Why Did Pot Roast Shrink?
My dad made a 3lb pot roast in a pressure cooker. He said he cooked it for 1 1/2 hours (seems to long for me). He checked after 50 minutes, it wasn't done, but had already shrunk, so he continued to cook it until it was tender. It was the size of a hamburger patty by the time it came out! It was tender, though. I don't cook many meats in pressure cookers. any ideas?
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5 Comments:
Protein shrinks under high heat. The muscle fibers contract and of course the fat is pretty much rendered out of it.
therealchiffonade at 7:56PM on 01/24/09
My first thought was that the pot roast shrank because that's what pot roasts do. But wow, I've never seen one shring to hamburger patty size!
Kerosena at 12:10AM on 01/25/09
wow, what a visual image! hope you weren't expecting company....
pooch at 10:12AM on 01/25/09
shrinkage?! sounds like a seinfeld episode.... could just chalk it up to the fat in the meat cooking out and the protein shrinking because of the heat...
Pavlov at 10:05PM on 01/25/09
He definitely overcooked it. That long in a pressure cooker means he cooked it to an internal temperature of 220 degrees or so for an hour and a half, if it weren't for the humidity, it should have been charcoal. some cuts of meat, will not get as tender as we would like in a pressure cooker, low temperatures for longer times do much better, we're talking crock pot here. We cook a lot with a pressure cooker due to work schedules, meats rarely need to cook for more than a half hour under pressure, if not tender enough, bring it back to a boil and go ten minutes at a time.
Meat guy at 10:20AM on 02/05/09