that wonderfully complicated process by which amino
acids and reducing sugars recombine to form enticing
roasty aromas—really begins to take off. At this range,
meat will quickly brown and crisp.Ah—a dilemma revealed itself: In order to maximize
browning, I had to cook the meat in a sufficiently hot oven
—I tried 400°F. But the same time, I didn’t want the interior
to reach above 125°F. Since a big beef roast cooks from the
outside in, by the time the center had reached 125°F (that is,
120°F in the oven, followed by a 5-degree rise in
temperature after resting), there was a perfectly browned
exterior, but the outermost layers had risen closer to around
165°F to 180°F, rendering them overcooked, gray, and dry,
their juices having been squeezed out.
I was left with something that looked like this: