8hr Sous Vide Beef Roast

Sous vide cooking isn’t really as fancy or as complicated as it might first appear. It’s a really good way to get a reliable, consistent finish on a piece of meat. Once you’ve tried a beef roast cooked like this, you won’t want to go back.

With a regular oven roast you need to rest the meat for a while before serving in order to allow the proteins to relax, and to let the temperature gradient even out. That isn’t necessary with sous vide, since everything’s already at the same temperature by the time it comes out of the water bath.

Ingredients

  • Beef roasting joint (try topside or silverside)
  • Salt & pepper

Directions

Preheat your sous vide bath to 56degC for a rare roast. If you prefer medium, try something more like 60. And if you like your meat well done, have a stern fucking word with yourself as you set the temperature to 70.

Remove the joint of beef from its packaging, and pat it dry with paper towels, then rub salt and pepper all over.

If you have a vacuum sealer, then seal the joint now, or use the water displacement method with a ziplock bag.

Put the sealed meat into the water bath for 8 hours. You can prep and cook whatever side dishes you'll be serving during this period.

When the time is up, take the meat out of the bath and let it cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile put your oven on the hottest possible temperature.

Remove the meat from the bag, reserving the juices to make a gravy if you like. Pat the joint dry and put it in a roasting tin.

When the oven is at temperature, put the joint in to brown. Keep an eye on it, but it'll probably take about 10 minutes.

Rest briefly before serving.