Should you "rest" a roast?
I recently made roast beef that cooked for ~ 8 hours. I took it out of the crockpot and let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then I sliced it into pieces and we ate it. It was pretty good. The leftovers were packed away. The odd thing was the next day at lunch, the meat, which seemed uniformly brown the day before, was now a nice pinkish color in the middle (keep in mind I had cut the entire thing, so the slice I'm eating is brown on the outside and pink on the inside, maybe 1/2 thick). It also seemed much more tender.
What happened here? The leftover roast seemed much better than the meat from the night before. I am discounting the probability that the roast beef fairy came by and swapped out our leftovers with better ones. Should I have let the roast rest longer? What is the procedure for letting something cooked at such low temperatures rest anyways? It's not like a steak that was cooked at high temperature on a grill.
Best Answer
Let it rest anyway. Even at low temperatures, the juices will be flowing through the meat. Resting stops this process.
As for the strange colour-changing meat, I suspect you just weren't observant. Meat that has gone brown will not spontaneously go pink again.
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Do you rest a roast covered or uncovered?
When it comes to really large cuts of meat, such as our Roast Chicken with Vegetables and Potatoes, Mustard-Roasted Beef Tenderloin, or Perfect Roast Duck, more resting time is needed; let the meat rest for about 15 minutes, covered with foil, before slicing, which will preserve the juices without causing it to become ...Should I sear a roast first?
In order to get the most flavor out of your beef, whether it is for a roast or for a stew, you must first sear it. When you pan sear beef, you quickly cook the outer surface of the meat at a high temperatures so that it caramelizes and forms a crust.Should you sear your roast beef?
Searing meat is an essential step if you want to make the most flavorful roasts, steaks, chops, and more. When you sear meat, you caramelize the natural sugars in the meat and brown the proteins, forming a rich brown crust on the surface of the meat that amplifies the savory flavor of the finished dish.Should you sear before or after roasting?
As an added benefit, searing already-cooked meat takes less time than searing raw meat, and less time searing helps keep that sad gray outer ring of overcooked meat at bay.Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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