Eye of Round:
This extremely lean cut is shaped like a Tenderloin but is much less tender. It’s often packaged as a roast or steaks, but it can also be used in stew meat or cubed steak.
The Eye of Round is an extremely economical cut with a rather subtle flavor. Introducing aromatic herbs, onions and garlic will improve flavor, and cooking it slowly will help keep it tender.
Roast Cuts:
• Eye of Round roast
• Round-Eye pot roast
Since this is a leaner roast, cooking at a low temperature for a longer period of time will help keep it from drying out. This cut does well slow-roasted and cooking with moist heat like braising and stewing. It’s also great to use in a slow cooker or pressure cooker.
Steak Cuts:
• Minute steak
• Sandwich steak
• Breakfast steak
This small, boneless steak is cut from the Eye Round roast. Because it’s a little tough, it’s best braised, cut into stew meat or processed into cube steak. When grilling, Eye of Round steaks should first be marinated. This cut is also often thinly sliced and dried or smoked at low temps to make beef jerky.
Top Round: (similar to the Bottom Round)
Top round is very lean, but relatively flavorful. It can be fabricated into steaks, which are improved by tenderization or marination, but top round is most often roasted and sliced for roast beef. It is a very lean roast that should be slow-cooked to improve its tenderness and then sliced thinly across the grain when serving.
Top round has big, juicy flavor but its texture is chewy if not cooked slowly and at a low temperature. It is a lean cut, however, so be careful not to overcook it or you will dry it out.
Roast Cooking Tips:
1. When cooking a roast, be mindful of letting the product rest. Take the roast away from heat when it is 10–15 degrees below the intended doneness. The roast should then be tented with tin foil for 10–15 minutes prior to serving. This will allow the temperature of the roast to hit the desired point while locking in juices and flavor.
2. Flavor tip, it’s important to sear the outside of steaks and roasts. The searing process, sometimes called the “Maillard Reaction,” provides the cut with a different flavor profile than the meat itself while locking in the flavor from the juices.
