Eye of Round - What do YOU do with it?
General Topic
On deer it’s too small a piece for a roast or anything but on our moose this year I was thinking oh man this would slice up nice into steaks! Well although EVERYTHING on our moose has been to die for tender the eye of round definitely is not. Took a pack out of freezer for steaks today and when I went to slice it I realized it was the other half of one eye of round piece. So thankfully the Instant Pot rescued these babies and they’re great.
But as I sit here eating it made me wonder - what do bowsiters do with this piece? It’s that almost triangular cylinder in the rear hindquarters between your roast and sirloin type pieces. Has a touch of fat on one side. So what do you guys do? I know my dad likes to smoke em, I’m not huge on smoked venison.
If I’m making jerky I add it to that bin otherwise it gets labeled as stew meat and used for stew or Texas style chili.
On elk or deer, I will either cut jerky strips or thin steaks across the grain and run thru the tenderizer for chicken fried steaks. Have cooked them as a roast piece or grilled wrapped in bacon and it’s good, but tough!
Its one of my favorite cuts on deer I just leave it whole and grill to medium rare and slice thin. I really think it's quite tender. Excellent.
It's a lighter color than the surrounding muscle groups. Kinda like the color of veal. Always wondered why that is.
On baby animals it makes good steak.
Can be tough, but not always. I still have my teeth so I can generally chew it up.
Nice! Thanks guys! Great ideas!
LKH, I couldn't agree more...if it's tough I just get tougher!!
It's an excellent piece for whole muscle jerky. The one's I've had from whitetails are usually very good butterflied and prepared just like a loin steak.
I keep the roast whole and cut it up if I need steaks or stew meat. It is a really good piece of meat and I've cut out the rear ham intact...trimmed out the fat and silver skin and smoked the entire rear ham....it was fantastic. Just the eye of round is about 1-2 lbs of meat...depending on the size of the deer. That is a decent size roast for a family of four...mine.
Makes great minute steaks.
I must be thinking of a different eye of the round, it's not a bad steak cut and is also good for sliced jerky.
I bought a Hobart meat tenderizer from a butcher shop years ago. Any tougher cut gets run through it. You wouldn't believe how good goose breasts are! No experience with that particular cut but that's what I would do with it!
My mom cooked a great eye of the round roast back in the day. The trick was to get it just cooked enough but once the inside was brown it was tough, but pink, oh man good. This was cow but deer should be the same dont over cook.
I think I know what you mean, but does anyone have a pic? I think I've just sliced it thin for steaks in the past.
Picture that with a giant rack on its head and longer legs
This is now one of my favorite cuts meat for sandwiches.
I cook it like prime rib...Put about a cup of red wine in bottom of pan, coat meat with a Tbsp of a mixture of Thyme/Rosemary, elevate the meat with a rack or celery, bake at 500 degrees for about 8 minutes and then turn off the oven letting meat sit in the closed oven for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, let the roast sit for about 10-15 minutes, slice thin while salting individual slices while still warm.
Very moist, tender and still pink in the middle. Excellent!
Oh yeah... and pepper, too. :)
I have never ever ever made any venison into burger or jerky, i dont see the point..maybe cause my pops learned butchering on a farm in the old country and i learned from him...everything i make is roast, stew or steak..
Most roasts (eye,top ect) i butterfly, stuff with pre coocked rice, mushrooms,scallions..roll up..low heat on the grill just enough to make a crust..mmmmm
Well, you're missing out.... Guess your handle is appropriate. :-) No old country sausage either?
notme, I don't make much burger either, I can the tougher cuts as chunks (stew) meat
notme, and fuzzy, I actually have been grinding up the leanest steak cuts, even backstrap, (grind it fresh from frozen steaks or roasts each time I make them), and mixing with generous amount of Italian bread crumbs, diced onion, green pepper, maybe diced-small fresh mushroom, and generous amt. garlic powder, black pepper, Lawrey's seasoning flakes, other seasonings like maybe sage, oregano, and a splash of olive oil, red wine vinegar, splash of soy sauce, but NO FAT (the bread crumbs and oil hold it together), and put BBQ sauce on the patties once made, then grill quick and hot over mesquite wood chips on charcoal, or open flame wood burning in a grill. To DIE FOR! Still tastes like steak, but holds so much more flavor and moisture! You'd think it is a waste of steak, but believe me, try it, you'll like it! My wife won't touch butterfly steaks now since I started making these. I actually like them better too. And the leftover ones warm up nice in a toaster or MW (not too long)... not greasy. YUM! Great with wild rice and a bed of warms buttery fresh greens spinach. Healthy as it gets too.
Make sure you get ALL the silverskin off or your grinder will laugh at you.
With the eye of round steaks, I remove the whole length when I bone out the hindquarters. I have always sliced them into steaks. Yes, they're small diameter with deer, but I've never had any issue with them being tough at all.
All hindquarter muscle segments get taken apart at the "seams". Some go to roasts, others get made into steaks. If I want stew meat, I just use a package of steaks and cut them up differently after they're thawed. Other trimmings get made into burger or sausages of one type or another.
If I read right, the issue was with moose steaks. I can't imagine that as every cut of moose meat from a small bull I got in 2015 (rifle) was awesome! Even round steak stuff that I had no expectations for were great. And, I'm not a fancy cook, just a cast iron pan, butter and lots of pepper. Cooked medium. Yummy! Headed back to Newfoundland in October for hopefully another one....
"I have never ever ever made any venison into burger or jerky, i dont see the point.."
Because you love cheese burgers? Because you like meatballs? Because you can't make lasagna with stew meat or roasts? Because Polish sausages are wonderful? I could go on and on.
Seriously, why would you buy beef for a cheese burger when you could just kill more game animals and grind them? The neck and shoulders make wonderful burger with a little added fat and a sirloin makes a fantastic burger as well. I do lots of roasts as well, but I kill 4-5 animals a year so that my freezer has a full compliment of everything from burger to steak. When I kill an older animal, that's my burger/sausage animal. My baby animals go to steaks and roasts.
I'm with you Ike. I'll kill an extra deer or two to be sure there is enough ground venison in the freezer to make it through the year. Couldn't imagine NOT having it readily available.
I also grind a lot of burger, mostly from neck and shoulder, but some from HQ. Regarding the eye of round off elk (or moose), I've cut it into steaks, but also made "pulled elk". All day in crock pot with bbq sauce and some onions, simple to do and delicious BBQ sammiches.
don't get me wrong, I make some burger, and when the kids were at home I made a LOT of it. It's just that these days I like the canned chunk meat better.
I had a thread last year on this and there were some good ideas. I think I have decided to burger all my round.
Look up Souse Vide on the web. Using an immersion heater, it will 'cook' an eye of round using only water, set to 134F. Place meat in air tight back, and 'cook' for 18 hours. Will be perfectly med rare. Give it a sear on cast iron to brown.
Fork tender, just like a fillet.
