Recipe: Pot Roast
Oct. 2nd, 2007 06:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coraaThis is one of my favorite meat-meals -- dinner yesterday. It's also reliably impressive, at least to most people who eat beef. And it's just pot roast and potatoes.
I use a seven-bone roast (also called the center cut chuck roast, or the blade cut chuck) -- named not because it has seven bones, but because it has one enormous bone shaped sort of like the number 7. It's a tough cut, grisly and full of fat, and that's exactly what I want in a pot roast.
The long cooking time usually makes this a weekend meal, unless you work at home or have flexible hours, but sometimes the boy and I would have a mid-sized snack at five and then dinner of pot roast at nine-thirty.
Today, for balance, I think I need to make pasta with vegetables or similar, though. ;)
Pot Roast
Preheat your oven to 350.
First salt and pepper your roast on both sides. Sear it in a little oil over high heat in a big pan -- if you have a large cast-iron pan, that's excellent; an oven-safe dutch oven is good, too. You want something that can handle both the burners and the oven. (I love my twelve-inch seasonsed cast iron pan, I worship it, it was worth the fifteen dollars I paid for it a hundred times over.) Turn it to brown all sides.
Remove the roast from the pan and put to one side. Turn the heat down to medium-low and saute the onion and celery, until the onion is limp and golden. (Sliced carrots are nice, too, if you have them.) Add the garlic at the end, when the onion is nearly soft -- garlic scorches fairly easily, and you don't want that. Then add the flavorful liquid (about four or five cups to start) and the thyme (about a tablespoon, or more if you really like thyme) and scrape the bottom of the pan to get the fond, also known as the stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan -- the browned meat bits and meat juices, the stuck onions and bits of garlic. Cook for a few minutes, until the liquid is warm but not going to boil your fingers off.
Add the meat. Add the vegetables on top of the meat. Then put a piece of foil over the top of the meat, loosely, to keep it from scorching. The point here isn't to seal the meat in -- we don't want to steam it, as such -- but to protect it from the heat of the oven, so that the top doesn't dry out and scorch and get nasty while it slowly cooks. (You could wait and add this later, when the threat of burning is more realistic, but I just do it at the beginning, since i've already seared the meat and developed a nice brown exterior.) Add more liquid, enough to come up to the top of the meat.
Put the whole thing in the oven and ignore it for three or four hours. (I lie. Check it at the two-hour mark to see if it's at any risk of boiling dry. If so, add more liquid. If not, let it be.) When it's done, the gristle and fat should have converted to a translucent gelatin, the meat should be falling apart all by itself, and the liquid should be vastly reduced.
Remove the meat and vegetables to a platter and cover with the foil to keep the heat in. Put the pan back on the burners over high heat and let it boil like crazy until reduced so thickly it coats the back of a spoon. This shouldn't take too long, but keep an eye on it because shortly after the 'coats a spoon' phase is the 'carbonizes' phase. Add a knob of butter, about two tablespoons, at the end until melted; this will give the sauce a beautiful glossy finish and mellow flavor. (You don't have to do this, but since this is an extremely concentrated sauce for drizzling instead of sloshing, you really won't be eating that much more fat.)
Serve roast with sauce and mashed potatoes. (Mashed potatoes are also better when made with butter and cream -- well, half-and-half. I use three tablespoons of butter for four people, plus enough half-and-half to get the texture how I want it. Fat tastes good. Sad but true.)
I use a seven-bone roast (also called the center cut chuck roast, or the blade cut chuck) -- named not because it has seven bones, but because it has one enormous bone shaped sort of like the number 7. It's a tough cut, grisly and full of fat, and that's exactly what I want in a pot roast.
The long cooking time usually makes this a weekend meal, unless you work at home or have flexible hours, but sometimes the boy and I would have a mid-sized snack at five and then dinner of pot roast at nine-thirty.
Today, for balance, I think I need to make pasta with vegetables or similar, though. ;)
Pot Roast
- a seven-bone roast, or other chuck roast
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- salt
- pepper
- one medium onion, sliced
- one stalk of celery, sliced
- as much smashed garlic as you like garlic (I am perpetually safe from vampires, but I know not everyone has my preferences)
- flavorful liquid, plus water to make about a quart and a half (I used most of a bottle of beer plus about five cups of water; I've also used wine and straight chicken broth, and though I haven't experimented I'm told tomato juice is nice too)
- thyme
Preheat your oven to 350.
First salt and pepper your roast on both sides. Sear it in a little oil over high heat in a big pan -- if you have a large cast-iron pan, that's excellent; an oven-safe dutch oven is good, too. You want something that can handle both the burners and the oven. (I love my twelve-inch seasonsed cast iron pan, I worship it, it was worth the fifteen dollars I paid for it a hundred times over.) Turn it to brown all sides.
Remove the roast from the pan and put to one side. Turn the heat down to medium-low and saute the onion and celery, until the onion is limp and golden. (Sliced carrots are nice, too, if you have them.) Add the garlic at the end, when the onion is nearly soft -- garlic scorches fairly easily, and you don't want that. Then add the flavorful liquid (about four or five cups to start) and the thyme (about a tablespoon, or more if you really like thyme) and scrape the bottom of the pan to get the fond, also known as the stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan -- the browned meat bits and meat juices, the stuck onions and bits of garlic. Cook for a few minutes, until the liquid is warm but not going to boil your fingers off.
Add the meat. Add the vegetables on top of the meat. Then put a piece of foil over the top of the meat, loosely, to keep it from scorching. The point here isn't to seal the meat in -- we don't want to steam it, as such -- but to protect it from the heat of the oven, so that the top doesn't dry out and scorch and get nasty while it slowly cooks. (You could wait and add this later, when the threat of burning is more realistic, but I just do it at the beginning, since i've already seared the meat and developed a nice brown exterior.) Add more liquid, enough to come up to the top of the meat.
Put the whole thing in the oven and ignore it for three or four hours. (I lie. Check it at the two-hour mark to see if it's at any risk of boiling dry. If so, add more liquid. If not, let it be.) When it's done, the gristle and fat should have converted to a translucent gelatin, the meat should be falling apart all by itself, and the liquid should be vastly reduced.
Remove the meat and vegetables to a platter and cover with the foil to keep the heat in. Put the pan back on the burners over high heat and let it boil like crazy until reduced so thickly it coats the back of a spoon. This shouldn't take too long, but keep an eye on it because shortly after the 'coats a spoon' phase is the 'carbonizes' phase. Add a knob of butter, about two tablespoons, at the end until melted; this will give the sauce a beautiful glossy finish and mellow flavor. (You don't have to do this, but since this is an extremely concentrated sauce for drizzling instead of sloshing, you really won't be eating that much more fat.)
Serve roast with sauce and mashed potatoes. (Mashed potatoes are also better when made with butter and cream -- well, half-and-half. I use three tablespoons of butter for four people, plus enough half-and-half to get the texture how I want it. Fat tastes good. Sad but true.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 10:57 pm (UTC)http://www.basquecompany.com/
I'm sorry their website is awful, but if you see a bottle of this stuff at a grocery store (Ralphs, Vons, lots of places seem to carry it) try it in a slow cooker. It was really fabulous.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 07:04 pm (UTC)We add water, scraping up the bits if fond from the bottom of the pan where the meat was cooked. Then we add the meat. Then we put the vegetables on top. Where did we put the vegetables before they went on top? They were never taken out of the pan with liquid.
I just made a decision and popped the roast in the oven, but it did give me a moment of panic.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-08 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-08 07:46 am (UTC)I'm glad it came out well regardless.