Slow Roasted Beef (Cook's Illustrated)

By Foodiewife

Using a fairly inexpensive cut of beef (eye-round) and roasting it low and slow yielded a flavorful and very juicy roast. This would be perfect for a Sunday dinner, but I roasted this to make roast beef sandwiches. Plan to make this one day before roasting, as salting the meat a full 24 hours before roasting made it even more tender and seasoned the roast throughout. Once again, Cook's Illustrated has perfected the art to flavorful roast beef.

Ingredients

• 1 (3.5- to 4.5-pound) boneless eye-round roast
• 4 teaspoons kosher salt or 2 teaspoons table salt
• 2 teaspoons plus 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, separated
• 2 teaspoons ground black pepper

Preparation

Step 1

Sprinkle all sides of roast evenly with salt. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate 18 to 24 hours.

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 225°F.

Pat roast dry with paper towels; rub with 2 teaspoons oil and sprinkle all sides evenly with pepper. Heat remaining tablespoon oil in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until starting to smoke.

Sear roast until browned on all sides, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer roast to wire rack set in rimmed baking sheet.

Roast until meat-probe thermometer or instant-read thermometer inserted into center of roast registers 115°F for medium-rare, 1 1/4 to 1 3/4 hours, or 125°F for medium, 1 3/4 to 2 1/4 hours.

Turn oven off; leave roast in oven, without opening door, until meat-probe thermometer or instant-read thermometer inserted into center of roast registers 130°F for medium-rare or 140°F for medium, 30 to 50 minutes longer. Transfer roast to carving board and let rest 15 minutes.

Slice meat crosswise as thinly as possible and serve.

We don't recommend cooking this roast past medium. Open the oven door as little as possible and remove the roast from the oven while taking its temperature. If the roast has not reached the desired temperature in the time specified in step 3, heat the oven to 225°F for 5 minutes, shut it off, and continue to cook the roast to the desired temperature. For a smaller (2 1/2- to 3 1/2-pound) roast, reduce the amount of kosher salt to 3 teaspoons (1 1/2 teaspoons table salt) and black pepper to 1 1/2 teaspoons. For a 4 1/2- to 6-pound roast, cut in half crosswise before cooking to create 2 smaller roasts. Slice the roast as thinly as possible and serve with Horseradish Cream Sauce ), if desired.