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Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelization and Maillard browning on the surface of the food. Roasting uses indirect, diffused heat (as in an oven), and is suitable for slower cooking of meat in a larger, whole piece.Blaisdell S. (2002). An Illustrated Guide to Beef Roasts. Cook's Illustrated. and most root vegetable can be roasted. Any piece of meat, especially red meat, that has been cooked in this fashion is called a roast. Meats and vegetables prepared in this way are described as "roasted", e.g., roasted chicken or roasted squash.
The objective in any case is to retain as much moisture as possible, while providing the texture and color. As meat cooks, the structure and especially the collagen breaks down, allowing juice to come out of the meat. So meat is juiciest at about medium rare while the juice is coming out. During roasting, meats and vegetables are frequently basted on the surface with butter, lard, or Cooking oil to reduce the loss of moisture by evaporation. In recent times, plastic oven bags have become popular for roasts. These cut cooking times and reduce the loss of moisture during roasting, but reduce flavor development from Maillard browning, somewhat more like (boiled or steamed) stew or pot roast. They are particularly popular for turkeys.
Until the late 19th century, roasting by dry heat in an oven was called baking. Roasting originally meant cooking meat or a bird on or in front of a fire, as with a grill or spit. It is one of the oldest forms of cooking known.
Traditionally recognized roasting methods consist only of baking and cooking over or near an open fire. Grilling is normally not technically a roast, since a grill (gridiron) is used. Barbecuing and smoking differ from roasting because of the lower temperature and controlled smoke application.
Roasting can be applied to a wide variety of meat. In general, it works best for cooking whole chickens, turkey, and leaner cuts of lamb, pork, and beef. The aim is to highlight the flavor of the meat itself rather than a sauce or stew, as it is done in braising or other moist-heat methods. Many roasts are tied with string prior to roasting, often using the reef knot or the packer's knot. Tying holds them together during roasting, keeping any stuffing inside, and keeps the roast in a round profile, which promotes even cooking. A hock lock is a food accoutrement used to secure the hock (hind legs) of a bird such as a chicken or turkey during roasting and are typically composed of heat-resistant nylon or metal.
Red meats such as beef, lamb, and venison, and certain game birds are often roasted to be "medium rare" "rare", meaning that the center of the roast is still red. Roasting is a preferred method of cooking for most poultry, and certain cuts of beef, pork, or lamb. Although there is a growing fashion in some restaurants to serve "rose pork", temperature monitoring of the center of the roast is the only sure way to avoid foodborne disease.
In United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, a roast of meat may be referred to as a joint, or a leg, if it is a leg.
In the later Petit traicté auquel verrez la maniere de faire cuisine (c. 1536), more widely known from a later edition titled Livre fort excellent de cuisine (1542), in a collection of menus at the end of the book, the meal is presented in four stages: the entree de table (entrance to the table), potaiges (foods boiled or simmered "in pots"), services de rost (meat or fowl "roasted" in dry heat), and issue de table (departure from the table).
The terms entree de table and issue de table are organizing words, "describing the structure of a meal rather than the food itself". The terms potaiges and rost indicate cooking methods but not ingredients. The menus, though, give some idea of both the ingredients and the cooking methods that were characteristic of each stage of the meal.
The meat and fowl considered appropriate for roasting included domestic fowl, feathered game, small furred game, suckling pig, and, less commonly, lamb. Roasts were rarely of other butcher’s meat, large furred game, or organ meats.
Other dishes were often served alongside the roasts, including sauced and stuffed meats and meat pies. The roasts themselves might be accompanied by a sauce, but the sauce was served separately from the roast itself.
The arrangement of dishes in the Livre fort excellent is very similar to that of the menus in the Ménagier de Paris, written 150 years before the Petit traicté. One notable difference is that the roast fowl and meats in the Ménagier were often followed by roast fish, a practice not evident in the Livre fort excellent.
While cookbooks and dictionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries rarely discuss the type of dishes appropriate to each stage of the meal with any specificity, roasts and the dishes of the other stages of the meal can be distinguished from each other by certain characteristics, such as their ingredients, cooking methods, and serving temperatures. The distinct characteristics of roasts for the roast course were at first loosely observed, or perhaps more accurately, the "rules" were in a formative stage for several decades. By the early 18th century, though, certain ingredients and cooking methods were increasingly confined to the roast stage of the meal.
In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, meat and fowl for the roast course on meat days included all sorts of domestic fowl, feathered game, and small furred game, ingredients that were less commonly included in entrées and entremets. Goose, gosling, and domestic duck were not fashionable in any course; turkeys and wild ducks were preferred in their place. Organ meats were often roasted, but they were served in the entrée and entremets courses, not in the roast course.
In the 17th century, large cuts of roasted butcher’s meat and furred game were sometimes served in the roast course; sauced and stuffed meats and pies were also served alongside the roasts; but in the 18th and 19th centuries, all such dishes were served only in the entrée or entremets courses, always in a sauce. By the 18th century, only fowl, feathered game, and small furred game were considered appropriate for the roast course.
Roasted fowl and small game in Classical Service were spit-roasted and nicely browned, served "dry" and not in a sauce or ragoût. Sauces in the roast course might be served alongside the roasted fowl or game, but the roasts were not prepared or served in the sauce like roasted fowl and meats in the entrée course.
On lean days, fish replaced meat and fowl in every stage of the meal other than dessert. In the roast course, whole fish replaced meat-day roasts, but the fish were poached or fried, not roasted. The fish were substitutions or counterparts to the roasts served on meat days, corresponding to their position in the meal but not their cooking method.
The salient feature of lean-day fish in the roast course, whether poached or fried, was that they were served “dry”, placed on a napkin and not served in a sauce or ragoût. In contrast, poached and fried fish served as entrées, hors d’œuvre, or relevés, were always served in a sauce or ragoût. Additionally, poached fish in the roast course were prepared with the scales still on the fish, if they were attractive, unlike whole fish served as relevés, which were always served without scales.
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