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Roast from the Round
The top of the round, if not as tender as the better cuts, is usually juicy, and if well-done meat is preferred, will be very palatable. A piece not more than three inches thick should be put in the bottom of the roasting-pan, dredged with flour, salt, and pepper, and slices of clear, solid fat or suet laid on top. Not more than ten minutes to the pound need be allowed for cooking, since there is no bone, and it is thin. Carve the same as a thick steak, in thin slices.
A plain roast of beef top round, written for a period when oven heat was judged by hand and doneness by time alone. Two things need filling in: the temperature the book never states, and a thermometer to replace the ten-minutes-to-the-pound rule.
- The cut"Top of the round" is the top round or inside round, a lean, coarse-grained muscle from the hind leg. It has almost no intramuscular fat, which is why the recipe insists on laying fat over the top and why it turns dry and grey if pushed much past medium.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given, and the book attributes the short schedule to the piece being thin and boneless rather than to any particular oven heat. A modern approach with lean round is to start at 450F for 15 minutes to colour the surface, then drop to 325F for the remainder.
- Timing, revisedTen minutes per pound will not reliably reach the well-done state the author is after, nor is well-done the best treatment for this cut. Cook to internal temperature instead: 130-135F for medium-rare, 145F for medium, taken at the thickest point with the probe clear of the pan. Rest 15 minutes before carving.
- The fat on topSuet is hard beef kidney fat, still sold by butchers and often available frozen; 'clear, solid fat' would be any firm trimmed beef fat. Sheets of pork back fat or thick-cut unsmoked bacon do the same job of basting a lean surface. Lift it off before browning the drippings for gravy.
- DredgingFlour dredged onto the raw surface browns into a crust and thickens the pan juices. Salt the meat an hour or more ahead if you can; the surface flour should go on just before it enters the oven, or it will turn to paste.
- Three inches thickThe thickness limit is doing real work here. A thicker piece of round has to sit in the oven long enough that the outer inches overcook before the centre is done, which is why the same cut is more often braised or pot-roasted when it comes as a large joint.
- Carving"Carve the same as a thick steak, in thin slices" means slice firmly across the grain, as thin as your knife allows. On a muscle this coarse, thick slices across the grain still eat tough.
- YieldReckon on 6 to 8 ounces of raw boneless beef per person, so a 3 lb piece serves about six.
Round was an economical cut for roast beef: no bone to pay for and little waste. The instruction to lay solid fat or suet over the top is barding, the standard answer to a lean joint. That the author bothers to note "if well-done meat is preferred" suggests tastes in doneness were not settled.