Pot Roast Recipe?

Not at all exotic, but my go-to is straight comfort food. My Mom's recipe:

Preheat oven to 325F.
4 lb. pot roast (chuck, blade, whatever wandered by)
2 large "Spanish" onions, sliced
1/4 c. water
carrots and potatoes
salt and peppper

Salt and pepper the roast well on all sides. Cover the bottom of a dutch oven with a thin layer of oil, place over medium heat until of drop of water added to it dances around and spits.

Brown the roast thoroughly on all sides. Remove roast and drain any leftover oil. Add a layer of sliced onions (half of total) to bottom of dutch oven, replace the roast on top of them and put the remainder of the onion on top (no, they won't all fit. Whatever winds up on the sides of the roast is fine.). Add the water, cover and place in the oven. Cook for about 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Add your potatoes (medium-sized, cut in quarters) and carrots (peeled and cut about 3 inches long, halved or quartered depending on their thickness), recover and place back in oven for another hour or so, until the veggies are done. Pull everything out and make gravy with the juices if you're so inclined, or just defat the juice and pour it over the sliced meat.

For my husband's version of comfort food, add some bay leaves to the above. I do another one where I spread a good hot horseradish on the meat after browning and, instead of water, use a 1/4 cup of Guinness. Or lots and lots of garlic and a 1/2 cup of good burgundy is really nice.

I know, sorry. To me, pot roast is something for wet, rainy days when even chewing too much seems like an effort and a nice "falls apart when you look at it" pot roast just seems right. Being a first generation American Swede, Mom didn't do "exotic" when it came to cooking anything, except things involving flour. I can give you a killer German Sour Cream Twist cookie recipe, her Thumbprint and Spritz cookies and cinnamon rolls were to die for and my husband won't eat any pancakes except for my Swedish ones--Mom again. But you reminded me of her, shirt covered with flour, encouraging me to bake and you gave me a smile. Thank you for that.

I wouldn't say my mine is exotic either -

s&p, heavy browning
reconstitute dried mushrooms; morels if you got 'em
use liquor in pot + chopped dried & fresh mushroom
smidgen cayenne to taste
2-3 bay leaf
onion
leek
carrot
parsnip
turnip
potato
garlic if you like it
use beer for about 1/2 liquid

I think it's the parsnips that add one of those "hmmm, smacksmack,,,, what is that?" effect

Take the basic pot roast recipe and cut small slits in it. Stuff with garlic and scallion and season with cayenne pepper. Sear and roast as normal with root veggies.

Doh! I just typed in a recipe and got a server error when I tried to post it. I hate computers. By the way, I was a sys admin for the U of Utah Computer Science department for a quarter of a century. So when I say I hate computers, I know what I am saying.

Anyway, here we go again.

Get a packer cut beef brisket, 8 - 12 pounds, whatever is available. Hopefully you have a roasting pan that can hold it. Thickly slice 3 - 4 yellow onions, peel them if you feel the need to do so, but at least cut the roots off. Layer them on the brisket in the pan. Get a can of chipotles in adobo sauce, dump them into the pan. Clean a pound or two of mushrooms, halve, quarter, depending on size, throw them in. Remove any loose paper from two heads of garlic, in they go. Yes, heads, not cloves.

Cover and put into a 175 - 200 F oven for 10 - 12 hours.

Remove brisket from pan and put on a platter. Be careful, it will likely be falling apart at this time and chunks may try to escape and jump on the floor. Your cats and dogs would love you, though.

There are a few options at this point. You can spoon some of the liquid in the pan as is over slices of brisket. You can use some of the copious amounts of fat rendered out to make a roux and a rich, thick gravy. Perhaps puree the veggies for a sauce.

You could just dump all that goodness into your garbage disposal, dust bin or what have you and grab that catsup bottle out of the fridge. Of course, such an action would mean that the ChefTalk community would disavow any acknowledgement of your existence, or at least poke fun at your culinary skills. Enjoy that quarter pounder and fries.

mjb.

Packer cut is the flat and point attached to each other. All the fat is also left on. Its a popular BBQ cut.

grandmas new england cranberry potroast

truthfully this was grandmas recipe but I think she got it from her Hadassah ladies group in the 70's. Family favorite for many years and I still use it for catering occasionally when more hearty food is called for.


what ever type of beef cut you like
we have used brisket, top round, bottom round you name it, just keep meat in one big piece

1 pkge liptons or no name brand onion soup mix
2 cans of cranberry sauce
1/4 cup or more to taste of brown sugar
small can of tomato paste

you need an oversized piece of heavy duty tin foil as you are going to totally encase the meat and above ingredients so that it cooks in the sealed package


place meat on tin foil
dump rest of ingredients on top (no need to mix really)
and bake in oven for amount of time neccessary for weight of meat

cook at 300 degrees F (low and slow)

best to make day before
then when meat has cooled slice either thick or thin depending on your preference and place in baking pan with juices/gravy that has formed in tin foil. Reheat in gravy and serve.
delish...

Crockpot Pot Roast

I prefer to do it with my Crockpot. Use a good piece of beef bottom of the round (or whatever)...about 3 pounds, more or less. Give that piece a good rub-down with salt and pepper and brown on all sides in bacon fat & olive oil in a pot on stove-top. Put your peeled carrots, onions, garlic cloves, celery stalks with some of the green leaves attached onto the bottom of the Crockpot. Also, I have used small unpeeled potatoes (Youkon Gold, or red). Could also use parsnips or turnips, if desired.

The vegetables serve as a bed for the pot roast, so place the browned meat on top of the vegies. Sprinkle an envelope of Lipton's Onion Soup mix over the meat. Add a can of beef broth, and/or a can of cream of mushroom soup, or cream of celery soup. Cover the Crockpot, set on high and you can forget it for the next 7 or 8 hours! At times I add some sauteed mushrooms at the very end.

This will make a whole lot of liquid, so during the last half hour (or so) of cooking, I ladel out some into a small sauce pan and add enough AP flour (also seasonings) to thicken all of the juices in the Crockpot. Return this mixture back into Crockpot. You will have losts of gravy for reheating the meat for subsequent meals, and for mashed potatoes. I use some of that left over gravy by adding to tomato sauce when we have a saghetti meal....turns tomato sauce into a delicious meat flavored sauce.

Anything left over can be frozen. :)