Very Sloooowwww Cooking (tenderizers, restaurants, freezer, pastry)

[rifleman]

I started last year with doing meat (roasts, mainly) at very slow temperatures. Under 200 usually, and as low as 165, the eventual target temp for a roast to avoid overcooking it.

Take a medium sized roast, say 4 - 6 lb, and place it into a rising oven (the direct heat will slightly sear the outside surfaces) settling out at about 180˚ to 200˚.

The result is a lovely overall pinkness, with a small center of more red. tougher roasts, having been subjected to a long heat cycle, do eventually break down to be far more tender .

Of course I use a meat thermometer, and when the inner temp gets to about 135, I often slow down the temp to the maximum I'd want to see in the inner meat temp, about 165 - 170;. when the temp is about 155, I turn off the oven completely, and let it sit for another 20 min or so, knowing the inner temp will still rise.

The end product will amaze you, and looks for all the world like a commercially done prime rib finish. Very moist, very tender for the cut you've used (obviously a chuck roast won't compete with a sirloin tip...).

If you really want to impress some guests, take that roast out when it's just hitting about 150˚, set it aside, raise your oven temp to about 450˚, and wrap some good puff pastry shell over the roast with some pate spread under it on the top side of the roast. Tuck the pastry shell in ,and pop it back into a completely heated-up oven.

About 5 - 6 min later you'll have a Beef Wellington, and will be talk of your friends. Serve with a modest little Zinfandel, and stand back!

Have a great Thxgvng, friends! Cheers, and P&L2A! rifleman

[Hunter Wold]

Wow..sounds great...I usually start out real hot about 450 and then lower to 200...I have also put a thick packing of rock salt around a rib roast and then after cooking crack it open...

Happy trails, HW

[Gandalara]

I can only make Sticky Chicken in the winter, since it's done for 5 hours in a 250* oven. But I make several, and freeze

[Gerania]

I read about it for a while before I tried it. It sounded just the thing for a lean roast or what would otherwise be a little tough. First time I tried it, it turned out magnificently. I was sold.

I made the mistake of inviting Mom over that afternoon. She paced, tapped her foot and expressed her concern about food poisoning. The meal was wonderful and she did admit that she had been trying to pressure me to turn up the oven temp to a 'normal' temperature. LOL

[rifleman]

Yeah, my mother was raised by wolve... I mean British... parents, whom in the pre- and post-WWII periods had pretty much ruined cooking for the world by emmigrating to other Colonial outposts and assuming the world should cook like them.(like, in my case, Canada).

Mom's idea of a 3lb roast was at least 350 - 375˚ for three hours. all grey-like and chewy inside. Yeah, the gravy was pretty good, but then why wouldn't it be, this cooking process having nearly carbonized the outer inch of the once-upon-a-roast's mantle. (Hee hee... I just made an honest typo while doing this diatribe, and typed "coking" instead of "cooking". AS a process involving purifying carbon in a steel mill, it may perhaps have also applied to my mother's culinary skills...).

Dad would, is the word "slice"? or "saw"? or perhaps "split"? those roasts for our dinner. What an amazing experience!

I didn't know that any such meat could taste good, juicy and tender, until, literally, 25 years later. Having eaten good prime rib in many restaurants, I wondered how in the world they'd done that. My parents said the restaurants had soaked the stuff overnight in chemicals, tenderizers, etc., as well as red dies to just make it look medium-rare!

I'd better tell Hy's Encore in Vancouver about that one. They'd get a good laugh!

My mother, often sent her's back two or three times, even tho' she'd already ordered her's "well-done", until the kitchen figured out that she wanted the part they'd already tossed out. She often mentioned that same comment that yours, Gerania, had made: "It's not safe until it's well cooked!"

Well, if any of you have done other meats this way, lemme know. In my freezer, I have, for the first time, two duck breasts I blasted mercilessly out of the skies and their innocence last month. I know wild ducks, from their endless flapping about, and avoiding us hunters, can be a tad bit tough. I'm also thinking a slow slow s l o w w cookup might just do the trick, with the previously mentioned wrap of pastry at the end, perhaps with some pate underneath to moisturize?

Hope you all enjoyed that slow-cooked turkey!