Sunday, December 1, 2013

Brace yourselves... Winter is coming, and so are the pot roasts (no crock pot mush here)!

Winter weather is here, and it's the perfect time for chili's, roasts and stews.  I have great memories as a child of coming home from school in one of those jackets from A Christmas Story (I had a very over protective mother) and our house being filled with the amazing smell of a roast she has started earlier in the day.  I have never had another pot roast like hers, so this year I asked for the recipe to try to make it on my own - now I'm going to share it with you guys!

First, you HAVE to have the right cut of meat.  Being raised on an Angus Cattle ranch, I was very spoiled in the taste and availability of a fresh roast, but if you make it just right, you can have the same experience as I did as a child.

Publix was able to actually cut the specific poundage and cut of beef that I wanted in their meat center; I didn't know that they did that!
This size roast was enough for two people and some left-overs.  Remember, your meat will shrink, so you definitely want to get a bigger piece of meat! (That's what she said)

So first step, you're going to want to completely salt and pepper your meat on both sides.  Don't forget the sides of the meat; stand it up to do this.
Next, you're going to want to cut up some garlic.  I love garlic.  Like, I LOVE garlic.  I had my helper Danny go through quite a few cloves of it, about ten.  I like to smash a few of my cloves and rub them all over the meat to let that garlicky taste seep all through the surface, then finely chop the rest and sort of mash it into the meat's surface.

This next step is what really sets the tone for the meat, and makes it completely different from a lot of those dry, bland roasts you may have had in the past.  Take a pan (we used a flat surfaced, griddle style pan and even that barely fit the meat) and brown some butter in it.  When the butter starts to brown at about a med-high temp, throw that Chuck roast on the pan and brown it on ALL sides.  This is what really seals in the juices and the flavor, and will prevent any dryness from coming out of your roast - unless you don't follow my directions and leave it on the stove for way too long.  **Make sure not to cook the roast through at all, just a few seconds on each side should suffice - that's why the med-high heat temp is important.**  Your roast should look like this at this point:


Notice Also how it's shrank quite a bit from the original size whilst raw

While we were prepping all of this, We had a pot going at high / med high (whatever temp your stove can boil is what temp you need this to be at) and had a few of the crushed garlic cloves and an entire, sliced sweet yellow onion we sauteed with butter until it was tender.  We then filled our pot with 2 boxes of Swanson brand beef broth, and 2 cups of water.  You must add the water, because the broth itself will be too intense throughout the meat, and it will taste to "commercialized".
Once that's brought to a boil, carefully pick up your roast using tongs, and insert the roast into your broth pot.  You can run a bit of water over the pan that the roast was browned in and dump that in your pot as well to get those crispy, buttery garlic pieces - yum.

That's it!!

This is the hardest part... the waiting!

Turn down your heat to a medium, you don't want tremendous boiling bubbles, but you don't want the stillness of a boring crock pot either.  You can add potatoes and carrots, celery and things if you so prefer, but remember that whatever you add will be cooked into the flavor of the meat.  I've found the simpler, the better.  Wait for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours; the meat should literally be falling off of the bone with tenderness.  Again, don't over cook it!  If you're afraid of doing so, check every 30 minutes after the 1 and a half our mark.
Comment with any questions you may have, or changes that you made and let me know your feed back, and ENJOY!

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