Conquering your fear of the roast
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
How many times have you walked past the meat counter and saw some beautiful beef roasts on sale and thought about buying one...but ended up settling for a package of ground beef again? It’s not that your family wouldn’t love a good beef roast; you simply don’t have the confidence to know that you can cook it without over cooking it.
We would like to let you in on a secret that is all but fool proof when it comes to cooking a roast of any kind: get yourself a meat thermometer. No carpenter is without a hammer, no nurse works without a stethoscope, and likewise, no good chef cooks without a meat thermometer. Armed with this inexpensive tool, you can roast anything to perfection. To help show you how to best use your meat thermometer, we found an informative article on Hub pages written by Sally's Trove http://sallystrove.hubpages.com/hub/How-To-Cook-the-Best-Roast-Beef
I will admit that I once had a fear of of cooking beef. What if I made a pile of ash? I've had wonderful steaks and roasts in my adult life, cooked by friends or enjoyed at dinners out. But it was only a few years ago that I found the courage to experiment with cooking beef on my own. The turning point was when my mother gave me a meat thermometer as a house warming gift -- which was really funny, because I don't think she ever used a meat thermometer herself. However, my mother is a genius at finding previously used and sale items for pennies on the dollar. I expect this meat thermometer was one of her "finds".
Armed with a meat thermometer, I now needed something to stick it into. Although you can stick a thermometer into a number of meats (chicken, turkey, pork, lamb, veal, and even fish), I chose a beef roast because it was beef and therefore a challenge. Besides, true to my mother's bargain hunting instincts, I found the roast offered at a very good sale price and I couldn't pass it up. I brought the roast home and attacked it with the meat thermometer and a little creativity. The rest is history.
Gloriously Simple Roast Beef
To make this wonderful beef, you need an eye round roast, a container of Mrs. Dash (I use the "original" blend), a meat thermometer, a pan with a rack that fits into it, and an oven. That's it.
Start with an eye round roast that's at least 3 pounds. Take the roast out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before you start to pre-heat the oven. Pre-heat the oven to 475 degrees F.
The Seasoning
Shake the Mrs. Dash onto all parts of the beef -- top, bottom, and sides -- and press this wonderful seasoning into the flesh. You might want to do this in your freshly scrubbed kitchen sink. It can make a mess. When all the seasoning is pressed into the flesh, place the beef onto the rack with the fat side down. Put the rack and the beef into the pan. Poke the thermometer into the fattest part of the roast so that the stabbing end of the thermometer goes only half-way down.
Time and Temperature
Your meat thermometer may have a temperature setting for rare, medium, and well done beef, or it may not. So set the desired doneness either by words or numbers:
- Rare = 140 degrees F
- Medium = 160 degrees F
- Well done = 170 degrees F
When the oven is up to 475, put the pan and its beef in, uncovered. Set a timer for 45 minutes. After 45 minutes, turn the oven down to 275 degrees F.
Depending on the size of the roast, the rest of the cooking may take an hour or two or more. Just check the thermometer's progress. You can do this by turning on your oven's light and looking through the glass door. If you don't have an oven door with glass that you can see through, then you will have to open the door and look, which will delay the cooking time.
The beautiful thing about the meat thermometer is that it doesn't lie. It doesn't matter whether your oven's internal thermometer is working or not. The meat thermometer will tell you when the beef is done. When the beef is done, take it out of the oven and let it sit in its pan on your kitchen counter for about 10 minutes before you slice it.
About Slicing the Roast
You need a sharp, finely honed knife. I use Sabatier carbon steel knives, which I acquired in the late 60's. Cut across the grain. Think about your own muscles here. Like in your arm. Muscle tissue runs in very discernible straight, thread-like lines from your elbow to your wrist. When you cut across these threads, you are cutting across the grain. This is very obvious with a hunk of beef. You can see how the muscle strands go the length of a roast. You just cut across that.
As you cut, the roast will bleed. Make sure your cutting board can catch the juice, or make sure that you are prepared to pour the juice into a container as it flows. You want to save that juice. Before you serve your magnificent roast, pre-heat your plates. A warm plate will keep a rare slice of beef warm without cooking it more. Heat the reserved juice in a sauce pot for pouring over the beef-laden plates when you are ready to serve.