Those of you loyal followers of my blog already know that the "Carnivorous Regalis" is my dad- the consummate meatatarian. This is a man that can pack in an entire roast beef in a single sitting. He refers to this affectionately as a "Piggy Dinner". This dinner may or may not include a potato side dish. Vegetables? Clearly, you jest! Anyhow, my Dad, who in all my years of living in the same house with me, has only cooked me one thing that I can remember- scrambled eggs. When I was three. That's it. As a graduate of MIT, and a bonafide original computer geek, his interests were understandably elsewhere. He is still the only person I know that uses all the math I never learned in school on a daily basis. But now, for the first time ever, math and cooking have melded for my dad in his endeavor to cook a perfect prime rib! He referred me to this article on How To Cook A Prime Rib from the extremely informative site http://www.cookingforengineers.com/
Carnivorous Regalis writes....
"I ran across this recipe a while ago, and thought you might be interested, given your web site. It was amazing to see guys time-graphing the roast temperature every 20 minutes or so, or another guy using a calibrated lab thermometer to measure his roast. It was really that old anal-retentive engineer approach to cooking that I thought you might find amusing.
Then, I decided to try the "roast in 200 F oven" technique described in the article on a tenderized / marinated eye round roast.
FANTASTIC!
It was, as they described almost uniformly, beautifully medium-rare pink right to within 1/8" of the edge of the meat.
I probably pigged down about 2 lbs. tonight, with the rest for dinner tomorrow (maybe with a potato next time to make up for the shorter ration).
My differences:
* roast 3.5 lbs.
* took 4 hours, almost 68 mins / pound
* my digital, probe in the meat, display outside the oven thermometer read 150 F when pulled it out.
Just to show you how anal retentive your father is, I now have 3 digital thermos of the type described above, plus 2 ostensibly high-quality glass dial-type thermometers (looks like a great big thumb tack).
* all 3 digitals read within 1 degree of each other, from 130 F to 208 F (boiling water at 2600 ft)
* The 2 glass thermos read within approx. 5 degrees (lower) than the digitals in hot water tests on the stove.
* When you use both types in a real roast, the glass thermos read anywhere between 6 to 16 degrees lower than any of the digitals. The glass thermos hit around 135 F (claimed to be medium rare) when the digitals hit 150 F (almost medium). The 135 glass / 150 digital reading seems to produce what I consider "perfect medium rare".
* I've googled my brains out trying to find out why the difference, and why the difference gets worse in real-life cooking, but so far nothing."
Then, I decided to try the "roast in 200 F oven" technique described in the article on a tenderized / marinated eye round roast.
FANTASTIC!
It was, as they described almost uniformly, beautifully medium-rare pink right to within 1/8" of the edge of the meat.
I probably pigged down about 2 lbs. tonight, with the rest for dinner tomorrow (maybe with a potato next time to make up for the shorter ration).
My differences:
* roast 3.5 lbs.
* took 4 hours, almost 68 mins / pound
* my digital, probe in the meat, display outside the oven thermometer read 150 F when pulled it out.
Just to show you how anal retentive your father is, I now have 3 digital thermos of the type described above, plus 2 ostensibly high-quality glass dial-type thermometers (looks like a great big thumb tack).
* all 3 digitals read within 1 degree of each other, from 130 F to 208 F (boiling water at 2600 ft)
* The 2 glass thermos read within approx. 5 degrees (lower) than the digitals in hot water tests on the stove.
* When you use both types in a real roast, the glass thermos read anywhere between 6 to 16 degrees lower than any of the digitals. The glass thermos hit around 135 F (claimed to be medium rare) when the digitals hit 150 F (almost medium). The 135 glass / 150 digital reading seems to produce what I consider "perfect medium rare".
* I've googled my brains out trying to find out why the difference, and why the difference gets worse in real-life cooking, but so far nothing."
1 comment:
YIKES! I had no idea...
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