In article >, Mitch@...
says...
> Had shoe leather for dinner. Please school me.
>
> I had a 2-pound bottom round roast. I dredged it in flour and braised
> it in a skillet until it was browned on all sides.
>
> I covered the bottom of a baking dish with baby carrots. In another
> dish I combined cream-of-mushroom soup, dry onion soup mix, and some
> white wine.
>
> I placed the roast on top of the carrots, poured the mixture over the
> roast, put the lid on, and cooked at 325 F for 90 minutes.
>
> Was it overcooked, or did it need to cook longer to tenderize it?
>
> I swear I can't have one meal where my kids aren't bitching about the
> food.
>
> The carrots were great, though.
> Oh, and the potatoes were perfect. Nuked them for 10 minutes like
> someone suggested, then covered in oil and finished in the 325 oven
> for 30 minutes. They came out exactly as they do when they cook at
> 425 for 90 minutes. Good to know.
>

Time and temp alone may work for braising really tough cuts like
brisket, but they can be deadly for round, as you seem to have
demonstrated. You don't need soup or other liquids, or covered roasting
pans to produce a delicious round roast.

Cooking a round roast "longer" isn't going to tenderize it, it's going
to over-cook it. There's nothing in particular in a piece of round that
will break down to make it seem more tender, as there is in chuck or
brisket. It is true that you can cook any piece of meat in liquid until
it's "falling apart tender", but with round, you'll end up with
something more akin to pet food than what you'd want to serve to your
family.

The rule of thumb that I go by is that if the package says "round", it
should not be cooked more than medium rare, or *maybe* medium if you, or
someone else who'll be eating it, are really squeamish.

Also, keep in mind that any oven-cooked roast is going to have a range
of done-ness from "really well-done" to "rare" or "medium-rare" from one
end to the other, if it's done right. So having meat to meet everyone's
tastes should seldom be a problem.

If you don't already, you should use a meat thermometer to help you tell
when a roast is done, rather than flying blind and relying on some time
+ temperature formula.

I've been cooking round (mainly eye of round) recently at at lower oven
temperatures, between 250 and 275 deg., with very good results. The
lower oven temps slow cooking down a bit and give you more control and
time to check meat temp. as it cooks, helping to prevent overcooking.

Of course, all this screws up trying to cook the veggies with the meat,
but they probably ought to be cooked separately in any case. In dry-
roasted meats, you should rely on seasonings applied to the roast before
and/or after browning for meat flavoring.

Bob