RCP: Pot Roast with sherry and garlic

[Jenise]

We woke up to rain yesterday morning, and suddenly a Sunday night pot roast sounded strangely good. Strange because I really don't do pot roast--it was one of the dishes I detested most as a child and though I've had a number of good versions of it since, unlike most people I have no soft spot in my heart for good old mom's. So every time I get the urge to eat well-done beef and gravy, which isn't often, I make something different based on the ingredients at hand. A surplus of sherry in the fridge influenced this version, which has to be the best pot roast I've made and the one I might adopt as My Pot Roast if I were inclined toward just doing it one way for the rest of my life, which I'm not.

A cup of a manzanilla too old to be interesting went into the braising liquid, and about 1/4 cup of a sweet and simple amontillado finished the blonde sauce that was studded with tiny bits of carrot and leek, giving it a fruity complexity both taste wise and visually that lightened up what is often a heavier dish. The sherry component also married the dish to the caramel tones in the mature Spanish rioja we had with dinner.

1 3 lb chuck roast, boned and trimmed of most of it's fat, tied in a roll
1/2 large white, sweet onion, finely diced
4 cloves slivered garlic, divided
1 medium sized leek
1 rib celery
1 carrot
1 cup dry sherry
5 sprigs fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh sage
2 cups strong chicken broth
1/4 c sweet sherry or tawny port
1 heaping tablespoon flour
1/4 cup water
2 Tblsp heavy cream

For garnish:
6 cloves garlic
olive oil
2 tblsp chopped fresh parsley


Prepare the vegetables while you brown the roast in olive oil: finely dice the carrot, celery rib and onion. Sliver the garlic and divide--half the garlic will be added to the sauce just before serving. Halve, rinse and finely slice the leek, reserving the greenest 3 inches for adding to the sauce with the reserved garlic.

When the roast is brown, remove from the pan. Pour off any accumulated fat (if your roast is lean enough, there will be almost none), and add more olive oil and the vegetables. When the onion is transluscent, about four minutes, add the roast back, the dry sherry, the chicken broth and the herbs. Cover and simmer for about an hour and a half, turning the meat occasionally.

While the meat braises, make your garnish: sliver the peeled garlic and lightly brown in a separate skillet. Drain on paper towels and mix with chopped parsley.

When the meat's done, remove it to a warm oven and loosely cover with foil.

Remove the herb stems, and turn the heat up under the braising liquid to reduce by about half. Put the water and sweet sherry (or port) in a jar and shake to blend, then stir it into the reduced braising liquid. Add the reserved garlic and leek, and set to a low simmer. Now serve your first course. The sauce will be ready when you get back to the kitchen, just add the cream, then untie and slice the meat. Serve covered with sauce and garnish.

Serves 4 - 6.

Classic comfort food! Very appetizing, thanks for posting.

Julia Child (I think) once remarked on the difference betw. big-meat braises and stews being less one of spirit than of slicing. This recipe made me think of the profound food quotation below. I believe it applies equally to pot roasts.


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One of the most gratifying things about stews is the obstinacy with which they resist elegant trappings and endure past the life span of all food fads. They belong to that category of dishes A. J. Liebling called the "I-beam of cooking"; the kind that will never let down those whose only criterion for judging food is how good it tastes. -- Marcella Hazan (1978)

I thought you may be interested what the OED had to say about pot roast:

pot roast, n
orig. and chiefly U.S.

A dish consisting of a piece of meat, typically beef, cooked slowly in a covered dish.

1880 N.Y. Times 11 Apr. 9/2 Sour Braten, or a Sour Pot-roast... Take a nice piece of beef from the round, rub well with salt and pepper and lay it in a vessel, [etc.]. 1881 F. E. OWENS Cook Bk. 59 Pot Roast of Beef. Get a solid piece from the round, [etc.]. 1897 Altrurian Cook Bk. 38 (heading) Mutton Pot Roast. 1929 E. WILSON I thought of Daisy iv. 232 The dinner was an admirable pot-roast, with onions, potatoes, and carrots. 1936 L. C. DOUGLAS White Banners iii. 59 ‘We've had breast of lamb three times in the past two weeks.’.. ‘Sorry,’ said Hannah. ‘I'll have a pot roast to-morrow.’ 1993 Amer. Way 15 Nov. 145/1 They have taught us that Yankee pot roast and fried chicken can be taken just as seriously as French peasant classics such as cassoulet and choucroute.

Do you ever add a beef foot to the pot roast to increase the gelatin in the broth? Do you ever cook the pot roast on the top of the stove instead of in an oven?

Jenise, pot roast is actually one of my favorite dishes in the world. My husband calls it "mushy meat" so I don't make it very often. He can only tolerate it a few times a year...

My favorite pot roast is very similar to yours. It calls for a combination of tawny port and red wine. Makes a delicious sauce. Glad you found one that you like! I think I'll try yours next time, because it actually calls for fewer ingredients than mine. Is Bob a pot roast fan?

Do you ever add a beef foot to the pot roast to increase the gelatin in the broth? Do you ever cook the pot roast on the top of the stove instead of in an oven?

Beef (or veal) foot is a classic concentrated gelatin source. The veal is used and recommended in stock making by an exceptional professional chef I know (whose kitchen goes through some 15 boilings, reductions, and clarifications for a batch of "base" veal stock, used as a starter ingredient). Veal foot also is specified for gelatine in classic recipes like the French jellied parslied ham. (I don't see them much in retail markets though.) Meat braises tend to be meaty and savory anyway, I don''t think they needs extra gelatin. I confess to adding glace-de-viande or reduced meat stocks to the occasional Gulasch in past decades because I like to pull out all the stops with that stew.

I do most braises on stovetop, not oven. This saves vast energy some of which also goes into the room (and avoids the minor problem of juices burning on inner sides of pot, a characteristic of oven braising). If it's a good pot with heat capacity in the wall material (like enameled cast iron), you'll have a similar temperature profile inside anyway (I estimate, from past experience solving the diffusion eqn. for heatflow), the difference is the pot walls don't overheat which does you little good anyway.

[Jenise]

Jenise, pot roast is actually one of my favorite dishes in the world. My husband calls it "mushy meat" so I don't make it very often. He can only tolerate it a few times a year...

My favorite pot roast is very similar to yours. It calls for a combination of tawny port and red wine. Makes a delicious sauce. Glad you found one that you like! I think I'll try yours next time, because it actually calls for fewer ingredients than mine. Is Bob a pot roast fan?

Carrie, Bob would tell you that he is definitely not a pot roast fan, but he wouldn't be right. He loves any dish that's well made. But his mother's bland and unskilled Texas cooking damaged him so badly that when I met him 20 years ago, even though he was in his 30's and a long way from home, he turned green at the word 'casserole' and 'stew'. In his experience, pot roast is between the two.

I wasn't much better. My mother made a pot roast by throwing a thick browned 7-bone slice of beef in a large baking dish and surrounding it with peeled potatoes and onions halves. When it was done, she'd pour the accumulated fat in a pan with a lot of flour and water. Nothing more than salt and pepper seasoned it. I can kind of relate to where Len is coming from because back then I hated the stringy-mushy texture of well-done beef, hated onions too, and most of all I hated gravy because mom's were always so dilute and monotonous in flavor. (It was such a revelation to go to restaurants and have sauces--I'll have to start another thread about that) that didn't taste of flour and water.) My mother was actually a very good and adventurous cook for the times, early on before depression changed everything, but I think she made exactly what her mother made--just that way, it was comfort food, and not to be messed with.

It's something both Bob and I had to learn to love, and of course it all started with a newly opened mind after having a brilliant version somewhere along the way. He certainly swooned over this one. That he still doesn't think he likes pot roasts is just something uniquely Bob, once he makes a categorical judgement, it's tough to get him to realize he made it on the exception, not the rule. And it's entirely okay: I call everything a 'braise' and it slips right past him! His mom didn't know the word.

I'd actually started out on Sunday to make a more Italian, red wine and tomato version, a Brasato. It was only upon seeing all the sherry in the fridge as I was accumulating my mis en place that the idea of striking out in a whole new direction hit. I'm glad it did. And I left in that one little homage to my sad and lovely mother: a bit of flour to thicken. Oh my god--I forgot to list the cream! I finished the sauce with two tablespoons of cream just before serving. It gave it a perfect oomph of richness as well as softening the color with a pretty opacity. I better correct my recipe.

[Jenise]

Peter, not sure if you were addressing your question about gelatin etc to me or Max, but I'll take it as a question for all and answer anyway. Never have used a beef foot, those aren't something I tend to find available. But pigs feet and I'm not too proud to use one, I've done that, also oxtail. And yes re stove vs. oven. If it's a dish I'm going to basically leave in there for two hours, it goes in the oven. And if I want a crusty top surface, it goes in the oven. But if I'm improvising like I was when I devised this dish on Sunday, I tend to keep it on the stove. I want to check on it often, and mentally it helps keep my options more open for further refinement(s).

Also, I love those historical references you come up with. It speaks to the timelessness of Max's quote from Hazan and channeling Julia--pot roast is simply a dish that has always been, and always will be. We can refine it every which way, but we're still just part of a continuum when we serve it to family and friends.

And Max, forgive me for speaking about you rather than to you--it gets a little complicated answering everyone at once. I'm really enjoying your erudite contributions food discussion. In another thread you said your parents cooked, or taught cooking, for a living. Whereabouts? You must have had a great childhood!

Do you ever add a beef foot to the pot roast to increase the gelatin in the broth? Do you ever cook the pot roast on the top of the stove instead of in an oven?

Peter I have never done the former, and I always do the latter. I don't even think my wife would would call a roast done in the oven a "pot" roast. About that former, I don't see beef feet in my market, but I do see split pork feet, would those work as well?

I don't see beef feet in my market, but I do see split pork feet, would those work as well?

Yes. Pork skin also works good, plus it's quite tasty after cooking for a couple of hours. Cut the skin into 4" x 6" pieces and roll it up into 4" long rolls. Tie with a string and throw a few in with the meat. They're good in stew, too. If you use pork feet, I'd use two for each beef foot. The tendons and skin from the beef foot can be eaten. Here's a recipe for salade de pieds de veau. The meat and skin from a pig's foot can also be eaten, but that I would serve differently. BTW, I find beef feet in Chinese and Mexican markets.

Max... In another thread you said your parents cooked, or taught cooking, for a living. Whereabouts?

Berkeley, California. Both parents liked to cook (my father especially, he spent most of the 1940s as a soldier in Europe and Asia, and picked up a lot about food and wine in the process). And they were merely briefing their offspring about fundamentals, they didn't teach cooking outside the family.

There was also this big can of truffles, but that's a complicated separate story for some other time.