Taking Temps of a Stuffed Flank Steak

BlueSmoke

How do you do it? We did a stuffed flank steak tonight; a Mr. Toad stuffed pork loin last week. When they were finally done, they were delicious. Problem was telling when they were done. [p]With both I got wide-ranging temps from the Thermapen - I'm guessing the low temps came when the probe was in meat, the high temps when it was in the stuffing. For instance, when the outside layer of the flank read 135, I got internal temps as low as 95 and as high as 140. So do I just disregard the high temps entirely?[p]Help please.[p]Ken

thirdeye

BlueSmoke,[p]I'm not familiar with that recipe. What is the stuffing and did you roll it cinnamon roll style so that a lot of the flank steak was on the inside?[p]~thirdeye~

BlueSmoke

thirdeye,
Stuffing was a mixture of spinach, roasted red bell pepper, bread crumbs and parmesan. Yes, it was jelly roll style.[p]I butterflied the flank to a thickness of quarter to three-eighths inch before applying a coating of stuffing and rolling.[p]Ken

mad max beyond eggdome

ken,[p]sometimes you have to go by cooker temp and time more than trying to figure out internal temp of meat. .. . when i do my flank steak rolls, i sorta go with the original oven recipe of 40 minutes at 375 degrees (that is for my butterflied italian stuffed flank steaks). . .i'll try and get a thermapen read by carefully sticking the probe in what i'm pretty sure is the meat, but really, i rely on the time at temp. . .at least as far as your rolled flank steaks go, 40 - 45 minutes at 375 dome temp (indirect cook set up). ..should work for you .. .HTH. . .

thirdeye

BlueSmoke,[p]It's good that you used a stuffing that did not need cooking. Cheese, roasted peppers and herb mixtures are one of my favorites. A ThermaPen is something I don't own so before rolling, I stick the probe of my cable thermometer in the middle of the cross section of the meat that is rolled to the inside. Then roll and tie as usual.[p]I wonder if a ThermaPen is fast enough and sensitive enough to get measurements if you slowly poked through the layers perpendicular to the axis of the roll? I would think by feel, you could tell if you were in meat or stuffing.[p]For loins, I sometimes use a fillet knife and create a tube for stuffing.[p][p]~thirdeye~

BlueSmoke

mad max beyond eggdome,
Thanks. This was good enough that we'll keep trying. Anything I can do to shorten the learning curve helps.[p]Ken

BlueSmoke

thirdeye,
Thanks for the cable tip. I'm going to try that next time.[p]Ken