Question
ly brod
Which roast do I need to buy to able to pot-roast the meat to rare and have it remain soft? I buy shoulder blade roast. I roast it until it is pink inside but it is still tough.
Answer
Interesting question or a couple of questions here from Lai that had to do with your choice of cooking method versus the cut of meat that's used. And what I'd like to do is start out my response by outlining the broad categories of moist heat cooking methods and dry heat cooking methods, and how they align, generally speaking, with the cut of meat that you use. And this is going to refer to any sort of a meat-based critter on the planet here, but we'll envision a four-legged animal, okay, for the sake of this discussion. So when it comes to cooking methods, the two broad families of methods that we talk about are moist heat cooking methods, which could include braising, which is also a combination cooking method, because we brown the meat first before finishing it in a moist heat environment, in this case, submerged in liquid. There's also simmering of food, which does not involve the browning like braising does. We also have steaming and poaching, to name the main cooking methods that typically come to mind when we talk about moist heat cooking. And then on the other side of the line, we have dry heat cooking methods, which are basically any of the cooking methods that do not involve water. So this includes deep frying, shallow frying, grilling, sautéing, broiling, as some of those methods that quickly come to mind. Okay? And when it comes to choosing a cut of meat to apply a moist heat method to, that's typically going to be a piece of meat that is naturally tough. And tough cuts of meat on an animal are going to come from the areas that are associated with locomotion. And so this is going to be the front shoulder area, and then the rear hip and legs area. And those areas get lots of exercise as the animal moves about, and that exercise builds up a connective tissue called collagen. And collagen is dispersed throughout the muscles, and it creates this toughness in that part of the animal and in the cuts that come from those parts of the animal, the front portion, right, as well as the rear of the animal. And the way that we handle those delicious cuts of meat is to cook them in a moist heat environment. And in this case, I'm going to focus on braising as the common choice for, let's say, a cut of beef. And this is going to align with Lyle's question. Okay? And so if we can brown it however we want to, then we're going to finish it in liquid at basically a gentle temperature and a long cooking time. And that collagen is going to slowly break down and become tender. It's also going to be drawn out into the liquid, and the result is gelatin in the liquid, which creates the beautiful sauce that classically would accompany a braised dish. So you're creating the sauce at the same time in the pot, okay? And in order to do this, we need to cook this meat for a relatively long period of time. Depends on the animal and the size of the cut. But it could well be hours of simmering time. And our benchmark for doneness is fork tender, well done. Okay? That's what we associate with braising. Now, it is possible to overcook a braised dish. So you might think, wow, so if I'm cooking something in water, I can overcook it, and the result is going to be a dry, stringy piece of meat, okay? And on the other side of the coin, it is possible to undercook the meat. And because this is a naturally tough piece of meat that we're dealing with, if it's undercooked, meaning medium, right, medium rare, or rare, that means that there's going to be collagen that's still intact and that's still tough in that undercooked piece of meat. We're considering it undercooked because of the nature of the cut, okay, as well as the cooking method that it's aligned with. Now, on the other side of the line, if we look at the dry heat cooking methods, we will align those with naturally tender cuts of meat. And naturally tender cuts of meat, generally speaking, come from this area of the animal in between those two tough regions, which were around the shoulder and around the rear end. So that area in between where we find the ribs, we find the sirloin and the loin and tenderloin would come from this middle section of the animal. Because that middle section does not get involved so much with locomotion, you don't have that heavy collagen buildup, and therefore, these cuts of meat are naturally tender. And so they tend to be most delicious, and we tend to cook them most frequently using dry heat. So grilling or roasting or baking in the oven are going to be examples of that. Okay? So To address Lyle's question more directly, okay, if you get a tough cut of meat, like the shoulder blade roast that's mentioned, and you simmer it in a liquid, but you try to pull it out when it's still rare, in this case, it will definitely be tough because of all the residual collagen, that tough connective tissue that's still intact in that muscle. Okay? So Lyle is asking for recommendation on a cut of meat that can be cooked to rare and still be tender. So now we need to focus our eyes on a different part of the animal, one that's typically associated with a dry heat cooking method. Now I'm going to suggest a prime rib, okay? A prime rib, it's naturally tender because of its location in that midsection of the cow, of that animal. And it'll cook up tender as well. And something like prime rib is typically cooked a little bit beyond rare because it's got a fair amount of fat associated with it. And the rare doneness level in beef is going to be associated with a temperature range of about 125 to 135 degrees Fahrenheit. And beef fat starts to render at about 130 to 140 degrees or so. So you're going to have the best sort of flavor development and mouth feel if the prime rib is cooked a little bit beyond rare. Certainly in most all cases that I've experienced it, it's cooked just a little bit beyond that, and that's to then take advantage of that delicious fat that's associated with that cut. Now, so here goes the interesting part of this, Lyle. You can get a prime rib and cook it in the typical way, in the oven, to a rare doneness and see how you like that. Okay? That naturally tender cut is going to be amenable to a dry heat cooking method such as roasting, okay, in the oven. I have never heard of prime rib being simmered, cooked in a liquid, because fundamentally from the typical culinary perspective, it's not necessary to do that because there isn't the collagen present that needs to be broken down through a long, drawn-out cooking process. Now, if you want to give that a try, you're going to be blazing a new trail here. I don't have any data to fall back on to talk any further about this with you. It does not align with the typical approach to selecting a cut of meat and what we think of as the appropriate cooking method. Okay? That's not to say it can't be done. There are a lot of cooks out there that'll blaze new trails by trying something different, but just keep in mind that this will be an experiment, and you'll need to take some notes, and you'll probably need to do it more than once in order to figure out that balance of what you like within the parameters or the conditions associated with the cut of meat you've chosen and an atypical cooking method if you decide to prepare it like a pot roast in liquid. Okay? So the summary here is, again, that the desired doneness you're shooting for is associated with a different part of the animal, and that different part of the animal, i.e. the tender area, is associated with dry heat cooking. Okay? So I hope that helps your understanding overall, Lyle, and gives you some tools and some confidence to go forth with some experimentation, or to choose a tender cut like a prime rib that you can cook to perhaps a rare, using a dry heat cooking method. All right? Happy cooking.
