Sous-Vide Roast Beef with an Anova

Hello hello! It's Yoko, your home cook.

Today I'm sharing a roast beef recipe made with the Anova sous-vide cooker I bought recently!

Even if you've never tried sous-vide cooking, it's super easy to get fantastic roast beef, so I hope you'll give it a try.

"I want to make roast beef sous-vide, but what temperature should I cook it at?"
"How many hours should I cook it?"

This post answers those questions, too.

Get a Well-Shaped, Fresh Cut of Beef

The meat I'm using this time is beef round (447 g)!

With beef, any bacteria are more likely to be on the surface.

For roast beef you sear the surface anyway, so there's no need to be too nervous about it.

But sous-vide cooking is gentle, so get fresh meat to keep things as safe as possible.

Also, choose a piece of even thickness so it cooks evenly.

A rectangular block, a real "block of meat," is ideal.

As for the cut, round has little marbling and suits roast beef well.

The Tasmanian beef I used, from AEON's private-label Topvalu line, is quite a good one.

It's not widely known, but this beef has apparently been raised since 1974 to suit Japanese tastes.

It's raised without meat-and-bone meal, growth hormones, antibiotics or genetically modified feed, so I feel good about it!

The low marbling is nice for me, too, since I'm not a fan of fatty meat.

It's cheap and tasty, so I always buy my meat at AEON when I'm making block-meat recipes like roast beef or steak.

AEON has a great selection. They even have châteaubriand...

Start Preheating the Anova

Once you have your beef round, fill a pot with hot water or tap water and set the Anova to 55°C.
(The number shown on top is the current temperature.)

This time I'm trying the lowest temperature that can still pasteurize beef!

(It only pasteurizes at 54.4°C if held for 4 hours or more.)

Wait for the Anova to beep to tell you it has reached the set temperature.

Put the Beef in a Zip Bag

While the Anova preheats, prepare the beef.

All you do is take the beef round out of its package and put it in a zip bag.

Lower the bag into water so the water pressure pushes the air out.

You can also suck the air out with a straw.

In sous-vide cooking, the bag sits between the hot water and the food, so be sure to remove the air to improve heat transfer!

When the bag clings snugly to the meat like this, you know the air is out.

Start Cooking!

When the Anova reaches 55°C, put the meat in the pot and cook for 4 hours.

Mine was 4.5 cm thick at 55°C, so it took 4 hours. If you don't want to wait that long for your roast beef, a slightly higher temperature shortens the time.

In sous-vide cooking you can work out the cooking time from the thickness of the meat and the temperature. I explain the details in a separate article.

If the meat floats, weigh it down with something like a cup.

Take it out after 4 hours.

There's quite a lot of juice in the bag.

You could sear it as is and have roast beef, but this time I wanted to season it, so I let it rest overnight.

I added salt and sugar to the zip bag, each about 1% of the meat's weight (3 g of each this time), sealed it, dissolved them well in the juices, and put it in the fridge.

This lets the flavor soak into the meat.

Sear the Surface for a Toasty Aroma

Now, the next day.

If you're eating it as cold roast beef, you can just sear and slice it as is.

If you want to serve it warm, first reheat it at 55°C for about 30 minutes.

Take the beef round out of the bag and pat the surface dry with paper towels.

Heat oil in a frying pan over high heat and brown the surface.

Searing gives the roast beef a toasty aroma and makes it even tastier!

Some recipes sear first and then cook sous-vide, but personally I think searing after the sous-vide gives a fresher (?) toasty flavor.

Here it is once it's browned all over. It already looks delicious, but I'll hold back.

Sprinkle with pepper, wrap in aluminum foil and rest for about 5 minutes.

Prepare a Sauce for the Roast Beef

This time I made a cream sauce with morels and trumpet mushrooms. (More on that in a later post.)

You can also skim the scum off the juices left after the sous-vide cooking, then add flour, water and bouillon to make a gravy.

Plate the Roast Beef

With the sauce ready, let's slice the roast beef.

The moment of truth!

Oh wow! A gorgeous pink appears (๑˃ᴗ˂)

Even after slicing the whole thing, the color is perfectly even! And it looks juicy!

I piled it up like a mountain, lol.

Now to top it with the cream sauce and dig in...

Mmm, it's moist and perfectly done, so good!

It's no exaggeration to call this restaurant-level deliciousness!

Roast beef usually makes you think of red wine,

but with the light beef round and cream sauce, it went wonderfully with white wine, too!

Just by dropping the meat into the Anova, you get restaurant-quality roast beef, so if you love cooking, please give it a try!