skizi said:Hi,
Thanks for the help with the roast. Unfortunately my internet did not get
give me any replies until much later in the day. What I did was cover it in
salt, pepper and garlic then bake it at 375 for an hour. I then turned the
oven off for 30 minutes and again 375 for 30 to 40 minutes. This was one set
of instructions, according to a Google search.
This is simply silly. Gimmicry disguised as cookery. Consult a reliable
cookbook instead of an unexamined source like the internet.
Quoted message said:The meat came out pretty
good. My husband put in a meat thermometer in after the second baking and
it was just under 140 so he said it should cook longer.
What degree of doneness did you want? It was already at medium when you
took the temperature. Your husband was guessing and you didn't know what
you wanted, so you couldn't make any good decisions about it.
Quoted message said:But in the end it seemed too well done.
Of course. It was already well past what you wanted and you didn't know it.
Quoted message said:I also did not get very much drippings. The roast was
called a "round roast".
Round roasts have very little fat, so no drippings. The other reason is
that interrupted cooking business. You let the meat cool down (and
sponsor bacterial growth) when you turned the heat off, so fat wasn't
rendered.
Quoted message said:It was surrounded by a stretchy netting, which I
left on while baking. It was supposed to have a fat side according the
recipe, but it only had a very small area of fat.
I don't know how a thermometer would help if I had no general idea of time
per pound.
Um, you cook to temperature, not time. When it reaches the correct
temperature, you take it out of the oven. Has nothing to do with time.
Time per pound is completely unreliable. There are too many variables
that skew it. The temperature of the meat, the accuracy of the oven, the
shape of the meat, the desired doneness...
Let me state it in the absolute: you can't cook by minutes per pound and
get consistent results. Period.
Degrees of doneness are technical terms to a chef. Rare means cold red
center. Med-rare means warm red center. Med means warm pink center.
Med-well means hot pink center in a narrow band. Well means constant
color brown throughout.
Quoted message said:Is there a chart somewhere that says what temperature for medium
rare?
Beef temperatures listed here are for when you pull them from the oven,
not the finished temperature. Residual heat in the meat will make the
temperature rise still further. The roast should be rested before
carving - at least 15 minutes. Oven temperatures should be no more than
325, adn they're better at lower temps. Read the stuff at the end of
this note.
rare - pull at 120°
med-rare - pull at 125°
med - pull at 135°
med-well - pull at 150°
Well - pull any time after 170°
Quoted message said:I think I would like to try this with a better cut of meat, but maybe my
meat was fine it is just my method that was bad.
The method is just the sort of thing that ignorant home cooks think are
reasonable culinary techniques. It's needlessly silly. Roasting is a
constant-heat process, as virtually all cooking processes are.
I think we've covered enough now. If you want to cook roasts well, you
need to go do some reading.
Here's a column I wrote a while back:
------------------------------
Hey, cool down while roasting
This whole business of what temperature to cook birds and meats at is
very interesting. Suddenly we hear pronouncements that it’s not safe
to cook at less than 325 degrees. They say it's hazardous. Right.
Like it's a new idea, this low-temperature cooking. Some very old
history in a moment.
There seem to be factions that break out roughly like this: "Roasting
at less than 325 degrees is dangerous because of the possibility of
bacterial contamination" versus "roasting at lower temperatures like 250
in a conventional oven and 205 in a convection oven results in the
juiciest roast possible with no real-world hazard."
Here are facts based on the laws of physics, our current understanding
of microbiology, politics, and the general contrariness of the human
race. Let's look at a few obviously connected statements. And some
less so.
1. Most surface-borne bacteria are dead by the time the food reaches
145 degrees at the surface. No matter how the temperature got to 145.
One complaint is that the meat remains in the "danger zone" of 40 to 140
degrees too long and, thereby, promotes bacterial growth that could be
harmful.
Here's how I look at it. Maybe the bacteria do grow faster in the
early stages of low temperature roasting. Maybe they do; that hasn’t
been demonstrated that I know of. But they definitely die by the time
that the temperature reaches 140. What does it matter if there are 20
or 200 or 2 million bacteria if they all end up harmlessly dead?
USDA recommends 145 internal temperature as safe for meats, and at
least 325 as the oven temp; they're a government agency, you know. They
do numbers, not flavors.
2. Those old obsolete meat thermometers that you leave in a roast are
wrong! Most of them say that 140 is rare. It isn't; it's medium. 125
to 135 is the range for rare and medium-rare. We should cook meats to
145 or higher to be safe, we're told. How many people die from eating
rare roast beef in any given year? Exactly.
For less than $10 you can pick up a "quick-read" or "instant-read"
thermometer that you DON'T leave in meats. You poke it in, read the
temp and take it back out. They're more accurate than the old-style
leave 'em in thermometers.
3. Trichina, the little worm parasite in pork and bear meat, among
others, is dead at a temperature of 140 or more. This should be the
CENTER temperature of the roast away from bone. At 140, the meat is
cooked to a medium doneness. It is simply not necessary to cook pork to
a well-done state unless that's how you like it. The lower the
temperature after reaching a safe temp, the more moist and tender the
meat. By the way, pork that has been frozen for a couple weeks is safe
from trichina. They're dead.
4. Only ground meats have significant quantities of bacteria inside
them and that's BECAUSE they've been ground up, thereby exposing the
surfaces of all the little pieces to contamination from any bacteria
that may have been on the original meat surface and any that may have
been in the meat grinder. Ground meats really should be cooked to at
least medium or 145 degrees at the center.
5. There are almost never any harmful bacteria within the muscle tissue
of a reasonably fresh whole roast. Unless it's been punctured and
bacteria carried inside.
6. Cooking at lower than 325 degrees has a long, long, long history,
like: stew, pot roasts and simmered meats (212 or less); steamed meat
and poultry dishes (no more than 212 degrees); anything moist-cooked
(braised, for you purists) in those old covered roasters (my mother's
was black with white spots) and the currently popular clay cookers;
anything done in a pressure cooker (up to 250); smoked meats and
Texas-style brisket barbecue (180 degrees! All day long); spit roasting
where the meat is constantly turned and has a chance to cool before it
again faces the fire; country pig roasts in an old split oil tank where
you put the pig at one end and the fire at the other (anywhere from 175
to 350 degrees); planked fish and meats stood some distance from a fire;
microwaved foods and probably others you could think of.
7. There's a whole industry based on low-temperature cooking of meats
and birds. Several manufacturers make what are called "roaster-holders"
in the restaurant business. Two of them whose equipment I have used are
Alto-Shaam and Addington. Most of the roast beef and prime rib you get
in high-volume restaurants are cooked at less than 250 degrees and then
held at 140 or less for service in the same unit.
Restaurants that sell a lot of beef cook prime rib at 225 and hold at
120. If you order it well done, they cut off a slice, drop it into hot
beef juice to cook further and finish it on their grill. One of the
standard ways in the restaurant business.
Same business with chickens. Low temp roasts make for heavier, juicier
birds that can be held for longer in the heat cabinet. Customers get
nice moist chicken, the restaurant has a longer holding time. Everybody
wins.
The other main reason for low-temperature cooking besides taste is that
you lose less of the weight of the meat this way; the "yield" is
greater. Same amount of protein, just more moisture. Juice.
8. We live in a society that is litigious; we fight, we call out the
lawyers. Splash a container of coffee on yourself? Sue McDonald's
where it was purchased and (incomprehensibly) win! Manufacturers,
sellers and government agencies are justifiably eager not to be sued and
will therefore offer the safest, potentially least troublesome
instruction for the handling of products. Even if it results in a
somewhat diminished product quality; at least they won't be sued by even
the most far-fetched crank. Yes, I know. I don't have to like it, either.
Enough of this. How to cook meats and birds; one man's way that has
worked for decades and fed probably over 100,000 diners. If you don't
like this way, why, don't use it. It's only lunch, not world peace.
For roasts of beef, pork, lamb... you know, the chunks of meat to
carve. And for roasts of birds. I do it either of two ways, depending
on the type of oven.
Conventional ovens, the ones found in most home stoves, I set to 250
degrees. And I take the roast out at 125 degrees internal temperature
because I like it on the red side. If you want it more done, just leave
it in longer. Not exactly rocket science.
Birds I cook until the temperature in the thigh is about 160. It's
supremely moist and tender. There will still be a little pinkness at
the bones because of how poultry is being raised and slaughtered these
days. There’s nothing wrong with it; the birds are younger and that’s
how it’ll be from now on. And if you brine them, they’re even better.
Forget that business about cooking birds to 180 or even higher. It has
no value for any safety issues and I guarantee it’ll dry out the meat.
Let me repeat that: No value for any safety issue. The meat is
perfectly safe at considerably lower temperatures. That old business
about cooking birds to that very well done state most likely had
everything to do with making sure the stuffing was cooked and safe. And
not anything about moistness and flavor.
I very emphatically try to discourage people from stuffing birds for
one simple reason: if you cook it to the point where the stuffing is
done, the bird is overdone. Instead, I suggest cooking dressing in a
separate casserole or baking dish. That way, you can even have several
kinds. Stuffing birds is a bad idea if you want the meat moist and the
stuffing cooked to a safe temperature.
Now, if you like a brown crust on roasts or birds, just finish it at
325 for about 15 minutes or turn on the broiler (and stay right there
and watch to make sure it doesn't burn. It doesn't add anything much to
internal temperature, just browns the outside. The result is a roast
with almost no pan drippings so your gravy needs to come from somewhere
else. The moisture that would have ended up in the pan is still in the
meat. This is juicy stuff.
For a convection oven, I follow manufacturer's suggestions that you
cook at lower temperature than conventional ovens. So instead of 250, I
do it at 205. These ovens will give a nice, brown outside, even at
these low temps. Still no pan juices to speak of. Let the roast sit
outside the oven for at least 15 minutes before carving to let the
juices redistribute themselves throughout the meat.
In summary, then. Roast at low temperatures for tender, moist roasts.
Use a modern, "quick-read" thermometer for accurate results. Make a
good stock for gravy from old bones and trimmings or buy some. Enjoy
yourself; you only get to try this life once.
