COOKING Methods? page

[OptimizedIndividual]

I was curious if anybody else uses light cooking methods? The main purpose of this is to keep the food under the 115 degrees or whatever. For instance, I often "warm" or "brown" ground lamb, beef, buffalo, elk, salmon, etc in the oven at 140 degrees and leave the door open. Most meat takes about an hour if you flatten it out a bit. Comes out JUICY and AMAZING. Anybody else have similar things they use?

-Joe

[Neckhammer]

115? No, not that low. I do low and slow smoked meat all the time, but thats still in the 200-240 range. I do this on my weber, in my bullet smoker, or in my offset "rig" depending on how much foods going on.

[magicmerl]

I do that to dry out beef jerky. And melt butter to make Ghee.

Most of our cooking is with the slow cooker or frying pan though.

[sbhikes]

I use the oven probe. I cook steak to 100 or 105, then sear the outside in a pan after. I cook chicken and pork to 165 or 175. The oven is 275 for steak and 350-400 for everything else. It's the internal temperature of the meat that matters, not really the temperature of the oven, at least to some measure. I mean you don't want the oven to be 500. By having the oven at 115, it's just taking really long. Kinda like using a crockpot, only it's your oven.

[slowcooker]

I simmer a lot of meat in water.. can take a while but comes out great.

[eKatherine]

I brown a chunk of meat, cover it, and put it in a 180°F oven until tender.

[JoanieL]

I almost don't use my oven anymore. Just about everything I cook can be done in a cast iron pan, pressure cooker, or on my 'griddler.'

Some stuff that goes in the oven. Meat loaf or meat muffins - 375 to 400F. Whole salmon - 350F, 10 min for each pound. A whole chicken in a clay cooker - 350 for a couple of hours.

I like some things poached also. Chicken if I'm cooking a bunch for salads or to put in tomato sauce. Salmon if it's not a whole fish. Actually, poached salmon is really good.

[fifer]

We bulk buy a half price deal on frozen wild Alaskan salmon steaks.

The only way I am sure is good to cook them is oven bake foil wrapped from frozen.

Any other good methods?

[OptimizedIndividual]

This all makes me hungry. I really try to avoid heavy-cooked proteins/fats too much. I usually bake fish if I cook it throughout. It is a hard problem as you want to avoid eating anything raw that is poor quality. Sometimes I will set a salmon fillet to thaw in hot water (120F) and let it sit for awhile replacing the water every so often. This softens it up amazingly without technically cooking it.

[eKatherine]

I prefer my raw salmon chilled. With wasabi and soy sauce, or lime juice and garlic.