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Eye Round Steak

Steve_372295

One of the many things I appreciate about Joule is it's ability to tenderize cheaper cuts of meat. I tried it yesterday with a confusing result.

I cut a three pound eye round roast into four 12 oz steaks. The steaks were about 2" thick. Before seasoning and pre searing, I used a Mercier manual meat tenderizer. For those unfamiliar with this device, it consists of 56 needles which perforate your meat. Since eye round is a tough cut, I set my beloved Joule for 8 hours at 132 degrees. This should have produced a steak between rare and medium rare,.

The result was a relatively tender steak. Certainly more tender than eye round cooked a conventional way. The texture reminded me of sirloin. So far so good. But the doneness was between medium and medium-well, grey with just a hint of pink! How did that happen at 132? I'm quite sure my beloved Joule didn't malfunction. Other meats I have tried have turned out as expected. Was it the Mercier meat tenderizer? Has anybody tried it? The 8 hour cooking time? Shouldn't be a problem with doneness. Texture perhaps, but not doneness.

I'm confused. Any thoughts?

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Comments

brian_martin2001

Did you pre or post sear? If so, how long? Did you dry the meat before searing?

tshewman

When we cook a steak (and other red proteins) at ~127F and above, you will notice the flesh exposed to/closest to the oil for transfer of heat (which is then in contact with the side of the bag) turns grey in minutes. So the exposed flesh turns grey even at low temperatures. Using a jaccard as mentioned, though at smaller levels, exposes the flesh on the inside (albeit at a microlevel). I would anticipate (especially at 132F) it too would be grey as it would now have similar contact with the oil (or whatever medium was used for heat transfer). JMHO

Steve_372295

Thanks for the reply. I pre seared as well as post seared. About 1 1/2 minutes per side each time. I dried the meat before the post sear. I doubt that searing was the cause since it was a very thick steak.

Steve_372295

The meat was not just grey, it was close to well done. If I understand, you are suggesting the jaccard (Mercier Tenderizer) may be the culprit. That may be. I'll try again. This time without the jaccard.

Many thanks for the suggestion.

Brandon_Byrd_40557

Jaccarding shouldn't make a difference; I do it all the time.

Stephen_Vincent_484291

My main theory would be that perforating the meat caused the meat throughout the steak to oxidize instead of just on the outside like usual.

My second theory is that meat cooked for a long time tends to come out slightly gray, and becomes more red as you let it rest.

My advice would be to skip the meat tenderizer, the pre-sear, and keep the meat in one piece instead of cutting it into steaks. The per-sear does little to nothing for the flavor of the meat.

For the best results, just season the meat very well with salt up to a day ahead of time, leaving it on a rack in the fridge. This allows the salt to penetrate the meat and season it throughout, and it also allows the meat to lose moisture, concentrating its flavors.

Bag and cook sous vide for around 14 hours at your preferred temperature. When we're cooking meat for such a long amount of time, a meat tenderizer is unnecessary. Simply cook to your desired tenderness.

Sear the entire piece of meat, and then cut into steaks.