Carol,
You may certainly use uncooked rice in place of baking weights or dried beans in blind baking. Just be certain to place a layer of foil over the crust before pouring the rice in to ensure that none of the rice gets baked onto the pastry. Also, once the rice has cooled, you can put aside in a small container to use again.

Gladys,
This is an excellent question, and one i’d love to answer, but I’m afraid that I need a little more information. Is this going to be a straight roast, or are you going to prepare what’s known as a London Broil. The possible recommendations are very different and I want to make sure that you get the best information. Please advise,
Chef Erika

Hi Gladys,
You are preparing two large roasts. The larger, 18 pounder, is often referred to as a steamship round, and prepared quite often for catered buffets. Although I can help you estimate the total roasting time using your method and for the 9 pound roast as two and one half hours - it’s tough to know. But that is my guess. I will not venture a guess at the 18 pound steamship round, but do have some tips for knowing when to pull the meat. First, use a probe thermometer and insert it deep into the center. You might even consider using two probe thermometers to measure different parts of the top round roast. Your thermometer should also be the kind that you leave in the meat while it’s roasting - opening and closing the oven door to check with an instant read thermometer is not an option here and will only prolong the cooking time. In both cases, pull your roast when the thermometer reaches 128 for medium rare.

Preparing Top Round
For a top round, using a low heat method is best. (Alternatively, the high heat method for roasting beef is best for the more expensive cuts — like standing rib or ribeye.) Top round is best prepared by braising or slow roasting, like one does with the dish sauerbraten. The longer time in the oven will help break down the connective tissues in the beef for a tender and succulent roast.

Sauerbraten is one of my favorite dishes in fact. Although you will need to marinate your roast for 24 hours (or even better - 48 hours), I think it’s worth the time.

Here’s my sauerbraten recipe for your 9 lb. top round:

Kitchen Guy Sauerbraten Recipe

Ingredients
3 cups of water
1-1/4 cups apple cider vinegar
a large onion, coarsely chopped
2 bay leaves
2 Tbsp. kosher salt
1 Tbsp. black peppercorns
1 tsp. whole cloves
a large lemon, cut into wedges

Method
Bring all ingredients to a boil, then let it cool down. Pour the marinade over the meat, cover and refrigerate it for at least 24 hours and up to 48 hours. The longer marinating time is best.

Bring meat to room temperature; drain and reserve marinade. In a preheated 350 oven, roast meat for about 2-1/2 to 3 hours, until meat is tender. Remove meat to a cutting board, but do not clean out the roasting pan. Pour any accumulated juices into the reserved marinade and strain.

Make a dark roux in a saucepan using 3/4 cup of vegetable oil and 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour. This should take about 10 minutes. Combine roux with strained marinade and pour into the roasting pan, placed over burners on stove. Bring the liquid to a boil and scrape up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add 1/3 cup of dark brown sugar and freshly grated ginger root.

Slice meat and arrange in a large glass baking dish. Pour sauce over meat, and roast for about 12 minutes at 400 until meat has heated through again and sauce is bubbly.

I’d love to coach you through this and other recipes perfect for feeding a crowd. Visit my ChefsLine profile and book a private coaching session with me. Thanks!

What is the best way to cook my 2lb top round roast for dinner?

Hi Sherie,
Well let me recommend slow-cooking a top round roast. That can either be as a pot roast in a crock pot or dutch oven or slowly dry-roasted. In terms of seasoning, it will really depend on what you like! For the slow, dry-roast technique please see my post HERE. Reduce your cook time by half. If making a pot roast DO NOT boil the meat, that will make it even tougher. For the best way to prepare your roast as a “pot roast,” visit this article HERE. I hope we’ve helped and do let us know how the cooking process went for you.

Eileen,
Yes, that recipe comes out flat. I have a recipe that I have used for a long time. It makes a rounder and softer cookie. Please try it and let me know if this is what you’re looking for in a cookie.

2/3 cup shortening like crisco
2/3 cup butter or margarine
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts
12 ounces semisweet chocolate pieces

Heat oven to 375. Mix throughly shortening, butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop dough by rounded teaspoons about 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown. Cool before packaging.

makes about 7 dozen

Betty,
Don’t cover the pie in the refrigerator. Let the eggs breathe. Covering the pie will make it wet and soggy.

Chef Paulette

High temperature (summer) and humidity (also summer, depending on where you live) are the most likely culprits for soggifying your pie crust. Try taking occasional breaks while making even just one pie, while returning your dough to the refrigerator. The resting periods in the fridge will A. keep the butter from melting and allowing the dough to lose flakiness and become, essentially, scone batter, and B. will allow the moisture to gradually absorb into the flour and increase tenderness. Very cool, overlooked step in dough-making. Your problems will likely cease as the seasons change, but don’t forget the refrigerator method come Thanksgiving and Christmas time!

One great way to avoid soggy pie crust, which usually happens to the bottom layer as opposed to the top, is to incorporate the butter into the flour more. This is essentially scone batter, as I mentioned above, but what I forgot to mention in that scone dough repels moisture better than the big-lumps-of-butter classic pie dough. Since pie dough with big lumps of butter is flakier, but pie dough (scone dough) with smaller lumps repels moisture (and is generally even more tender), I personally like to divide batches of pie dough in about half when the lumps are about thumb-sized (but before you’ve added any water or milk), and then mix one of the half-batches a bit more to cut in the butter into smaller piece, similar to a cornmeal consistency. Then you can use the first batch (with the big lumps) for the pie tops, and use the second batch for the bottoms, giving you the best of both - flaky tops and very non-soggy bottoms.

Dear Mindy,
If you want less garlic flavor, try putting the garlic in with the onions at the beginning of the sauce with the olive oil. If you want a bigger garlic taste, add 3 or 4 cloves of garlic chopped 10 minutes before it is done.

Chef Paulette

Hi Sandy,

Great question. Chef Adam has a very thorough response to just this question. Please view it on our blog and let us know if you have any more questions. Happy cooking!

http://www.chefsline.com/blog/culinary_answers/how-to-reduce-gas-in-beans

Sandy,
I love using Beano just before I eat foods that are gassy, like beans, cauliflower, cabbage etc. I really works to stop it from happening. I also put a bottle of it on the table for my guest to take as well.

Chef Paulette

Great Question! If you don’t have a steamer, you can use a large pot with a colander inserted inside. Don’t forget the lid on top.

Make sure you use a metal colander, plastic would melt.

Steam with the artichokes in the top portion of the colander. 40-50 minutes, check first by pulling a leaf out. If it is hard to remove, let it steam for longer.

In my experience, I have never seen blue in chicken. And without speaking with you or a quick photo or video of this chicken, we are just not sure. ChefsLine has made a call to its butcher but I want to share my thoughts on what COULD be. Food producers sometimes label with grape juice - that is kind of blue - but it’s unlikely to be placed in this part of the chicken. Also, the blue you see could be small veins. My advice is to return this chicken to the store and not to finish preparing and not to eat. Also - if you happen to have a photo handy - send along to chefs@chefslne.com. Hope this helps!

Lori,
When you double a meatloaf recipe, it will take a little more time to cook than the original recipe. Meatloaf that contains about 1 1/2 pounds of meat takes about 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours to cook. I would suggest that you cook it at least 2 hours. Also if you take all your ingredients from a cold refrigerator, it will also take longer to heat up to the temperature that you are cooking it at. If you have any questions, please respond to this comment.

Chef Paulette

Dear Bethie,
Don’t forget to brush the bottoms of your tins with butter. The only way to assure that you will have very crisps philo dough is that you brush every layer with melted butter. Lay the first layer down over the butter, then next layer, butter, then next layer, and more butter. Also, use a higher temperature to bake after and you will get a very nice brown crisp finish. I would use at least 375 degrees to 400 but watch so it doesn’t burn. They will brown very quickly.

Hope this helps you make perfect philo everytime!

Chef Paulette

Hi Bethie,
Phyllo dough is so thin that sogginess is usually less of a concern than dryness and flakiness. When following the Recipezaar recipe for the Blueberry Bird’s Nest, make sure to use exactly as much water for the filling as the recipe calls for, or even a little less, to make sure your filling isn’t too wet, and be sure to brush the dough very lightly with butter, as opposed to slathering on too much. Also, bake a tester Nest or two, to see how they come out. You might try baking one on the pan and another on a rack, to better conduct heat to the bottom and allow it to air out, to see which texture you like better. Have fun baking!