Experimental cookery

tures, size, and the stage of cookery, they are worth very little for a guide in cooking meat. Most of the roasts given in these tables were transferred to a second oven after searing instead of lowering the temperature of the oven in which the roast was seared. This gives a slightly longer time per pound. There may be considerable variation in the time per pound as can be seen in Table 29. In general, the time per pound is longer with the smaller roasts. With a very thin roast the thickness of the slice influences the rate of heat penetration more than the other dimensions or its weight. TABLE 29 The Time of Cooking per Pound and Cooking Losses in One-rib and Two-rib Beef Roasts Cooked to Different Stages. Some Class Results No. of Weight Searing temper- Cooking temper- Interior temper- ature when Cooki ng time Total ribs cooking in roast grams pounds ature °c. ature °c. removed from oven Total, min- utes Time per pound losses, per cent One 836 1.8 275 125 55 59 33.0 8.4 Two 1560 3.4 275 125 55 93 38 2 11.8 Two 2331 5.1 275 125 55 100 19.5 10.9 Two 2813 6.2 275 125 56 124 20.0 15.1 One 835 1.8 275 125 65 81 45.0 11.0 Two 1575 3.3 275 125 65 116 33.3 14.9 Two 1626 3.6 275 125 65 140 36.0 14.8 Two 1890 4.2 275 125 65 110 26.3 14.0 One 757 1.7 275 125 75 85 50.0 20.0 1 wo 1603 3.5 275 125 75 190 53.3 21.4 Two 1758 3.9 275 125 75 127 32.5 25.0 Two 2268 5.0 275 125 75 260 52.0 20.2 Surface area. Since time per pound does not give a dependable basis for cooking meat an effort is often made to express cooking time in relation to the surface area. Often this is expressed in the following way. The greater the surface area the shorter the time required for cooking a piece of meat if all other conditions are standardized. From the diagrams, Fig. 25, it can be seen that this method would give a less variable cooking time, at least for some pieces of meat of certain shape, than time per pound. This method of expressing time for cooking is also more difficult to deter- mine in the home. TEMPERATURE OF MEAT 237 Stage to which the meat is cooked. Cooking meat rare does not re- quire so long a time as cooking medium well done or well done, because the last two stages require a higher inner temperature. See Table 29. The composition of the meat. The proportion of fat and lean in the meat affects the time required for cooking. There has been much confusion regarding the rate of heat conduction by fat. In physiology, one is told that a layer of fat over the muscles prevents loss of body heat, because the fat is a poor conductor of heat. In articles on cooking various foods, one often sees the statement that fat conducts heat more readily than muscle tissue. These two seemingly contradictory statements are explainable. Redfield has offered a solution. In studying the rate of heat penetration in canning pork and beef, she found, with all other conditions standardized, that the tem- perature at the center of the can of pork rose more slowly than the tem- perature at the center of the can of beef. In order to determine whether this slower heat conduction in the pork was due to its greater fat content, she packed some cans with suet and others with beef round free of all visible fat.