The Table

I made a damn fine pork loin roast this weekend.  My herb crust actually stuck, the brine added interesting flavor (Bay+star Anise+ bitters), and my flaky thermometer read steady through the whole cooking time.  I served it borderline pink and juicy in nice 1/4" slices.

Then I put a pound and a half of it in the fridge.

When I tried to reheat some slices for a quick dinner tonight, all of the moisture sped out of the meat as soon as it approached warm.  The color was shot and the meat went tough instantly.  There was still a bunch of tepid fat on top, because I knew if I heated it up enough to loosen that, the slices would wring and curl beyond edibility.

What should I have done?  Warned the remaining chunk in the oven?  Steamed the slices?  Give up on serving it hot and just made a weeks worth of sandwiches?

I was proud of my technique and frugality with this roast, but less so if we have to eat it all in one night.

--andrew

How did you reheat it? Microwave? Good meat should definitely be reheated in the regular oven if possible, and ideally re-purposed with a sauce or other flavour enhancements to get the best second use out of it.

If you have to use a microwave, reheat at 50 percent power and use the least amount of time that will get it hot enough for you. It's almost impossible not to overcook meat when reheating in the microwave.

And yeah, a week's worth of sandwiches probably would have been ideal...and delicious!

You have to give up on color when re-heating meat.  Unless it was very rare in the first place, and you make 1/4 inch slices which you fry. 

The other technique is to wrap in a foil pouch leaving plenty of room for the meat to steam itself and place in oven on 300 degrees. 

I myself certainly don't mind meat re-heated in microwave, but I'm weird.

Personally when doing something like this I often don't heat the meat at all, I rely on a hot plate and hot gravy to warm the meat up for me. I take the meat of the fridge when I start preparing the rest of the meal so that it's not ice cold when it goes on the plate.

TAW, on the other hand, nukes the hell out of it in the microwave.

Great idea, bringing it up to room temp and letting the plate and gravy do the rest. I am totally doing this from here on out.

If you've had it in the fridge you might have better luck heating it from room temperature.

Next time pull it out of the fridge twenty minutes ahead of time and let it get to room temp, simmer some water, place the slices in a zip lock bag and drop in the water for four or five minutes depending on the thickness of the slices. It should bring the meat back up to the temperature you want without cooking it any further.

That's quite a technique!  I'll try that next time, and aim to reheat in a chunk and then slice after it's warmed up.

My plan was a low-heat skillet with not-quite simmering stock.  I think my lesson from all these posts (thanks!) was that I still heated the pork too high, too fast.  Lesson learned.

--andrew

If you plan to use the method I outlined, you still need to slice it beforehand. I typically use that method to reheat medium rare and blue steaks, and not slicing results in uneven heating and/or resuming the cooking process.

Definitely true, if counter-intuitive. It seems like individual slices should cook faster, but leaving meat unsliced when reheating definitely screws it up.

The problem is that by the time the outside of the roast was up to 150F or whatever your preference is, the inside would be like 170.

Argh, just woke up. Switch inside with outside obviously.

Funny, that was how I read it. But I just woke up too.