FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Olive oil gives roast a moist, flavorful touch

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Pawing through a tattered, 50-year-old recipe file lent me by a friend, I found a technique for preparing beef shanks that promised to be, in the scribbled notes of the collection's former owner, "delicious and cheap!"

The instructions are simple: "Buy a hind beef shank, the meatiest you can find. Poke holes in the meat with a bamboo barbecue skewer. Use a good Spanish olive oil. Place shank in roasting pan and fill (skewer) holes with olive oil. Marinate one hour minimum. (May add garlic, herbs, wine, vinegar.) Chuck or round can be similarly tenderized. Roast at 300 degrees 25 minutes per pound until done. Slice diagonally across the grain."

This technique intrigued me: Olive oil alone as a tenderizing marinade? Slow and low roasting techniques?

My curiosity sent me to Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking," a book of food science, as well as Web sites related to olive oil and roasting meats. McGee reminded me of something I'd forgotten: "In general, there are at present no really satisfactory ways of tenderizing meat chemically."

Yes, ingredients such as the papain found in papaya (a primary ingredient in many commercial tenderizers) and acids such as vinegar or lemon juice will break down tissues in meats. But they affect only the part they touch. Poking the meat to allow the marinade in only allows natural moisture to leak out. And the enzymes, because they digest protein, lower the water-holding capacity of the meat, causing still more fluid loss.

McGee supports low and slow roasting times. The idea that searing meat holds juices in is a fallacy, he explains. Instead, research shows that high heat causes muscle tissue to seize up, driving water out. Roasting at a lower temperature (300-325 degrees) for a longer period retains the most moisture, according to McGee and also to recent articles in Cook's Illustrated magazine.

Nothing I read said anything about olive oil having tenderizing power but at least half the premise of the recipe seemed right so I decided to try it.

I bought a 3-pound chuck roast, and placed it in a heavy roasting pan. I stirred four or five chopped garlic cloves into a half-cup of olive oil, poured this over the whole and let it rest an hour loosely covered with foil at room temperature.

I placed the roast in a pre-heated 325-degree oven for half an hour, then pulled it out to scatter two sliced onions around it and a handful of fingerling potatoes. I drizzled in another quarter-cup of olive oil, coating the vegetables, and seasoned the whole with salt and pepper.

Back into the oven the roast went for a half-hour.

The result was well-browned meat and vegetables, very moist and flavorful.