Simple Beef Pot Roast

"Talk of joy: there may be things better than beef stew and baked potatoes and home-made bread - there may be."

- Ray Stannard Baker

Though the price of beef continues to inflate, I want to point out that for some of the cheaper cuts, you can get multiple days out of the recipe. You use more veggies, some taters, and you've got a long-lasting supply of food for a few days.

I know there's also a lot of desire from my readers to see something more along the lines of "set it and forget it. So let's do a recipe that you can throw in the oven or slow cooker, wait a few hours, and fill your house with the delicious smell of everything you're going to hork down.

Remember the 90s? We do.

Now that we've got that out of the way, I want to remind you that any recipe isn't a "set it and forget it." You're going to need to monitor it. Otherwise, your house will probably burn down, or even worse, it doesn't work right. So, whatever. That's all the warning I'm going to give. you're on your own. Though admittedly, a slow cooker/crock pot will probably not explode in a hasty fireball of precious death. I'm going oven method here, so keep that in mind.

A few of the recipes we've had on here so far have all been things that are "lighter" fare, in that they were chicken, or fish, or something less land-based and firmly settled in red meat. Though, we did have that pork chop. I'm already forgetting what has been on here. BUT, the point I'm trying to make is that we haven't had anything particularly hearty. Like a stew, a roast, or a heavy soup. This is going to check those boxes pretty darned easily. We're going to make a pot roast!

I think a lot of people hate the idea of a pot roast. They think they're going to get some half-flavored, overly-salty, gray hunks of meat floating in some juices with some way too squishy vegetables. That's gross. It's so gross, I can't find anything on Google image search. The good news is that even when you google "terrible pot roast", there are still photos of some pretty tasty looking meals. Go figure.

This one's going to take a few ingredients. I know, I know. You want something cheap. If you calculate the price of dish / number of meals given out of this one, it's pretty cheap. Especially for the quality of food you're going to make. You're going to need the following:

It looks like a lot. It isn't. Shut up and stop complaining. This is why your family doesn't put you in the Christmas card anymore.

• Flour (enough for dredging)
• 2 lbs beef (country ribs or chuck recommended)
• 6 medium-sized potatoes (waxier potatoes will hold up better)
• 1 large onion
• 1.5 cups baby carrots, or chopped carrots
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 can (12 fl oz) of beef broth
• 1 branch rosemary
• Salt/Pepper (or seasoning salt)
• 2 cloves garlic
• Canola or vegetable oil (EVOO will most likely burn)

Start off by preheating your oven to 275F. I know, that's low, right? You might have to turn on the heater in your house, instead of huddling outside the oven door for warmth. Sorry folks, we're going low and slow. 

Mix a few table spoons of flour with a good deal of salt and pepper. This is going to be the dredge for your beef, so if you mix too much, you'll just be throwing it out. Add enough stuff to the flour so you can smell it a bit, and it looks like a seasoned flour. I'm not going to give you specific amounts, because I have no idea what cut of beef you're working with. And if I knew exactly what you were doing, I'd ask for a raise, since babysitting is getting pretty tiring. 

Oh, the meat. As you can see above, there are two recommendations given. A lot of people like chuck or London broil for their pot roast. I don't think they're bad ideas, but I think they take a lot longer. You'll have to sit in silence as your house smells with beefy goodness*, waiting to tear into the thing. And you'll be so excited, you'll forget to put on your oven mitts, and burn the hell out of your hands. Trust me. Even when I'm not in a fevered state, I burn my hands all the time. My brain doesn't register that something that's been out of an oven for 3 minutes will still be hot. Go figure.

(*not a euphemism.)

Personally, I really like the country rib. it's a boneless rib with some fat, very little connective tissue, and it's tasty. But most importantly, its shape is easy to work with. You can brown all 4 sides of the thing, maximizing flavor, and it can be easily fit into most containers. I use a really wide steel dutch oven, and the lid doesn't fit when I use chuck; I have to make a foil gasket. Which is Grade A Bullshit, if you ask me. So, country ribs? Country ribs!

Take those ribs, and throw them into the seasoned flour. Give it a good shake, to make sure everything is properly coated. Pull the ribs out, toss the flour, and set the ribs aside. I recommend a small plate that you will use a few times in this process.

Though not as phallic as the mighty pork tenderloin, if you stair too long, you're still going to feel uncomfortable.

While these sit for a bit, the flour and salt will draw out some moisture, and make a little bit of a dry batter or crust on the outside of the ribs. That's great! We're going to brown the hell out of these, and that's going to help the flavor! It'll also help to thicken the juices while cooking.

Get out your cooking apparatus for the recipe, and place it on your stove. I use a heavy-bottom stainless steel dutch oven that I love. I recommend a dutch oven here, since it will be able to brown everything, have a great fond (for flavor!), and you can cook everything in one 'thing'. I have also done this in a 9x13 metal baking pan, but it's a little messy and unwieldy. Stick with a dutch oven, and you'll have a good time. If you have more money than I do, and you have an enameled cast iron Le Creuset, then 1) I hate you, 2) give it to me, and 3) use that. It's perfect.

It serves me well, and doesn't look like hell. Win.

Pull out your onion, and give that thing a few good cross cuts, to make some petals. peel each of them out of the chunk, and put some oil in the bottom of your apparatus. I recommend about 2 tablespoons, or a solid 'glug'. That's an SI measurement, by the way. Heat the oil until it's shimmering, and then add the onions. Lower the heat to medium or medium low, shake some salt on there, and cook those things down for a while, until they soften and are translucent. If they start to caramelize, that's cool, too. I'm not going to complain. While these cook down, chop up your potatoes into quarters. And those potatoes? waxy ones will hold up better. Whites, young yellows, and reds. You could use something like a russet, but it might end up a little squishy. These will still have a bite when we're through.

Light caramelization, translucent, yadda yadda. You get it.

Now pull those out, and crank the heat up again. Once it's a hot mess of oil and onion scent, add your beef. And don't touch it. I said, don't touch it. What part of that don't you understand? What we're doing is searing the outside, and caramelizing the meat. some people get all better-than-thou and refer to it as the Maillard reaction, which is a fancy pants chemistry thing that you probably don't need to understand. All you need to know is that it's going to burn sugars in the meat, and make it delicious. We're trying to get away from gray, wet sock meat, right? Do this. Once a side is a nice, dark brown, rotate the meat to get the next side. Keep going until all sides are browned. Then pull them out, and turn off the heat.

MAILLARD II: THE BROWNENING

You're going to probably notice at this point that there's a lot of oil in the bottom of your pan. Gross, right? Not gross; that's probably delicious. BUT, we don't need it! So take your tongs, grab a paper towel with them, and sop up the extra oil, making sure you leave behind the fond. Fond is that brown "burnt stuff' on the bottom. Remember our pork chops? We did stuff with the fond there, too. It's flavor! It's fun! It's... fond!

Sop it up, and chuck it. We don't need you, greasy oil monster.

Turn the heat back on to medium high, and toss in your wine. It's going to bubble and steam and boil and be loud and hisssssss, but it'll be fun! Until you breathe in the steam, and realize you'd probably get drunk if you did it enough. So only take, like, three breaths of it, so you can still drive (#responsiblecooking). As this is boiling, reduce to low heat, and scrape up all the fond. it'll mix into the wine, and be an amazing base flavor for the roast. Remember, this is going to sit in the cooking liquid for a few hours; get yourself a great base.

The only flavor I ever missed in wine was "meat". Win/win.

Once you've got everything scraped up, and the mixture has simmered for a few minutes, turn off the heat again, and start assembling. Place the ribs in a square inside the apparatus.

Add rosemary to make yourself think you're good at this.

Then start throwing in everything else. Layer between carrots, potatoes, and onions. Obviously, a lot of this is to your taste; if you want more carrots, toss more carrots in. More potatoes? You're the boss, Captain Carbohydrate. Toss some garlic and bruised rosemary on the top, too. It'll be tasty. To bruise, whack it with the back of your knife. It's easy, and releases more flavor when it cooks.

All assembled with more rosemary. LID THAT MOFO.

Once assembled, pour your beef broth into the thing. It should come up around halfway up the meat. If it's more, don't worry about it. If it's less, you did something wrong, because it worked for me, and my dutch oven is really wide and shallow. Get your head in the game.

Put the whole shebang in the oven (remember, I told you to preheat earlier? You don't? Sometimes I don't even know why I try.), and let it cook there for at least 3 hours. The longer it goes, the more the meat's going to soften, and break up. For my tastes, a little over 3 hours was great. The house smelled amazing, and I wanted to hug every ounce of pot roast I saw.

Make sure you occasionally check the thing. This is what mine looked like once it was done:

There's meat in them-thar veg-e-tables!

If you think everything's looking good, pull it out, and serve, I tend to go in bowls, so I can put more juicy goodness into the bowl, to be later sopped up with an amazing homemade beer bread (See that synergy? Wowwee!). Sound good, yeah?

Just perfect.

This meal is going to warm you up, and make you feel like you have a soul again. For us, we had this in the middle of a rare winter event in Southern California, where it was cold enough to reconsider the daily shorts-wearing option. Rare, I know.

The flavors all meld to a beefy, hearty meal with so much body and flavor, you'd wish you could eat it every day. And luckily, you should get probably 6-8 solid servings out of this. The beef becomes almost fork-tender, and the potatoes and carrots have just the right amount of texture. The gentle taste of rosemary and earthiness of red wine permeates the whole dish, and ties it all together. This has always been a big favorite of mine, and I recommend it for any occasion. Even if it's probably considered peasant food, you're going to have a hard time passing it up.

Crock pot people: I know, I ignored you for most of this. I would do everything the same here, but once you have your fond/wine mix, put that into your slow cooker, and then assemble everything. Put that thing on low, and go wild while it cooks. You could probably brown the beef in the crock, but I think a lot of those are too small; you'll probably have to cut up the ribs a lot. Which isn't a huge issue, but frankly, I prefer the oven method. If you use this recipe in a crock pot, let me know, and send some photos! I'd love to see how you did it.

Enjoy!

-AC

Simple Beef Pot Roast

Recipe from Scott McDonald (Average Cook)

Recipe makes enough for 6-8 servings. If you ate all of it at once, though you'll die, it'll be in beefy ecstasy.

• Flour
• 2 lbs beef country ribs or chuck
• 6 medium-sized potatoes
• 1 large onion
• 1.5 cups baby carrots
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 can (12 fl oz) of beef broth
• 1 branch rosemary
• Salt/Pepper (or seasoning salt)
• 2 cloves garlic
• Canola or vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 275F. Dredge beef in seasoned flour. Let beef sit for 10 minutes after being dredged. Cut and separate onion into petals, and quarter potatoes. Add oil to dutch oven, and heat at medium-high until oil is shimmering. Add onions, lower heat to medium-low, and cook until onions begin to caramelize and turn translucent. Remove onions. Raise heat to high, and add dredged beef to sear and brown. As the beef browns, rotate once a side is brown. Once all beef is browned, remove from the dutch oven, and remove any excess oil. Add wine and lower heat to medium while scraping fond with a wooden spoon. Once fond is up, turn off the heat. Arrange beef in the dutch oven, and place all vegetables around the roast, adding cracked/peeled garlic cloves and rosemary. Add beef broth. Move dutch oven into the preheated oven, cooking for at least 3 hours; the longer the roast cooks, the more tender it will be. Once ready, serve immediately.