Cindy Lang's Damn Good Dutch Oven Deer Roast

[Steve]

One Med. size roast,One 14 1/2oz. stewed tomatoes,One lipton onion soupmix,One jar of dark gravy 12 oz.,Carrots ,One can whole white potatoes,4 cups water.Place all in dutch oven at 325* cook for 3 1/2 hours.Make sure it stays closed.After eating thaw out another roast because you will want more the next night. Kirk Howes

[Steve]

I cooked this recipe yesterday for about the third time but was disappointed. This time I used a large round steak instead of a roast. Even though the meat was submerged in the tomatoe, gravy mix during the entire cooking process, it was dry tasting when done. What would cause this? How could this be?

[Salmonsmoker]

Steve,

With out going through the process that you used, I can only speculate as to what caused your disappointing results.

First of all, a roast is much thicker than a steak - thus the juices in the meat can be lost much more readily. When the juices are lost (even when cooking meat totally submerged in a liquid) the meat will be dry.

If you take some meat and do not brown it - then monitor the stages of its cooking in a liqud - it is first done to a rare stage (and still moist), then goes into a well done stage (that is dryer because the juices have been cooked out), then into an overcooked stage that is again tender but usually the individual muscle fibres are still somewhat dry.

The first time that I cooked a roast in my pit oven it was dry and tough. Most of the info that I found on cooking in this manner indicated using a slow-cook for about 8 hours. But this was using the old methods. By adding a Dutch Oven and a metal lid, my stone-pit oven was much hotter than the old method. When I cut the time down to 3 hours - the meat was moist and fork tender.

That all relates to a second possibility. 325 degrees for 3 1/2 hours was probably way overcooked for a steak - probably it was in the well-done and dry stage.

One way to prevent this loss of jucies is to get a Dutch Oven or skillet very hot and completely sear over (I prefer mine almost blackened) the outside surfaces of the meat prior to cooking. This seals in the juices.

I cooked a Venison Sirloin Roast in this manner - while it was still frozen, I thoroughly seared the outside surfaces. Then laid stirps of bacon over the roast, put it into a smoke-oven and baked it for about the times and temps you mentioned above (so long as there are no punctures in the seared-surface, the juice will be contained.) When we sliced the roast, the juices were under pressure and literally gushed out of the first cut. The meat was moist and tender.

This leads to third, totally brown the meat prior to cooking in the manner that you followed (I do this even with meat going into soups and stews because they retain their juices and are more tender.)

Another possibility is the amount of salt in the tomatoes, the soup mix, or the gravy. I never use salt on the meat that I am cooking (unless it is to be cured) until it is cooked. Salt has a natural tendency to draw out the meat jucies. Salting prior to cooking, or during cooking will toughen meat.

I hope the above gives you some ideas as to how to correct the process. Give it another try and let me know how it turns out.

ss

[jbaugher]

What do you think would happen if you substituted 2 cups of the water with 2 cups of beer (light or dark)? Would it have any affect of how dry/tender the meat is? I assume it would affect the taste depending on style of beer you used. Thanks!

Jeff

[Salmonsmoker]

Jeff,

I do not know what effect using beer might have other than changing the flavor. It would be worth a try, however flavor is the main reason that I use beer or wine in a recipe.

From my experience, and from what I have researched for an answer to the above posting, whenever small pieces of meat are being cooked (and a steak is certainly smaller (thinner) than a roast), care has to be taken to seal in the jucies. That is why meat (particularly the smaller pieces) need to be seared prior to cooking - and then my guess is that the cooking time will have to be adjusted down to accomodate the thinner cut.

Let me know if you experiment with the beer idea.

ss