In Robin’s family, Sunday was macaroni (any pasta) and gravy day. “Gravy” is a tomato sauce that can have a variety of meats added: meatballs, braccioli, sausages, or this parsley and garlic stuffed eye round. Robin’s grandmother’s directions for this dish are just a few lines long, so we hope she approves of our version of this classic delicious meat.

Alternate Preparations: Roast Beef with Gremolata

We start this evening by removing the meat from the fridge. We smash our garlic cloves with the side of our knife and remove the peel. We chop the garlic with a little kosher salt into small pieces. In a small bowl, we mix the chopped garlic, we have 1.5 tablespoons of garlic, with the parsley and some pepper.

We put our dutch oven on the stove and start heating over medium heat.

We trim the beef of any fat and lay it on our cutting board. With a serrated knife, we make an opening in the center of the thicker end, going lengthwise through the meat, almost to the end. The hole is as thick as Robin’s index finger and the garlic parsley mixture is inserted into the meat, pushing it in with our fingers. We wash our hands well, and sprinkle the top of the meat with salt and pepper.

We add the olive oil to the dutch oven and since it is now nice and hot we add the meat salt side down. We wash our hands well and clean up quickly. We salt and pepper the other side of the meat and when the first side is nicely browned we flip the meat with our tongs. This takes just a few minutes. We continue to brown on the bottom side and then holding the meat with tongs we brown the ends of the meat. The browning just takes about 10 minutes total. We remove the meat to a plate and discard the remaining oil by wiping it up with paper towels using our tongs.

We add a cup of the tomato sauce to the dutch oven and stir well to deglaze the pan. We add the rest of the tomato sauce and bring the mixture to a boil. We add the browned meat back to the dutch oven, flipping to coat with the sauce, and add any liquid that is on the plate. The sauce comes just about 1/3 of the way up the thicker part of the eye round. We partially cover and lower the heat to a gentle simmer.

We cook the meat for 1 hour and 10 minutes, turning the meat every 20 minutes. After 1 hour and 10 minutes, the meat is firm and the outside of the meat is starting to shred a little bit. We turn off the heat on the stove, remove the meat to a clean cutting board with clean tongs, and let the meat rest for 10 minutes.

We slice the meat thinly and serve with a little the tomato sauce on top. The rest of the sauce we save for a pasta course.

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