Carry over cooking

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carry over cooking refers to the phenomenon that food retains heat and continues to cook after being removed from a source of heat. The larger and denser the object being heated, the greater the degree of carry over cooking. Often after being removed from the oven the internal temperature can increase by as much as 25%. This means that when cooking large roasts one must often pull the item out of the oven when it is still a little raw on the inside in order to avoid overcooking. As well, it is for this reason that it is not recommended to cut a roast immediately after removing it from the oven, but instead to wait a half hour before cutting open the meat.

[edit] Physics

As mentioned above, the larger and denser the object being cooked, the greater the degree of carry over cooking. In more scientific terms, larger objects have a lower surface area to volume ratio and thus retain heat better. Denser foods typically have more water content. Water has a higher heat capacity and thus there is more heat in the food object to continue the cooking.