Pot Roast

I came across some beef for pot roast while shopping in Waitrose the other day. We hadn't tried this before, it was a cheaper cut and looked like it could be an interesting thing to try so why not!

I should confess to something. I'm terrible at following recipes. I get very bored when I read exact amounts and find it tedious to measure and weigh specific quantities while cooking. Baking is, however, another matter. I have to make an exception there, of course. Perhaps I have ADD. But this is completely self-diagnosed so I wouldn't trust it!

Anyhow, I had this rump joint for pot roast so I scanned some websites, some recipe books, and read through a few recipes by Jamie, Nigella, Delia and Gordon. So many recipes claiming to be the 'best pot roast ever'. I didn't have time to test them all, and of course I had to work with what I could find in the refrigerator because my shopping yesterday evening was a little bit biased towards treats and fancy food rather than basic staples. Some didn't use the right kind of meat, using fancier cuts such as sirloin, while some others had too many ingredients(what's with the packet of dried French Onion Soup, Nigella?).

I mix and match recipes, borrowing what is necessary and omitting what I feel is unnecessary. It is very intuitive cooking, I would say! TP would perhaps say that it's a chaotic way of cooking. We choose to disagree!

So, this is what I did. Well, most of it anyways, I think!

Beef joint
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 medium chopped
3 cloves of garlic chopped
beef stock
bay leaves
salt and pepper
plain flour
3 large potatoes peeled and diced into medium size chunks
some red wine
Fan oven at 150 degrees

I mixed some salt, pepper and paprika (I found this nice hungarian paprika which has a nice smoky flavour) into some plain flour, and rolled the beef joint in it until it was coated uniformly all around. I then browned it on all sides in a heavy casserole dish. This is supposed to help seal the juices and make it more moist and flavoursome. I'm not sure if it worked completely but it did add a nice flavour to the roast. I took the beef joint out and kept it aside, while I browned the onions, garlic, carrots and potatoes. Added the wine and let it bubble until reduced by half. Then, added beef stock, the remaining flour (that was used to coat the beef), bay leaves, some salt and black pepper. I decided on a whim that I would add some mustard powder to the sauce as well as a little horseradish. It seemed to have worked by adding a lovely, gentle but sharp taste to the sauce.

Added the beef joint back to this in the casserole dish, covered with foil and the lid to make it as sealed as possible, and placed it in the middle of the oven for appx. 1.5 hours or so. Took it out and let it rest for a while.

The sauce can be reduced further if needed, but we had ours with some steamed savoy cabbage on the side and left-over rice, so plenty of liquidy gorgeousness worked.

Verdict: The sauce had a nice flavour and depth to it. The beef was not as tender as I'd anticipated. Perhaps I'll cook it for less time next time or maybe even at a lower temperature for longer time. Waits to be seen what works. This was perfect comfort food for a cold winter night.

TP thought that it worked well which was high praise indeed, and if you knew him like I do, you would know what I mean. The dog was unimpressed that I had eaten up all the beef without sharing any tasty morsels with him and showed his disapproval by barking very vigorously at the television. The cat wasn't too impressed either, and after wandering around for a while in the hope that some bits might also come his way, he showed his disapproval in the best way that he can- by going and curling up on the chair next to me, and showing complete disdain and disinterest in anything to do with me. M wasn't really interested, being a vegetarian and all that, and went as far as to say that she didn't particularly wish to read about pot roast on my blog. The dish went down well in our household, I would say!

I did take some pictures, although I haven't really mastered the art of styling my food so that it looks attractive in a picture, so might not post them up yet!

I did watch a really interesting episode on styling food on Masterchef Australia recently but more about this in some other post.