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This is why beef chuck roast cooked in a 131°F–140°F (55°C–60°C) water bath for 24–48 hours has the texture of filet mignon.
- Douglas Baldwin, A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking

After my experiments with sous-vide chicken resulted in one of the finest birds I'd ever eaten, I immediately set off on a crusade to transform the cheapest cut of beef I could find into filet mignon. I know this sounds an awful lot like alchemy - that ancient (and ludicrous) practice of transforming humble metals into gold. But with the above quote ringing in my head, my mind started to race with the possibilities. Instead of starting with chuck, I decided to start with the least tender cut I could find. So chuck became round. This, my friends, is what is called "Nick getting ahead of himself."

I should have taken a step back and assessed my situation. The recipe clearly calls for chuck, which is relatively fatty. But I wanted to test the absolute limits of the machine. So that's how I found myself buying two and half pounds of top round from Whole Foods. It's about the leanest and least flavorful cuts of beef on the cow. It doesn't even make a good stew. The only way with round is to cook it until rare and then slice it as thinly as possible. That'll leave you with good roast beef, or a great Italian beef if you're smart, but what if you didn't have to slice it thinly, and could instead dig in with absolute abandon?

I have been lusting after steak since I attended the SousVide Supreme event a little over a month ago. There I ate a rib-eye which was cooked until rare in the machine, and then seared in a skillet to give it that beautiful crust. As  you can see from the picture, it was perfectly rare from center to almost the edge. It was succulent and tender in a way I always wanted steak to be.

I knew that round would never get me there, but how close could I come? Any connective tissue should dissolve after so long in the machine. That should me leave with tender, if a tad dry, meat. Without much proof beyond the quoted line from Douglas Baldwin's A Practical Guide to Sous-Vide cooking, I decided to experiment for myself. I chopped the top round into four 1 1/2 inch thick steaks, sealed them up in plastic, and placed them in the SousVide Supreme at 133 degrees and walked away.

My first bite of jerk chicken, fresh from two hours of mingling with smoke, was everything I wanted it to be.  The rub of allspice berries and black peppercorns mixed with fresh ginger and thyme and created this incredible aroma --one that I couldn't help but adore.  I was completely happy and content until quickly, and without much warning, the spice hit.  A double dose of habanero cut through all of that complexity, ringing my lips with intense heat that unleashed the first of many small tears to drip down my face.  I took a drink of wine, which only seemed to ignite the pain even more.  I reached for a glass milk to squelch what I could, but it only delayed the onslaught.  Against what should have been better judgment, I dug back in for another bite. 

I had been interested in jerk chicken ever since watching Anthony Bourdain on No Reservations eat some out on the nighttime streets of Jamaica.  These roadside stands cooked them in enormous old oil-drums that had been retrofitted into smokers.  The chickens were rubbed with a jerk spice mixture of allspice berries and scotch bonnets (a relative of the habanero), among many other things, that turned the flesh a deep, dark brown, just one shade away from black.  But when Boudain bite in, the flesh shone white and juicy.  I wanted some.

For help I used this New York Times article that explored the jerk chicken available around Brooklyn.  It was then that I found out what was in the spice rub.  The predominant ingredient was allspice, something I don't really use that much.  But it seemed to be absolutely crucial to the dish.  In fact, on the island of Jamaica they use the wood from the allspice tree to cook the meat.  Something, unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to use.  Oh well.  I used some nice and mild apple wood.   The rub also included black peppercorns, thyme, ginger, garlic, scallion, and brown sugar.  I could smell it already.

I also found this recipe from eGullet, and I loved how they traded the dried and ground spices for fresh ones.  They toasted whole allspice berries with black peppercorns and then ground them fresh.  What it honestly reminded me of was the care and patience that goes into a good barbecue rub. 

But its insane heat sets it apart.  Mixed in with all of these spices were two habaneros.  The spice of these is unlike that of, say, a whole bunch of blunt jalapenos.  Those are nothing.  One of these little orange guys can completely change the feeling of a dish, and two, well, is just crazy.  I thought about adding that third one, but I might not have lived through the experience had I gone through with it.  Surely, this is not a dish for those who don't really like spice, or who think jalapenos to be a tad risqué.  I shirk such thoughts.  Give me more.