Highfalutin' Cowboy Beef

Once upon a time, there was a girl who bought a 3 pound chunk of top round. She brought the beef home, sat it on the kitchen counter, and considered it. She considered it for a good long while, about 5 minutes, before she got bored and stuck it in the freezer. A few weeks later, she pulled it out of the freezer and put it in the 'fridge, and then forgot about it for like three days. Finally, remembering the beef, she once again pulled it out and set it on the counter and considered it.

That day, a new beef was born. An amazing roasted chunk of cow was laid upon the table and viewed by many in awe, and summarily consumed, and it was good.

Would you like to know how to create such a masterwork of meat?

Shit yeah, you would.

So the principle behind this roast is pretty simple. I had a chunk of beef, and some espresso beans, and I thought: Why the hell not? Coffee and beef pair nicely together, complementarily savory, but in this recipe they get a jolt from some chili peppers and freshly ground fennel seed. The result explodes with flavor... and will also keep you up all night! Keep the heel for yourself, it's freaking FANTASTIC.

To start, you'll need: one medium sized (around 3 pound) top round roast with a decent layer of fat, some espresso beans, coriander seed, fennel seed, chili powder, ground cayenne pepper, ground cardamom, ground cinnamon, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Begin by washing the roast in warm water and patting it dry, then set it on a roasting rack with the fat layer on top.

In pinch bowls, assemble your rub ingredients. You'll need about half a cup of whole espresso beans, half a tablespoon of coriander seeds, a teaspoon of fennel seeds, and a couple dashes each of ground black cardamom, cinnamon, chili powder, and cayenne powder. Fennel's a strong flavor, so a little goes a long way, but by all means if you love you some licoricey goodness then go nuts. In a separate bowl, assemble a mixture of coarse sea salt and ground black pepper.

Rub the roast liberally in the sea salt and black pepper mixture, then set it aside for a minute or two. The coarse salt will use this time to melt and absorb into the beef, which in conjunction with the espresso rub will lock in pretty much every drop of moisture. Also, the pieces of sea salt create little bursts of salty flavor, adding variety to the meat, which is great because uniformity is for punks.

While the meat sits, grind up the other stuff you have in your pinch bowls (espresso beans, fennel, coriander, chili powder, cayenne, cardamom, cinnamon). I use a coffee grinder for all of my spice mixtures, and in fact I use the same one that I use to grind my coffee, and it comes out perfectly fine so... screw it, I figure. Once it's good and ground up, it should look a lot like dirt, and smell like something you might pay $15 for at a Starbucks.

Rub the dirt all over your meat. It should now look like a solid clump of dirt. But like, good dirt, the kind farmers get really excited about when they're tilling or whatever the crap it is farmers do for a living.

Well shit, look at that. You rubbed the crap out of that meat. Good job. Now you can cook it. What I like to do is throw it in the oven at 375 degrees for about 10-15 minutes uncovered, and then cover lightly with a piece of aluminum foil and drop the temperature down to 325 degrees and cook for another hour or so. Actual cooking times will varying depending on the size of your meat and whether or not your oven sucks. My suggestion? Use a meat thermometer. I pulled mine out at 120 degrees, so that it would be medium rare.

When you're happy with how dead it is, remove your delicious roast from the oven and allow it to rest, covered, for about 10 minutes. Roasting is exhausting, and your beef has been doing it for kind of a long time, really, so it totally deserves this brief reprieve before you eat the shit out it.

Once it's good and rested, you can carve it up. This is what it should look like if you didn't screw it up:

People always like to ask me shit like: “So, what do you make to go with a roast like that?” Fuck if I know. I nuked some freezer-burned spinach. It sucked. The roast was killer, though.

Now get the hell out of my kitchen.