roast, the best cut is definitely bone-in chuck, preferably "blade cut", about 2 or 3 inches thick. It looks like a big, honkin' steak, but it just melts.)
posted by LairBob at 4:54 PM on March 14, 2005

Yeah, this needs nothing more than a salt and pepper rub and roast at at high temp (around 400) until a meat thermometer shows it's done to your preference (just under 160 degrees inside for me). Slice it thinly - it's not a very tender cut, but thin slices help out a lot in that regard.

Also, it's not very fatty, so, me, I'd hang a little extra beef fat on it before roasting. And slice it on a board with a trough to catch the juice so you can add it to the gravy.

This would be excellent with just brown gravy, some spaetzle, green salad and your favorite veg.

Or you could go the whole nine yards, and roast a bunch of carrots, potatoes, parsnips, and onions (and/or cabbage and/or sprouts) with it. (Toss 'em in the drippings periodically.) Then you can have bubble and squeak with leftover beef the next day - it's better than the first time around!
posted by Wolfdog at 5:14 PM on March 14, 2005

5lb is a lot of roast, by the way. Consider cutting it in half and freezing one half for later.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:18 PM on March 14, 2005

it's good meat so you really can't go wrong.

and what Wolfdog said. ; >
posted by amberglow at 7:50 PM on March 14, 2005

IIRC A slice of this, as a steak, is called delmonico. FYI
posted by Goofyy at 10:27 PM on March 14, 2005

(just under 160 degrees inside for me)

Wow! No offenese, but wow. That's certainly "done" alright. How desirable that is, is obviously a matter of taste. Hehe. :) 130-135 is about medium rare. Also remember, there is such a thing as "carry-over cooking", which basically means a large piece of meat like this (a roast) will actually continue to rise in temperature (about 5 degrees, often more) after being removed from the heat source.

IIRC A slice of this, as a steak, is called delmonico. FYI

No, no. Eye of the Round is from... well, the round or the hip, the big meaty part of the rear leg. This picture is tough to read, but the Delmonico is the third steak from the left of the ones pictured along the top. They show it in the "rib" primal cut, which is true. But another way to think of a Delmonico is it's the first steak to be cut from the loin, just before the tenderlion starts to come into play (which is when the same steak, the same cut anyway, is now called a T-bone, then a Porterhouse and so on).
posted by Witty at 2:51 AM on March 15, 2005

(My bad on the temp; I don't like my beef anywhere near that well done & I'm not sure what I was thinking about.)
posted by Wolfdog at 3:28 AM on March 15, 2005

160-165 is a good (safe) internal temp. for ground meats. So maybe you had a meatloaf in mind (which I do most of every day).
posted by Witty at 5:28 AM on March 15, 2005

Ooops, I think. Alas, cuts are named different between English-speaking countries, however, my memory of delmonicos is from decades ago in the States. The cut you describe would be a much nicer steak than eye of round, and I recall delmonico as being only okay. Maybe I had fake delmonicos, back when (or just lousy meat).
posted by Goofyy at 5:43 AM on March 15, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for all the tips folks, I think I'll probably go with some variant of Wolfdaddy's simple idea. One thought: to add fat to it, would it be advisable to wrap it in bacon? If so, would I have to adjust the cooking technique? Not sure yet if i'll cut it in half, but it's already in the freezer as I won't be able to cook it until at least this weekend.
posted by rorycberger at 1:31 PM on March 15, 2005

it depends how lean it is to begin with...how much marbling is there?
posted by amberglow at 8:12 PM on March 15, 2005