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Roasting times - smaller joints.

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Roasting times - smaller joints.

Postby Gruney2 » Sun Jul 05, 2020 5:22 pm

Roasting joints of meat is something I've pretty much shied away from - it doesn't really suit my lifestyle. However, there's a recipe in the latest "Delicious" magazine that's caught my eye, and I'd rather like to give it a try.

The recipe calls for a 2.5kg pork belly or shoulder - it's calculated to serve 8, so I want to use a smaller piece - say 1kg ish.

The oven timings are - 15 to 20 mins at 200 deg, then 1 hour at 160. A few other ingredients are then added, and the whole lot is then covered in foil, and cooked for a further 2 hours, again at 160.

Now my perennial worry. I can understand that a joint in the shape of a "lump" would require differing cooking times, depending on its size - ie the time needed for the heat to penetrate to the middle of the "lump". However, with an unrolled joint such as belly or shoulder, the difference in weight would be the length of the joint - the distance to the centre would be the same?

My sense tells me that for this type of joint, I should simply use the recipe timings, unadjusted for weight? I'd really like to crack this thing once and for all, and would very much appreciate some guidance, please.

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Re: Roasting times - smaller joints.

Postby jeral » Sun Jul 05, 2020 5:56 pm

My instinct says that less of the oven heat will be expended to convert smaller cold meat cuts into cooked meat before "eating" the needed remaining moisture.

That's how it works for most things like chicken (whole or pieces), sausages, fish, meat cubes, ribs or rib racks. So smaller cut equals either less time or a lower temp if the time needs to be kept as a constant.

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Re: Roasting times - smaller joints.

Postby Lusciouslush » Sun Jul 05, 2020 6:33 pm

Gruney - I'm an instinctive cook - with a fatty joint like shoulder/ belly pork timings aren't crucial especially with the fat of a small joint - won't dry out unless you've blasted it at high heat for a long time - so long & slow is the way to go until it is how you would like it to be, if that makes sense - do you have a therm probe? No arguing with them for the core temp of a joint - but even so, the cooking method is very much personal taste (literally.

Don't worry too much - it can always be adjusted as the cooking process goes along.

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Re: Roasting times - smaller joints.

Postby Stokey Sue » Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:11 pm

I have a half shoulder of lamb (1 kg approx) in the oven at the moment, slow roasting on a bed of poatoes and onions
Mr Kerrodg saus a whole shoulder will take about 4 hours at 140C fan, I find a half shoulder takes very little less, though I have the thinner (blade) end so I'm hoping to get away with a bit over 3 hours, as I'm hungry

I find for joints roasted at a higher temperature you can get the timing down a bit more - that's where the 20 minutes per 500g comes in but it doesn't always need the extra 20 minutes as well

I use a meat thermometer, always, as Sophie Grigson once said when people cooked a joint every week and probably liked it overdone, they had the timing down to a fine art, Most of us do better with a thermometer

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Re: Roasting times - smaller joints.

Postby Gruney2 » Sun Jul 05, 2020 8:58 pm

Thanks everyone.

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