Roast With The Most Pot Roast Conjures Images Of Mom And Great Home Cooking, But It’s Not As Easy As Mom Made It Look
Pot roast smells like Sunday afternoon.
At least, that’s what Sunday afternoon smelled like when I was kid. My mom would put a pan of meat, carrots, potatoes and onions in the oven before we left for church. When we came home, Sunday dinner would be ready.
And the whole house would have that smell. That rich, beefy, oniony aroma. My mom’s pot roast smelled so wholesome, you wanted to go find a sunny spot and take a nap with a smile on your face before you ever even took a bite.
And I must not have been the only one who thought that’s what Sunday should smell like. When I was living in a college dorm years later, I was lured from my room by a familiar smell one Sunday afternoon. The homesick-ness was instant — somebody was cooking pot roast. A bunch of young women had commandeered the dorm kitchen to make the dish that said Sunday to them, too.
I knew my mom’s pot roast was good, but I didn’t figure it was anything fancy. Heck, all she did was slap a chunk of meat in a pan with some vegetables and stick it in the oven. If Mom could do it, how hard could it be?
I found out how hard. Correction — make that how tough. I tried my first pot roast when I set up housekeeping. Just did what I thought my mom did: Beef in pan, chunks of vegetables, stick it in the oven. I’ll always remember that pot roast, too. It was so tough we needed a band saw to cut it, so dry it would have taken quarry equipment to chew it.
Crafty ol’ Mom was apparently working a little kitchen magic while I was buckling my patent leather shoes.
To chew the fat on pot roast, I called Merle Ellis, the cooking expert known as “The Butcher” and the author of “Cutting Up in the Kitchen” (Chronicle, 1975) and “The Great American Meat Book” (Knopf, 1996). Pot roast really isn’t a roast at all, Ellis said. It’s a braise, and braising has been around as long as people have cooked cows.
“Basically, there are two kinds of meat - tough and tender,” Ellis explained. “There are two reasons why some is tough and some is tender. One is the age. We get tougher as we get older. The second is location on the carcass. Muscles that get used a lot get tough.”
And since we have two kinds of meat, we have two ways of cooking it: moist heat and dry heat. Dry heat toughens meat, so you use it for tender cuts.
“Moist heat, on the other hand, tenderizes the meat. It breaks down the fibers and gives you a gelatinous texture that gives you good gravy. So you can take a 35-year-old water buffalo, and if you stew it long enough, it will be tender.”
Braising is moist heat. There are two steps to a classic braise. First, you brown the meat. Then you add a little liquid, cover with a tight lid, and cook very slowly for a long time.
“Very slowly” is the key. That’s why some pot roasts are cooked in the oven. It’s hard to maintain a very low simmer on the stovetop. The thermostat in the oven makes it simple to set a temperature and keep it there.
Here’s the science of braising: In Madeleine Kamman’s classic “The Making of a Cook” (Weathervane, 1971), she says braising creates steam that pries open meat fibers, allowing their juices to mix with the pan juices and tenderizing the meat.
Collagen is part of the connective tissues in meat; it’s a protein that holds muscles together. When meat is cooked in hot liquid, the collagen dissolves into gelatin. Yucky thought, but tender pot roast.
But if the pot roast is cooked too fast at too high a temperature, the meat dries out before it gets tender.
When you’re picking a pot roast, remember Ellis’ advice about tough and tender cuts. Tough cuts come from parts of the cow that get a lot of exercise, like the front, around the legs, and the back, around that constantly twitching tail. So the best pot roast cuts come from those areas - chuck (from the shoulder), brisket (from just behind the front leg) and top and bottom round (near the tail). Chucks and briskets are usually the first choices because they have the most fat, which makes for flavorful pot roast.
And while we might think pot roast is as American as Elvis impersonators, that’s a misconception, too.
“Cows are the same in every language,” says Ellis. “So in every culture, they have tough muscles to deal with as well as tender muscles.”
Flip through cookbooks and you will turn up German sauerbraten, which is just pickled pot roast, and Italian osso bucco, which is veal shanks cooked like pot roast. In Belgium, they use beer for the braising liquid to make Carbonnades a la Flamande. In China, there’s a whole style called “red cooking” - meat browned in a wok, then cooked in a little soy sauce-flavored liquid to turn it red. In other words, braised.
Just one problem: Who has the time to do all that long, slow cooking anymore? Take a tip from my mom. There was a reason she always made pot roast while we were in church. Pot roast doesn’t take much tending. And there’s no pot roast like leftover pot roast.
Stick one in the oven in the evening while you’re watching TV. Put it in the refrigerator overnight to let the fat congeal. Then when you get home the next night, all you have to do is pull off the fat and reheat the pot roast for 30 minutes or so in its cooking liquid. Dinner will be ready.
And it will smell like Sunday afternoon.
My Mom’s Pot Roast
Yeah, it’s got canned cream of mushroom soup and dry onion soup mix. So what? If that offends you, get your own mom to make you pot roast.
1 (2- to 3-pound) boneless chuck roast
About 2 tablespoons steak sauce (preferably Heinz 57)
1 envelope onion soup mix
1 (10.5-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
Pepper to taste
4 or 5 carrots, peeled and cut in large chunks
3 or 4 potatoes, peeled and cut in large chunks
2 or 3 onions, peeled and quartered
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Pat roast dry with paper towels. Place in skillet over medium-high heat and brown on both sides.
Lightly coat both sides with steak sauce. Place in roasting pan or in center of a large piece of foil. Pour dry soup mix and canned soup over the top, spreading with a spoon to cover meat. Sprinkle lightly with pepper, but don’t add salt (canned soups are salty enough). Cover pan or tightly close foil. Bake for about 2 hours, or until fork tender.
In last hour to 45 minutes of cooking time, uncover and place carrots, potatoes and onions around roast. Baste roast and vegetables occasionally with pan juice. Serve roast on a platter with vegetables and defatted pan juices on the side.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings.
Nutrition information per each of 8 servings: 525 calories, 40 grams fat (68 percent fat calories), 27 grams carbohydrate, 34 grams protein, 160 milligrams cholesterol, 846 milligrams sodium.
Beer Pot Roast
I picked this up in a Chicago meat department five or six years ago. It’s unusual and very flavorful. But best of all, the beef gets tender with only 1 hour of cooking time.
1 (2- to 3-pound) boneless chuck roast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
Dash of hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco
1 onion, sliced
1 carrot, sliced
1-1/2 cups beer
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
Place beef in a large bowl or dish and sprinkle with the sugar and salt. Add cloves, peppercorns, hot sauce, onion and carrot. Pour beer and olive oil over roast. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight, turning several times.
Melt butter in a heavy Dutch oven or covered casserole. Remove meat from bowl, reserving marinade. Place in Dutch oven and brown well on all sides. Add 1/2 cup of the reserved marinade (including the onions and carrot pieces, if desired), cover tightly and simmer over low heat 1 hour or until fork tender. Add more marinade if necessary to keep meat from drying out.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings.
Nutrition information per each of 8 servings: 576 calories, 45 grams fat (70 percent fat calories), no carbohydrate, 35 grams protein, 167 milligrams cholesterol, 1,015 milligrams sodium.
Coffee and Vinegar Pot Roast
From “Recipes 1-2-3” by Rozanne Gold (Viking, 1996). Gold found this in a community cookbook, where it was called Lutheran Ladies Peking Beef Roast; the original directions said “burn on both sides and douse with coffee.” It was probably inspired by German sauerbraten.
1 (3- to 5-pound) chuck roast
1 cup white wine vinegar
2 cups strong hot coffee
1 cup water
2 tablespoons peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon salt
Put the meat in a large nonmetallic bowl. Pour vinegar over it. Refrigerate 24 to 48 hours, turning meat several times. Remove from marinade, reserving vinegar. Pat dry with paper towels.
In a heavy pot over medium-high heat, brown the meat until almost burned on all sides. Pour coffee and water over it, scraping up browned bits with a wooden spoon. Add peppercorns and salt. Cover and cook slowly for 3-1/2 hours, until fork tender, turning several times. Remove from pot and keep warm. (Can be made ahead up to this point; refrigerate meat and sauce up to 24 hours.)
Add reserved vinegar to sauce, plus salt and pepper to taste. Boil until reduced to 3 cups. Thinly slice meat and place in sauce for 30 minutes over very low heat.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings.
Nutrition information per each of 8 servings: 664 calories, 48 grams fat (65 percent fat calories), no carbohydrate, 58 grams protein, 193 milligrams cholesterol, 1,439 milligrams sodium.
Basic Pot Roast
From “The Great American Meat Book” by Merle Ellis (Knopf, 1996). It doesn’t get more all-American than this.
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (5- to 6-pound) chuck roast
1-1/2 tablespoons oil
1-1/2 tablespoons butter
3 large onions, sliced
Herb packet of 2 sprigs parsley, 6 peppercorns, 2 bay leaves and 1 teaspoon dried thyme, tied in cheesecloth
3 cups beef stock
2 tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 3 tablespoons water (optional)
Mix flour, salt and pepper and dust roast on all sides. In large Dutch oven or heavy casserole, heat oil and butter until it sizzles. Brown meat on all sides. Pour off excess fat.
Add onions, herb packet and beef stock. Bring to a boil, then lower heat until barely simmering. Cover and cook on stove or in a 325-degree oven for 1-1/2 hours, turning halfway through. (If cooking on stovetop, don’t let liquid boil.)
When meat is tender, let cool, then refrigerate overnight or until fat solidifies. Lift off fat and discard. Remove herb packet and add any vegetables (see variations). If desired, stir cornstarch and water mixture into cooking liquid and cook several minutes, until thickened.
Yield: 10 to 12 servings.
Nutrition information per each of 12 servings: 531 calories, 39 grams fat (66 percent fat calories), 45 grams protein, 11 grams carbohydrate, 177 milligrams cholesterol, 853 milligrams sodium.
Variations:
Next-Day Pot Roast: Cut potatoes, carrots, turnips and celery stalks into large chunks. Parboil until almost tender. Add vegetables to pot roast when reheating.
Beef Bourguignon: Replace half the stock with dry red wine. Add 1 pound of fresh mushrooms when reheating.
Italian Pot Roast: Replace half the stock with 1-1/2 cups canned crushed tomatoes.
Hungarian Pot Roast: Blend 1 tablespoon paprika into 1 cup sour cream. Stir into cooking liquid when reheating. Serve over noodles.
Russian Pot Roast: Mix 1 teaspoon brown sugar, 2 teaspoons cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon ketchup and 1/3 cup raisins. Stir into cooking liquid when reheating.