and shape, making it nearly impossible to cook them all to
the exact same degree of doneness. A larger roast also has a
much bigger window for perfectly cooked meat by sheer
virtue of the fact that it cooks more slowly.
I fired off another round, this time cooking a 2-pound
tenderloin roast whole until it reached about 20 to 30
degrees below my desired final temperature of 130°F. After
removing it from the oven, I sliced it into four evenly sized
steaks, gently flattening each one, then seared them in a hot
skillet with oil and finished them with butter. What resulted
were steaks that were perfectly cooked from edge to edge,
with a beautifully browned crisp crust—far better cooked
than I’d ever managed using the traditional method. More
even cooking was a happy by-product of the method. A
steak cooked in the traditional way with high heat from the
get-go will end up with a good amount of overcooked meat
toward the exterior—raw steaks have to sit in a hot skillet
for a good amount of time as they develop a good sear, and
all the while, they’re slowly overcooking. But a slow-