Boned Rolled & Tied

Many times when presented with a solid chunk of meat, I will dress it buy using the technique called BONED-ROLLED-TIED. This will allow you to remove the bone and season a huge surface of the meat. By doing this you can control the seasonings throughout the meat and also extend the portions by stuffing the meat before tying it up.

Boning the meat is pretty self explanatory, but there are tips to help make the meat more uniform. Make the first cut length wise along the side of the bone. Once the bone is exposed, use a smaller knife and follow around the bone until it is free. Lying the meat out flat you will notice that the meat is not an even thickness. This is where you need to plan before you cut. Using the boning knife make a cut from the inside fold the full length of the meat. By doing this you will be able to open the cut away from the middle to make the thickness of the meat more uniform. Repeat this on the opposite side and it will look like two open books attached to each other. When done you will have a large flat piece of meat resembling a big steak. By pressing the meat you will see if there are any more uneven places. If so you can mallet the area and fix it. Also if there is a hole from where the bone was sticking out, you can arrange the meat to close the hole.




I bought this at JobLot for 77 cents and it rocks. I bought 4 more just in case.



This orange-honey glaze is the BEST sauce I have ever bought.
Normally I make my own, this stuff is the best second choice.
Look for it.


Having the meat flat will give you the opportunity to season the whole piece. Depending on the meat, you can also stuff it by spooning filling onto the meat and flattening it out. Once that part is done, roll it tight keeping the ends even. Here is where you will determine the shape of the finished product.

Tying the meat is the fun part. This is where the talent comes in. Many people do not know how to do this, but once tried, you will be able to do it with any cut. To tie the meat, the first step is to get a piece of heavy string that is roughly six times the length of the meat. Place the meat so that it extends away from you and tie a knot around the base. Make it a tight knot that will hold the shape but not squeeze out the middle.

Have the knot at the top of the meat and pull some string from the knot to an inch out. With your right hand pinch the string at that point. With your left hand, wrap the string around the meat again. Push the end of the string through the loop (from right to left) that the right hand pinched. Cinch the string tight by pulling the slack to the left then back to the right. Once you do this, keep the line taught and lie the tied string along the long axis of the meat. Repeat by pinching the string one inch from the last loop in your right hand again. Wrap the string around the meat and again push the end of the string through the loop and keep spacing the loops an inch apart until you are an inch from the top of the meat. This last loop will be knotted after it is cinched tight. Now flip the meat over and pull the two ends of string together to be tied. This long axis knot will pull the ends into alignment.
Make sure that it is not so tight that the meat lifts at the ends. It should look like a series of loops of string with another line connecting them. On the bottom, it will look similar but the string going top to bottom will not be looped (unless you want to loop them).




After the meat has been dressed, wrap the meat in plastic wrap and allow it to rest.

The BONE-ROLL-TIE method really is easy.
It looks just like a butcher did it with little practice.

Cooking the meat is open to many methods.
For this example I actually used three methods.
Stove top first, then the smoker, and then the oven to finish.
Before any cooking I went outside and turned on the smoker.

I pan seared the meat on a very hot iron skillet.
After a side is seared, I lift the meat off to allow the pan to heat back up before searing another side. I repeated this until all sides were done and then I finished by searing the ends.



Once the meat was seared, I walked it out to the smoker.
It was very hot. Perhaps too hot as the glaze I chose was honey based and it started to burn.
After leaving the lid off for a while, the heat came back down to where I wanted it.
I went back inside and turned the oven on to 300 degrees to preheat.

I then stayed out there to keep turning and basting the meat to keep it from burning.
The glaze darkened the meat and became very sticky. Once I ran out of glaze and it was sticky again, I brought it into the house.




The center temp was about 120 degrees after a half hour on the grill. I put the meat onto a glass tray and put it into the oven until it reached 160 degrees. After that I allowed it to rest on the cutting board for 15 minutes before cutting with a serrated knife.