I'm not a baker, I'll admit that to anyone who even looks at me the wrong way. Scientific measuring and calculating is NOT my strong suit, it's frustrating sometimes, trying to weigh out specific ingredients can be infuriating without the proper envrionment and equipment. So why some people even TRY and do this when cooking (not baking) is beyond me. I can understand that in certain circumstances, with certain recipes, one would want to weigh out the ingredients. One such recipe is that of a roast, beef preferably, the perfection of which seems almost unattainable to many a home cook. Of course, being in the professional cooking, I have learned some easy things that can make the process more... pleasurable, shall we say, and WAY easier than the books would have you believe.
First thing's first, a perfect roast time does not control, instead the internal temperature should be used as the ideal judge of doneness. This can be judged using a good food grade thermometer, purchased cheaply and easily at any number of general goods retailers, hell Safeways sells them. To use, simply insert the thermometer into the densest part of the meat (a.k.a. the center) and wait until the needle stops moving. Ideal degree's of doneness vary both on taste and location, one person may like rare and another well done, and while chef's have their own personal idea of rare, the government has a much higher temperature for a rare piece of beef. Personally I suggest you use the government regulations at first, and then if you discover that their idea of rare was a little too cooked for you, ease up on the temperature bit by bit until you find a temperature which you like. A note about preference and roasts however... well done beef kind of people are becoming more and more rare (ironic eh?), so when cooking for more than 2 people I suggest you stick to a good medium-rare which SHOULD satisfy everyone. A bad roast is a bad roast, and more often than not a bad roast is a dry roast, and a dry roast is an overcooked roast, and an overcooked roast is damn near a well done roast.
But of course, half the battle is making it to the oven in the first place, so here are some tips for preparing a good roast. First of all: Mise on Place is your best friend, have everything you could possibly need out and ready when you actually go to do the roast. Chop all your veg, (all veg should be the same size roughly, and I would suggest for veg potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and onions) bring your roast to room temperature (crucial), mix together all your herbs, spices and seasonings (usually rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper, thyme, chopped evenly, placed in a separate dish) and preheat your oven and preheat a pan (high and fast, or low and slow, I'll go over that in a minute). Once that is all done, you can begin.
1) Rub your roast thouroughly in oil, or if you'd rather, Dijon Mustard (if you use mustard do not pre sear, instead put straight into the oven) and then put on the seasoning of your choice. It takes a while of cooking to get the right amount of salt and pepper right, but go slow, be conservative and adjust as you go, it's a gradual progress.
2) Sear your roast in a hot frying pan until all the sides are golden brown and tast-eh.
3) place your roast on a bed of vegetables and place in a 450 celsius oven (hot and fast), or a 300 celsius oven (low and slow) until the internal temperature reaches roughly 5F lower than your ideal doneness, the last 5 degrees will be attained in the last stage of roasting.
4) This is the all important part of roasting a piece of meat, whether it be beef, pork or chicken. You must rest your meat!!! Once the roast has been removed from the oven, tent lightly with tin foil and let stand for roughly 1/3 the cooking time, this ensures that the proteins relax and that all the juices redistribute evenly, also, the last 5 degrees of doneness will occur in this time frame. It also makes the roast tender and delicious to ingest.
After that serve as you will, though if you want you could always make a pan jus from scratch...
Begin by taking some wine (for the record, cooking wine is NOT suitable for this, if you can drink with it, you can cook with it, that is all) and pouring some (like, 1/4 of a bottle?) into the the pan you roasted your roast in, it is important to reheat this pan over low heat before adding the wine so that all the crispy bits on the bottom come loose. Boil the wine until it thickens slightly and the alcohol has evaporated off, then add about twice as much beef stock as wine and mix together until well combined. Mix 2tbsp cornstarch (always measure starches, even in cooking), with about 1/4 cup of water and then slowly whisk into the wine/stock mixture and bring to a boil. Once the product has reached your desired thickness, season and serve over the roast. Yeah, it's that easy.
I realize this sounds horrifically complicated for some people, and that I've probably seemed arrogant and contrived because of my small amount of training, but I really do believe that if people eased up on the recipe's a bit and just started playing around, that a whole new world of things would open up to them.
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