Recipe for roast beef cooked sous vide
Roast beef prepared in sous vide is the perfect guest meal. Just imagine taking a relatively inexpensive (and perhaps slightly boring?) cut of meat and turning it into a fantastically tender, juicy, and delicious dish that family and friends will talk about long after!
Here, we will take a closer look at how to make roast beef in sous vide, so you get a perfect result every time. I will guide you step-by-step and explain sous vide times and temperatures, so you’re well-prepared from start to finish.
What is Roast Beef?
Roast beef can be cut from either the rump, the silverside, or the topside. The silverside is the most commonly used cut for roast beef.
The meat is tied together into a roast and cooked in a pot, oven, on the grill, or as here, in sous vide.
The word ‘roast beef’ is English and literally means ‘roasted beef’. It is actually England’s national dish and a traditional part of the British classic Sunday roast: A meal typically served on, yes, a Sunday. Besides roast beef, the meal includes Yorkshire pudding, good gravy, and roasted potatoes. The dish can be traced back to Henry VII, the first king of the Tudor House in England from 1485 to 1509, after which the infamous Henry VIII took the throne.
For the British, roast beef is what a rump roast is for the Danes: Almost iconic and typical guest food! Here in Denmark, roast beef is not something we typically associate with festivity. Many would even call it a bit ordinary or boring.
Tenderizing Roast Beef
Roast beef is very lean and fairly tough, which is why the meat needs to be well-tenderized to become tender and delicious. The classic method of cooking roast beef is by boiling and/or roasting. Some also choose to throw it on the grill.
The “problem” with roast beef is that it becomes dry if not cooked correctly. To ensure that the meat becomes really tender and delicious, it needs a long time at low heat. Ideally, you would cook it at around 125 degrees Celsius for an hour and a half in the oven. What happens when you cook the meat for a long time is that the natural collagen content transforms into gelatin, which tenderizes the meat.
The roast beef you make at home rarely looks like the pre-sliced one you see in the supermarket: Perfectly pink all over and without any gray edge. When cooking roast beef traditionally, e.g., in an oven, the heat comes “hard” from the outside, meaning that the roast will always be more cooked on the outside than inside. Hence, the roast usually gets a gray edge with a more or less pink interior.
Roast Beef in Sous Vide
Roast beef in sous vide is a classic example of what sous vide can do for a piece of meat! When you use sous vide, you get a roast beef that is perfectly pink all over and not just in the center. There are many advantages to using sous vide, but getting it beautifully pink all over is almost the best part.
The meat becomes so tender and delicious that no one will accuse you of serving something boring or “everyday”, not even on a festive occasion.
Another advantage of sous vide is that it’s so easy. You just set the machine to the desired temperature and time, and then it takes care of itself while you can do something else.
Roast Beef Sous Vide Time and Temperature
When cooking in sous vide, we only need to consider time and temperature. These are the only two parameters that matter for the result (well, except for the sear, but we’ll get back to that).
Whether your roast beef comes from one cut or another is irrelevant for the cooking time and water temperature, so you can confidently follow my instructions here, even if you don’t know what kind of roast beef you have.
You’ll come across different recommendations “out there,” and you might see some people cooking at a slightly higher temperature for a longer time. One thing that does matter is the quality of your roast beef. Personally, I always buy quality meat from my own butcher, which means I can afford to cook the meat for a shorter time than otherwise.
If you are just a bit unsure about the quality of your roast beef, either because you don’t “know” your butcher well enough or because you found the roast beef in a supermarket, I recommend adding an hour to the cooking time.
Roast Beef Sous Vide Resting Time Before Slicing
This section is quickly covered. You don’t need to let the roast rest before slicing. As soon as your roast beef comes out of the water bath, it’s actually ready to be sliced and served. However, we do want to add a bit of sear first.
Roast Beef Sous Vide Sear
You can sear your roast beef in various ways. Once you’ve unpacked the meat from the bag and patted it dry, you can throw it directly on a smoking hot pan or grill. You can also use a kitchen torch.
I usually use a regular frying pan with ghee. You can also use a mixture of butter and oil if you don’t have ghee. The kitchen torch is also brilliant because it’s easy to sear all the way around.
The most important thing is that you choose a method that provides a quick sear at a high temperature. You don’t want to risk the roast beef cooking further inside as it’s already perfect.
Regardless of the method you choose, you don’t need to let the roast rest afterward before slicing it.
Side Dishes for Roast Beef Sous Vide
Creamy potatoes or crushed potatoes are always good with roast beef, but if you want to try something other than the “typical” potatoes, you can consider Jerusalem artichokes. For example, try baked Jerusalem artichokes with apple and hazelnut dressing. Or perhaps confited Jerusalem artichokes?
In the summer months, you can also make a creamy cold potato salad and grilled vegetables to go with your roast beef. Baked root vegetables in the oven also go super well with roast beef at any time of the year!
If there’s leftover meat, you can save it and slice it for lunch sandwiches.
Roast beef cooked sous vide
Equipment
- Sous Vide
Ingredients
- 1 pcs. Roast Beef
- Salt and Pepper freshly ground
- Ghee or butter and oil
Instructions
- It is necessary to tie the roast beef to hold the meat together. Most of the time, this is done in advance when you buy the meat, but if this is not the case, you need to do it yourself.
- Then season the meat with salt and pepper and vacuum pack it.
- Then cook the meat for 7 hours at 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit) in the water bath. If you are unsure about the quality of your roast beef, give it 8 hours.
- Take the meat out of the water bath.
- Remove the meat from the bag and pat it dry with a clean tea towel.
- Heat a pan with ghee or equal parts butter and oil, and give the meat a nice crust all around. Alternatively, you can sear the meat on your grill. Make sure the grill is as hot as possible and sear the meat on the hot grill. As a third alternative, you can use a blowtorch to sear the meat. Regardless of which method you choose, the meat should have about 30 seconds on each side.
- Finally, remove the twine from the meat and cut the roast beef into thin slices.