Perfect Pot Roast
Ingredients:
-One pot roast: The bigger the bone, the better. Look for decent marbling and a little fat. Not too much but enough for some great flavor.
-Granulated Garlic Powder: Enough to cover both sides of roast
-Fresh Ground Black Pepper: Enough to cover both sides of roast
-Salted Butter: Use butter. Margarine is gross. Fat is good.
-Kosher Salt: Palm full
-Balsamic Vinegar: 1/2 Cup
-Red Wine: 1 Cup: I used a dry, Italian merlot but you can use what you like.
-Handful of Red Grapes
-Handfull of Queen Olives: Pitted, with or without pimento.
-Yellow Onion: Half an onion will do. Sliced thin (hamburger style).
-Fresh Basil: 1 Sprig/3 leaves...whatever
Method:
-Preheat oven to 325-350 degrees
-Bring roast to room temperature (don't let it sit there all day, you'll get sick and blame me. But it won't be my fault, I warned you). Season with garlic powder and pepper on both sides. Set it off to the side.
-Bring a cast iron (CI) pan to a high temp on high heat. If you don't have a CI skillet, use the thickest metal pan you have. Even heating is the key.
-When the pan is hot, melt butter onto bottom of pan. When the butter starts to foam and is completely melted, carefully place roast in pan. Sear roast on both sides for about 2 minutes or until a nice brown crust appears. Black is bad but doesn't ruin the roast, just try to not let the meat get that far.
-When the roast has a brown crust on each side, pull it and set it to the side.
-There will be a significant amount of rendered fat, a little beef juice and some butter left in the hot pan. Turn the heat down to med-high and add 2Tbsp of butter. When melted, add sliced onions, grapes (crush them in your hand and toss them in). Add olives in the same manner. Let the onions brown in the butter before moving on to the next step.
-Add kosher salt, balsamic vinegar and red wine. Now you should add the fresh basil, bruised (roll it in your hands a few times) and toss them in.
-Let ingredients simmer until sauce coats the back of a spoon.
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| Roast and reduction in foil pack |
-Sauce should be reduced nicely by now. Pour sauce over the top of roast until roast is covered about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way up the side of meat making sure to get all the onions, grapes, olives and everything in there. Wrap foil loosely around the roast. Try to make it air tight so juice doesn't spill out.
-Place in 325-350 degree oven and bake for about 45 minutes hour before checking. Bake until medium (don't worry if you don't like medium meat, it will continue to cook after you take it out of the oven).
-When roast is about medium (135 degrees F), you should remove it from oven and LET IT REST FOR 15-20 Minutes. It will continue to cook and redistribute the juices as well as soak up some more of the sauce you poured over it.
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| Cup full o' flavor...not gravy! |
-Slice roast ACROSS the grain of the meat into 1/4" slices and arrange, fanned, on plate. Pour some of your sauce on it and DEVOUR!
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| Finished product. Finished with fresh cracked pepper, dripping sauce and a sprig of basil |
I have never been a fan of pot roast. I have always enjoyed beef in the steak-on-the-grill form, but I am a newly found advocate of roasts.
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| Dinner and a movie with the wife. It's "Boiler Room" for tonight. |
My sister-in-law, Kim, Tried the recipe and my brother and nephew devoured it! Below is a picture of her roast. It looks awesome! Thanks for the pictures, Kimbo-Slice!
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| This pic makes me want to make it again tonight! |
Sounds delicious!
ReplyDeleteOne question: Does the butter not burn in the high heat of the CI skillet? Would it be better / OK to use something with a higher smoke point (ie: safflower oil)?
Can't wait to try this recipe!
--Josh
@Josh: The CI pan will be hot, but the butter is still going to take a few seconds to melt. The melting butter won't take away from the heat of the skillet, so as long as you place the roast in as soon as the butter hits the foam point, it won't burn before you put the roast in. That's not to say that if you aren't paying attention that it won't burn onto the roast--definitely watch out for that. This brings up a good point with excess butter around the roast burning. It's a good point because you should not have much excess butter around the roast. Use just enough butter to get the job done. You might even need to add a little more as you're flipping the roast. It's a judgement call.
ReplyDeleteNow, I don't know about you, but I have never heard someone say, "I love that rich, salty safflower flavor." :) One of the main reasons you would use butter is because of the flavor content. With all the other stuff you're adding, you wouldn't think that butter would be that important--but try going without it. You'd notice.
One of the other reasons you use butter is because there is something about the way butter and red meat interact that is really unexplainable without a chemist present. The butter browns the meat and forms a flavorful crust like no other lubricant I've ever used. You won't get it with vegetable/canola/peanut/safflower/sesame/soy oil. Butter has the perfect flavor, smoke point, viscosity and other unexplainable crusting elements that just work with red meat.
So yes, it would be okay to use safflower oil--it's your food, absolutely tinker it to your liking. But no, you won't get the same delicious, artery-clogging results as you would with butter.
Great question!
Aaron
ProAm Kitchen