Cookbook:Reverse-searing
Cookbook | Ingredients | Cooking techniques
Reverse-searing is a method of cooking steaks, chops, and roasts. The meat is first placed in an oven at a low temperature to cook for an hour or two, until the temperature of the deepest part of the meat is several degrees *below* your target temperature. The meat is then seared to rapidly brown the exterior of the meat. The meat should still be a few degrees below your target temperature, since the temperature will continue to rise while resting thanks to carry-over cooking. There are two major reasons why a person would consider using this method. The first reason is to get better browning on their meat. Raw meat tends to have a fair deal of moisture on the surface, which evaporates and whisks away heat while searing. Slowly cooking the meat before searing dries out the exterior, which gets you better browning. The second reason is to get more consistent doneness inside the meat. When you sear the meat, you get a grey ring of overcooked meat in between the crust formed by the sear and the perfectly cooked meat inside. Conventional searing gets you a worse grey ring, since you need to expose the meat to high heat longer in order to get good browning. Because reverse-seared meats brown better, you don't need to expose the meat as long, getting you wall-to-wall perfection.