Eye of Round Roast

1 1/2 pound eye of round roast
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 head of garlic
1/4 cup capers
6 Thai bird chilis
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil
3 slices of bacon, cut in half
1/2 cup beef broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup armagnac or cognac

I went to one of our favorite Asian markets yesterday, Carrollton Plaza Supermarket, intending to purchase a beef tenderloin.  Normally they have entire beef tenderloins at ridiculously low prices. They didn't have any beef loin; however, they had some eye of round roasts.  I didn't really know anything about preparing eye of round.  It looks pretty, but unfortunately that's probably because it's very lean and has no marbling.  I just bought a small portion, about a pound and a half, so that we could experiment without too much investment.

After doing a fair amount of Google research I found recommendations that ran the gamut from fast high temp cooking with no liquid to slow low temp braising.  Here's the technique I decided on.  I butterflied the loin, then used a multi-blade meat tenderizer (http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-7032-Professional-Meat-Tenderizer/dp/B00004UE7Y/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1310694673&sr=8-4) to perforate the meat all over.  I sprinkled the meat on both sides with the salt and let it rest at room temp for at least an hour.

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.

While the meat was resting with the salt, I coated a cast iron skillet with the olive oil and cooked the bacon slices over low heat to render their fat.

Also while the meat was resting I peeled and diced the garlic, roughly chopped the capers, removed the stems from the peppers, cut them in half, removed the seeds, and very thinly sliced them, ground the black pepper and mixed all that together.

Now rinse the salt off the roast and pat dry.  Put the prepared mixture down the middle.  Either roll up or fold each side in, whichever works better with the cut, shape, and thickness of your eye of round roast.  Then use butcher's twine to truss up your pretty little roast package nice and neat.  Remove the bacon slices from the skillet and reserve them.

Increase the heat to medium high.  Brown the roast all over.  Add the beef broth, soy sauce, and armagnac to the skillet, bring to a low boil, and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Lay the bacon slices over the roast, put the skillet in the oven, and cook at 250 degrees for one hour.  Turn the oven off and leave the roast for one hour without opening the oven.  Remove roast from oven, cut away the trussing, slice, and serve.