On Fri 25 Feb 2005 06:20:24a, Ted Campanelli wrote in rec.food.cooking:

> Ted shuffled out of his cave and grunted these great (and sometimes not
> so great) words of knowledge:
>
> For future reference.
>
> When cooking tough cuts of meat I put the meat on a rack in a pan, put
> about 1/4" of water in the bottom of the pan, cover tightly with
> aluminum foil and cook at 200 - 225 degrees for about 4 hours or until
> the internal temperature is to about 145 - 150 (for med rare - medium).
> Let the roast sit, loosely covered for about 15 - 20 minutes before
> slicing (lets the meat finish cooking and lets everything settle out).
>
> The low temp plus the slow cooking break down the tough connecting
> fibers in the meat. I have done tough cuts like this and they have
> always come out tender.
>
>> As per instructions, I made a dry spicy rub which I coated the blade
>> roast with and let sit in the fridge overnight. Seared the roast for a
>> couple of minutes on each side, then removed from heat. Fried up some
>> onions and celery, added a little bit of red wine, brown sugar and
>> garlic. Put them in a roasting pan below the roast. Cooking at 300
>> degrees, this was supposed to be ready in 3 hours.
>>
>> It's now been 4 hours - the roast is tough, tough, tough. Now if I
>> kept it in for another 3 hours or even perhaps turn the oven off and
>> leave overnight will it become more tender?
>>
>> Elaine (whose supper plans are now meat pies).
>>
>>
>

OTOH, I have had only a couple of roasts in all my years of cooking that
completely defied tenderness.

One such roast (I believe it was a sirloin) was roasted, covered, in the
oven as a pot roast. Several hours later it was still almost too tough to
cut. We ate what we could and stored the rest. The next day, brought to
room temperature and put in a pressure cooker for an hour...still tough.
Back in the pressure cooker for another half hour...still tough. At that
point we tossed the remains.

Wayne


--
Wayne Boatwright
____________________________________________

Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day.
Sam Goldwyn, 1882-1974