I Love Beef!

If you have been to my house and spent any time in my kitchen, you have probably seen the little ceramic tile by my stove that says "I love beef." It was the result of a birthday date with an 8 year old at a pottery-painting place and extreme artistic block. I had sat there for an hour while he painted a little toy dog and I must have been hungry because suddenly the phrase, "I love beef" came to mind and I went with it.

Despite the fact that I love red meat, I get a little intimidated when cooking it. I am pretty confident with chicken and fish, but hand me a good old fashioned pot roast and I get the jitters. This past week I got brave and decided to try a new recipe for Horseradish-Crusted Roast Beef. Despite a few glitches, it came out pretty well and the flavors were delicious!

The Recipe:

Horseradish-Crusted Roast Beef

1 6-pound sirloin tip roast
1/2 cup prepared horseradish (not the white creamy one but the one that is the actual root and looks like pureed garlic)
2 Tablespoons salt
2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 Tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon sherry vinegar (I didn't have this and used red wine vinegar instead)

- Preheat the oven to 375 F. Set a rack in a large roasting pan and place the roast on the rack.
- In a small bowl, blend all other ingredients
- Slather paste on all sides of the roast (Isn't "slather" a great word?!)
- Roast in the lower 1/3 of the oven for about 2 hours until a meat thermometer in the center of the roast reads 125F.
- Remove the roast from the oven, cover with foil and let sit for 15-20 minutes.
- Slice and enjoy!

The Glitches:

1. Even factoring in the desirability of leftovers, 6 pounds of roast beef for one little single woman seemed ridiculous so I bought myself a small 1.5 pound roast (and cut the rub down to a quarter of the quantities above). This caused me issues in determining how long to cook it. If you cut 2 hours down into quarters that makes only 30 minutes. I found two sources online that said to give a roast 15 minutes per pound. I still couldn't get past the idea that 1/2 an hour was too little, so I cooked it for 45 minutes. I at the end piece and the rest was woefully undercooked and had to be microwaved.

2. I ended up purchasing a Bison roast instead of beef because it was on sale, I was feeling adventurous and it was the size I wanted. The flavor of what I got out of it was DELICIOUS and the the meat was very tender. However, fully 1/2 of the roast was fat that I had to cut away and that disappointed me. Next time I will probably just stick with the good old cow.

If any of you more experienced cooks have tips on how to reduce cooking time when cooking a small piece of meat, I would love the help because I am often trying to convert recipes to serve one person instead of a whole family.

The End.