A TANTALIZING SNAPSHOT OF THE WONDERFUL ROAST, ITS HERB RUB GLISTENING in the light.What should you do when you find a six-pound roast in your freezer?
If you are unfamiliar with this amount of beef, that is a big roast. It was a great bargain, about 10 bucks for the whole thing, but the roast wouldn’t even fit in the large crock pot we had.
Thinking hypothetically, a six-pound roast will cook down to a minimum of four pounds, and the USDA recommends a three-ounce meat serving per person per meal (that’s not even a quarter-pound burger) so according to some, this roast would feed a minimum of 20 people, but that would not be most people, let alone hungry college students.
It turned out to be a good thing that this hunk of meat was so large. We ended up having to split it in half last Sunday to fit it in our slow-cooker. The first half was slow-cooked with carrots, onions, celery, barbeque sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. The sauces cooked down to form a broth with the vegetables, which we then drizzled over the cooked meat and mashed potatoes. The slow cooked meat was delicious, as were the side dishes of mashed potatoes and broccoli that went with it to feed three ravenous college students. Slow cooking can create very tender meat, but for those who like roast on the rare side, slow cooking would not be the optimal choice, at least the way that we did it. The half that we saved in the fridge to cook on Labor Day ended up being even better.
On Monday, we roasted the meat, as the name of the meat itself suggests, and it was great. (For the recipe we used, go to http://allrecipes.com/recipe/herb-rubbed-sirloin-tip-roast/detail.aspx.) We don’t know what contributed more to the result—the herb rub or the cooking method, but the combination was delicious. The rub was a mixture of spices: paprika, salt, garlic, black pepper, onion powder, cayenne pepper, and oregano, mixed with olive oil. We did not have dried thyme, which the recipe also called for. Being the creative types that we are, we just ignored that. The rub looked beautiful when it was mixed together, a foreshadowing of the amazing taste it would impart upon the meat. After letting the meat soak up the spices for a bit, we put the approximately three-pound roast in the oven for an hour and one minute at 350 degrees. After letting the roast rest, the feasting commenced.
The result was superb. The meat was juicy and pink on the inside, spicy and browned on the outside, and the mass leaked red juice all over the cutting board. The outside of the roast had a dense spicy flavor that was tempered by the rare, juicy inside. We added some of the juice on the cutting board to each slice of roast to add extra flavor to the dish, which was served with rice and broccoli (again). This roast overfed the two of us, leaving leftovers for later consumption (which will be long gone by the time you read this) and left us patting our stomachs the rest of the night.
All in all, the recipe was simple, quick, and beyond tasty enough for us to want to make it again. We strongly recommend it to all those who have an inclination to cook and want an easy, delicious recipe.