Do not add water or liquid and do not cover the roast. Covering the roast would result in more steaming than roasting in the oven so we cook a beef roast uncovered. Test Kitchen Tip: A roasting pan is a shallow pan specifically designed for roasting.
Roasting involves cooking food in an uncovered pan in the oven. It is a dry cooking technique, as opposed to wet techniques like braising, stewing, or steaming. Dry, hot air surrounds the food, cooking it evenly on all sides.
You don't need much broth. Pot roast is meant to be braised, which means cooking meat slowly over low heat with minimal liquid, covered. If you add too much water/broth, you are going to miss out on that roasty flavor that comes from the top part of the meat cooking above the liquid.
How to rest the meat. Take it from the heat and place it on a warm plate or serving platter. Cover the meat loosely with foil. If you cover it tightly with the foil or wrap it in foil, you will make the hot meat sweat and lose the valuable moisture you are trying to keep in the meat.
Put 1 onion, cut into 8 wedges, and 500g carrots, halved lengthways, into a roasting tin and sit the beef on top, then cook for 20 mins. Reduce oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5 and continue to cook the beef for 30 mins if you like it rare, 40 mins for medium and 1 hr for well done.
Add a peeled and halved onion and few sprigs of herbs such as thyme or rosemary while your beef cooks. This will caramelise the onions and add more flavour to your gravy. Preheat your oven to the correct temperature to ensure your cooking time is accurate: 220C/Gas 7/fan 200C.
Regardless of the size of your roast, aim for cooking at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C), for 20 minutes per pound. After resting for 15 to 20 minutes your roast should reach its final internal temperature, which could be 5 to 15 degrees higher than when removed from the oven.
“Tenting” with aluminum foil will conserve some heat and still allow some air circulation to avoid steaming the meat surface. Use extra care if you want to preserve a crispy exterior on a turkey or roast. A warmed oven (with the heat turned OFF) is a great resting location for meats with a crisp crust.
If you're cooking at a lower temp and braising, simmering, slow-cooking, stewing, or roasting it in a covered pan, its drippings will generally keep it moist for several hours, and even the toughest cuts of meat will become quite tender.
As your meat cooks, the covering will help it retain more of its own juices. This is also known as “dry-poaching.”
Brining makes meat juicier. Unbrined meat loses 30 percent of its moisture, while brined meat loses only 15 percent. Make a brine by combining 1 cup of salt to 1gallon of water. Brine the meat about four hours and rinse thoroughly.
Add water, wine or broth to about an eighth of an inch high in the pan. You may need to replenish it during cooking. This will keep drippings from scorching. Toward the end of roasting, let the liquid evaporate so that the drippings can brown for about 15 minutes.
This usually happens with larger cuts again. As you'll be cooking the beef for longer periods of time, you don't want the juices to run out of the meat and evaporate, that's why you cover halfway through when you get larger portions of meat so it locks in the moisture and flavor to give you the perfect roast beef.
Not only is it safe to cook with aluminum foil in the oven, but cooking with aluminum foil can help transmit heat readily and make cleanup easier.
To ensure a tender roast without overcooking, probe it with a meat thermometer at the minimum cook time depending on the setting (4 hours on high, 8 hours on low). If the meat has reached 170 degrees internally, cook it for only 1 more hour.
If you cover it with aluminium foil, it stays much softer. If you don't it gets dry and unpleasant. Aluminum has a relatively high thermal conductivity index, which means it disperses heat evenly around whatever is wrapped so the thing gets cooked evenly.
Wrapping Meats
To properly rest meats after cooking, you must wrap them. After a cut of meat is finished cooking, gently wrap it with aluminum foil in a tent-like fashion. This will keep the meat warm after it reaches its peak internal temperature while resting. Depending on the cut of meat, rest times will vary.
Pros of Wrapping
Wrapping your brisket either using butcher paper or foil cuts down the cooking time, and you have meat ready in a few hours. It keeps the meat moist and tender.
The cover will keep the meat juicy and help cook it more evenly. The cover keeps the heat and the heated steam trapped within the pot, swirling around the part of the meat not under water and helping in the tenderizing process.
Raw meat, poultry and fish should be stored in the following top-to-bottom order in the refrigerator: whole fish, whole cuts of beef and pork, ground meats and fish, and whole and ground poultry. Wrap food properly before storing it. Leaving food uncovered can lead to cross- contamination.
Low temperatue cooking is ideal for roasting the best cuts of meat which are lean and very tender. It is not the same as slow cooking, which is a method of cooking humbler cuts of meat with liquid to tenderise them.
Medium rare 60–65°C. Medium 65–70°C. Medium well done 70°C. Well done 75°C.
To roast a whole joint preheat the oven to 180°C/160° fan/gas 4 and weigh the joint (with any stuffing, if using) in order to calculate the cooking time. Place in the centre of the oven; Rare – cook for 20 minutes per 450g plus 20 minutes. Medium – cook for 25 minutes per 450g plus 25 minutes.