What is the purpose of turning a pot roast (and can I do without it)?
I recently bought a big outside round oven roast that was on sale for cheap. I've made plenty of roasts before, but I don't remember having used this particular cut, and it seems to have a reputation for being generally tough and flavourless.
So I looked up a few recipes and most recommend cooking it as a pot roast, which I plan to do. Most of these recipes also say to turn every 30 minutes or so. This is something which I am not accustomed to doing and I'm not entirely sure I see the point.
Given that the cooking method is basically a braise - i.e. steam is doing most of the real work - is there a reason why these recipes suggest turning the meat so often (or at all)? Or can I get just as good a result without this inconvenience?
Best Answer
I've never seen any benefit to turning a roast. If you want to minimize the crust, use a roaster with a lid or a roasting bag, but the rule is always low even temperature and slow roasting for the best meat.
A crock pot is also a good way to slowly braise a tough roast.
Coming from a beef ranch, we'd put a roast in the oven at about 100-125F at 7 in the morning on Sunday, do our chores, go to church and come home at 1 to a well done, tender roast with no turning. It gets a good crust on it which you can amp up with a good dry rub if you feel so inclined, but there's no need for turning.
Just low, slow and in a container of some kind if you don't like a crust on it.
Now, in doing just a bit of Google due diligence I ran across this article that suggests that aging is more important with an inexpensive roast than the cooking environment. We hung our beef for 14 days before packaging, so this wasn't an issue for us.
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/images/document/howto/SO96_HTbeef.pdf
If you have a big back yard and a tolerant spouse I've had very good results with the Polynesian pig-roast style of roasting.
Dig a big hole, line it with rocks, build a fire to burn down to coals, wrap the meat in several layers of tinfoil and place on top of the coals, bury it with more rocks on top and leave for 8 hours. Delicious, fall off the bone beef from the cheapest giant Costco cuts we could buy on a boy scout budget.
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Do you need to flip pot roast?
The most important thing is to let the meat brown. This means adding it to hot pan and not flipping it. Let it brown for 4-5 minutes on each side. When I started browning meat I would always flip it every 30 seconds which defeated the purpose and took even longer.Do I have to sear my pot roast?
You heat olive oil in a skillet or Dutch oven on the stove, then sear the roast for about one minute per side before transferring it to the slow cooker. Not every slow cooker pot roast recipe requires you to sear the meat before cooking, but doing so can add even more flavor to your final dish!Do you turn roast beef when cooking?
Generally, roast beef is cooked at a high temperature to caramelise the outside, then the temperature is turned down. This method can also be reversed with a lower temperature to start before a blast of heat at the end.How to Make a Perfect Pot Roast | You Can Cook That | Allrecipes.com
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Answer 2
I don't think that it makes much of a difference. Perhaps, people feel the the top of the roast becomes to crispy and like to turn it. I never turn it and get a nice black crust on top which is actually my favorite part. Every time you open the oven a lot of heat is lost which slows down the cooking.
I searched Google and the first recipe was Alton Brown's on the Food Network. I think the things to note about his recipe is the very slow oven and very tight foil pouch used to seal the roast that isn't opened until half an hour after letting it rest. It's essentially pressure cooking the meat with the very even oven temperature sealing in all the juices. Perhaps, the resting period without opening the pouch enables the juices to seep back into the meat as the proteins relax.
This of course brings of the question of how hot the meat gets in 200 degree oven. Does the meat stay below the boiling point or does the pressure of the steam bring it past 212? Does having the meat in these conditions below the boiling point make a difference?
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Images: Dương Nhân, Georgi Petrov, Nothing Ahead, cottonbro