Off-Oven Roast Beef

By Sam Sifton

Published January 19, 2013

  • Marcus Nilsson for The New York Times; Food Stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop Stylist: Megan Hedgpeth.
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Total Time
2 hours 30 minutes
Rating
5(1,716)
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Ingredients

Yield:4 to 6 main courses, with leftovers for sandwiches

  • 1 beef roast, like top, eye or bottom round, approximately 3 pounds

  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt

  • 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

  • 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil

  • Red-pepper flakes to taste

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Remove roast from refrigerator. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

  2. Step 2

    In a small bowl, mix together salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil and red-pepper flakes to create a kind of paste. Rub this all over the roast. Place beef in a roasting pan or cast-iron skillet, fat-side up, and put in oven. Cook undisturbed for 5 minutes per pound.

  3. Step 3

    Turn off oven. Do not open oven door. Leave roast to continue cooking, undisturbed, for two hours.

  4. Step 4

    After two hours, remove roast from oven. Slice and serve alongside, ideally, a watercress salad, some skillet-fried potatoes and a small tureen of Henry Bain sauce.

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Ratings

5 out of 5
1,716 user ratings
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Comments

Lutheranliar

I call this Magic Meat and make it almost every week. (In fact, I made it just last night). Here’s the trick: you must follow the recipe EXACTLY. Take the roast out of the fridge right before you turn on the oven. This means the roast is COLD when it goes in. (If you start with room-temp meat, it’ll be too done in the middle.) You roast at 500 for EXACTLY 5 minutes per pound. I ask Siri: “How much is 2.85 times 5?” Then I roast for 14.25 minutes, using a timer. Timer for the 2 hrs. oven off too!

Mirta

We like our roast beef rare so I left in the oven for one hour instead of two. Perfect!

Sam Sifton

Leave it off!

Arline Sutherland

If use convection roast. set temp 450 degrees. Check internal temp after 45 min.

Sarah Ann

We've been doing a similar recipe for years. This recipe is PERFECT. The roast is medium rare. We added parboiled potatoes to the pan and they were PERFECT. Do not hesitate to make this with the exception of less salt on the coating...but that's a personal preference.

Jody

This is amazing & has become our regular Sunday dinner. I buy the 2 pack eye of round roasts from Costco to make 2 meals. We do dry brine with salt 1-2 days prior. I use my Dutch oven & a thermometer set to 130 degrees, and follow the 5 minutes per pound exactly. When cooking to a temp of 130, this roast only takes about an hour. It's nice & pink in the center, and juicy. We heat up the remains in the Dutch oven for a bit of au jus, but it's not really necssary. So simple & yummy!

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