Recently got an immersion heater and vacuum packer and I’ve been experimenting with lots of sous-vide cooking. This ‘roast’ beef (gently cooked for 24 hours then finished on a hot griddle) was great, so smooth and rare with still a lovely browned crust.
Yes, I think the 24 hours was overkill. I’d read it on a few blogs, but I imagine that was for a bigger joint of beef. And i feel like it could have been rarer too. The texture was a bit too even, I prefer a little bit more bloody in the centre.
Didn’t really much seasoning apart from salt. But we got an eighth of a cow from a local farm, so we’ve got plenty more roasting pieces in the freezer to experiment with!
For those roasts in your freezer, try 4-6 hours for tender cuts and 12-36 for tough ones depnding on size - you’ll get that bloody center you want with less time in the bath.
It’s less for bigger pieces and more for tougher pieces. Shoulder, chuck and bottom round roast is what I usually use for long roast beef preparations. Given enough time the connective tissue breaks down into gelatin and it becomes wonderfully tender rather than mushy.
I like to cook it to rare and then sear or oven it to midum rare ish, which I like for sandwiches.
I like to grind some black pepper, salt, minced dried garlic and onion, and some mustard seeds on mine before cooking. Leaves a good flavor on the outside and you can take the juice in the bag with the spice that fell off and cook it down with some butter to make a really good savory spread.