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Why
does the meat I cook in liquid taste dry?
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Help!
I’m trying to find out why my roasts cooked in
the Crock-Pot are tender but have a dry taste to them.
I cook them in plenty of liquid, usually beef broth,
consommé, or water, and add onion soup mix and
veggies. What could my problem be?
Alice
Fort Wayne, Indiana
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Hello Alice,
It sounds odd, but meat can become dry even when it’s
cooked in moisture. The most likely cause of this is overcooking.
As meat cooks, its muscle fibers shorten in both length
and width and eventually squeeze out the juices they normally
hold. As you can imagine, this leaves meat dry, and often
stringy in texture.
To avoid this problem, choose less-tender cuts of meat.
Roasts such as cross rib, shoulder, brisket, blade, or
short rib are good choices: These cuts benefit from cooking
in moist heat. Be careful not to cook the roast too long.
Test for doneness using a meat thermometer near the end
of the cooking time. At 160ºF (71ºC), a roast will be
cooked to medium. At this temperature, some of the tougher
connective tissue breaks down to gelatin, which helps
“lubricate” the meat.
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The timing will take some trial and error on your part,
but eventually you’ll get tasty (and moist) results.
Another tip is to make sure the liquid doesn’t boil.
Cook at a very gentle simmer so that the liquid breaks
lazily on the surface. The temperature of the surrounding
liquid should be about 180ºF (82ºC). Meat that cooks at
too high a temperature, even if it’s in liquid,
can still become tough and dry.
Many thanks for your good question.
Anne & Sue
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