Sirloin tips are rarely as cheap as they were at my store the other day so I bought one. They were $1.99 a pound. That’s a nice price for a nice roast.
Actually the proper name for the sirloin tip roast is round tip roast. A few years back the names of many of the cuts were changed so as to be more descriptive and proper. Sirloin must have seemed a little bit uppity for a modest type chunk of beef that comes from the round so “they” changed it to round tip roast. Whatever you call it it can be a very nice oven roast if you are careful.
I remember way back when I was a young buck still running my mobile butcher truck, I came home one early evening to a sirloin tip roast that my wife, who shall go nameless, had placed in the oven that very morning at about 250 degrees without any water or covering or anything. It had sat in that oven for over eight hours.
Do you know what happens to a small hunk of beef when you cook it for a bout nine hours without any moisture? It turns into a round ball of jerky. Needless to say I was not overly excited about dinner that night. Even the gravy was dry.
I don’t want to come down on my wife, oven roasts can be tricky. I remember the oven roasts we used to cook in the Marine Corps. They never came out very good. Black on the outside and dry as a bone.
The last few times I have attempted to cook an oven roast I tried to pull them out of the oven early and earlier but they still turned out overcooked and dry. This time I was going to get it right. I knew that if the roast would come out medium rare it would be good but for some reason I could not pull that meat out of the oven early enough.
I think I must have been programmed to cremate all roasts from my mom. She liked to make sure that nothing was moving when she pulled it from the oven. Whatever the reason I had to get it right so I asked all the guys at work how they cooked oven roasts. Every one of them gave me a different answer. Some cooked them slow some cooked them fast and some of them cooked them half fast.
So I got with one of the guys who had worked as a chef with some of the finer restaurants in Jackson hole. He told me to take the roast and sear it in my cast iron skillet and then place it in the oven at 375 and pull it out when the internal temperature hit 120. So I did. Well actually my wife Vickie did. I was still at work.
So she took the approximately 6 pound sirloin tip or round tip roast and placed it into a very hot fry pan with a little olive oil and let it sit and sear on all sides for a bout one minute each side. Then she placed the whole thing, cast iron skillet and all into the 375 oven. I came home in time to keep track of the internal temperature. When the internal temperature hit 140 I pulled it and let it set for about twenty minutes while I fixed the gravy and mashed the potatoes.
Once the rolls were out of the oven I began to slice the roast. I should have pulled it out sooner. It was medium and I wanted medium rare. My buddy told me to pull it at 120 but I wouldn’t listen. He said it will continue to cook outside of the oven for several minutes raising the internal temperature. It still turned out good though. It was nice and juicy and made great sandwiches the next several days.
All in all a great meal. Hot roast beef sliced thin with a nice rich brown gravy, mashed potatoes, salad, peas and homemade oven fresh rolls.
Next time though I’m going to pull the roast out at 130 degrees. Not that I don’t believe my buddy the chef but something inside of me just won’t let me do it.
John