I was so pleased with how the bottom round roast turned out in the sous vide that I thought I’d do a round roast taste test. Top round, bottom round, and eye of round.
Three roasts enter! One roast leaves!
I carved them up into one pound chunks, bagged them, and then my 1990’s Foodsaver vacuum sealer decided that it was too old to keep up with all these sous vide hijinks, thought longingly of the days it was only used to close potato chip bags, and announced it would henceforth only seal and not vacuum. Given that we’ve referred to it as “The Suck and Seal” for decades (sorry, Foodsaver brand), now that it didn’t suck I had to heartlessly dump it into the trash and buy a new one.
Eventually, all three roasts were sealed up and went in at 132 degrees for 36 hours.
That left me plenty of time to wonder why there are top round roasts, bottom round roasts, but no middle round roasts.
Come to find out the top round is the inner thigh (sexy!), bottom round is the outer thigh, and the eye is the very outer part of the outer thigh. (If you can stomach the sight of a dead cow being turned into supermarket meat, this video is very thorough and interesting.)
After a day and a half I fished out all the roasts, and sliced them thinly, and did the taste test. I have decided I still like the bottom round the best. Eye of round was pallid and dry (evidently that cow didn’t have cellulite on her outer thighs) and the top round ranked in between the two.
Gary loved them all. Loved them. Even the eye of round. He refused to pick a favorite. My fear now is that he will snack on it from the fridge and will get food poisoning.