Pot Roast…er…braise.

This really isn’t a roast, since it isn’t dry roasted, but rather braised very much like osso buco. The Professional Chef calls this “Yankee Pot Roast” in spite of the fact that it’s a braise. Anyway, it does yield a very nice roast, and a wonderful gravy. We served it with mashed potatoes, peas, and the rolls in the prior post.

We bought a 2lb bottom round roast, and a package of raw, plain bratwurst.

You’ll also need:
1 white onion finely chopped
3 oz or so of tomato paste
8 oz red wine (we had a Rosemount Shiraz on hand)
2 carrots finely chopped
1 parsnip finely chopped (or not, we happened to have one on hand)
3 to 4 cans of low sodium beef broth (or your own homemade stock, but we’re currently out of that)
Pepper – no salt – there is salt enough in the low sodium broth to get things started.
Veg. Oil (2 tbsp or so).
Fresh herbs such as parsley, thyme and rosemary. A couple of sprigs of each.
1 dry bay leaf.

Pepper the roast lightly.
Over medium high heat, sear the meat on all sides in the hot oil, in a roasting pan (or other pan, but you may have to play the transfer game to get things where you want them in the end) until it is a dark brown all over, then set it aside, and add the onion, carrot, and parsnip. Sautee it until nicely browned, about 10 minutes. Add the tomato paste and let it cook a minute or so, stirring it, until it gives off a sweet smell. Add the wine, and reduce it by at least half. Then put the roast back in the pan and add 2 to 3 cans of the broth (or enough to come halfway up the roast). Add the raw brats (or german rope sausage, or whatever you like – a small pork roast, also seared, would be fine as well – I find that having a beef and pork mixture of some sort makes for more interesting gravy in the end.)
Put the lid on it, and put it in a 350 to 375 degree oven for about 2.5 hours. Turn it now and then to keep it moist, and make sure you’ve got a decent level of liquid in the pan. Add the herbs, and perhaps a bit of garlic powder or a clove of garlic.

We also made a carrot cake and the hot rolls, so there were times it came out of the oven and went onto two burners over medium heat on the stove for a while. It’s a covered roasting pan, it really doesn’t matter – it isn’t as though with a braise we’re trying to take advantage of dry heat on all sides, instead we’ve got moist heat in a more or less sealed environment. With a heavy enough roasting pan, you could easily do this on the stove top the whole time and probably never notice a difference.

When the roast is done, the brats will have taken on a nice color as well, and will be well cooked. The cooking liquid will be nice and thick – in fact, I added a cup of water during cooking to keep the liquid level up where it needs to be.

Take the roast and sausages out and tent with foil on a cutting board. The juices need to be strained to get the herb stems and so on out. I have a chinois, so I poured everything through the chinois, and then worked it through, which served to puree the vegetables in the cooking liquid and force them through. Scrape the outside of the chinois down and stir the pureed veggies into the liquid. If you don’t have too much salt, and don’t mind it a little thin, you probably have gravy at this point. Gordon Ramsay did basically this with the gravy at the Fenwick Arms in a Kitchen Nightmares episode. I decided I wanted a little more volume, and wanted to dilute the salt just a bit as well. Had I had homemade beef stock on hand, I would not have had any salt problem at all, but let’s face it, even the low sodium beef broth by Swanson has more salt than is needed for most recipes. I added about 1 cup of water to the strained liquid to dilute the braising liquid, and then made a flour and butter roux about 3 tbsp flour to 3 tbsp butter, cooked that for a couple of minutes (stirring constantly), and then added the braising liquid to the roux and cooked it for several minutes at a low boil, stirring constantly.

The red wine, broth, carrot and tomato paste all gave their best to create a really nice, beefy, and very dark colored gravy, with the veggies in it providing a slight sweetness, nice body and texture that is often missing from gravy. Adjust seasoning – you’ll probably want more pepper, but with as salty as even low salt beef broth is, I can’t imagine wanting more salt.

If you’re following along in the Big Book of Braising, you’ll note that this method really isn’t any different than what you’d do to braise lamb shanks, soup bones, oxtail, short ribs, or beef/veal shanks.

Where we varied from the Professional Chef’s method is that in the last 30 minutes of simmering, they would have you add peeled turnips, potatoes, and pearl onions, which would be lovely, but we wanted mashed potatoes instead, so we omitted that step. If you added the root veggies, their starch would serve to thicken the braising liquid, and might make a roux unnecessary. It would still benefit from being run through a chinois or strainer to really even out the texture prior to serving, unless you don’t mind chunky veggies and wanted to de-stem your fresh herbs prior to adding them to the pot.

Great Grandma’s Potato Hot Rolls

A year or two ago, Katie and I were digging through a little metal card file of family recipes. Amongst them was a 4 card set entitled “Grandma Daily’s Hot Rolls”. This is actually my great grandmother referenced in the title. We’ve looked at this card a couple of times, and thought they’d be great, but then decided it was too much trouble, or we didn’t have time.

Today, along with a pot roast, we made these rolls. They are wonderful, but not particularly good for you.

Ingredients:
2.5 tsp active dry yeast (or equivalent)
1 cup potato water (warm – from boiling potatoes for mashed potatoes)
1/2 cup sugar (approx. maybe 1 to 2 tbsp more)
1 cup crisco shortening
2 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp salt
3 cups milk
1 cup mashed potatoes
8 to 10 cups flour (we get really fresh, dry flour, and tend to use rather more in any recipe. We probably ended up using at least 11 cups).

Add the yeast and sugar to the water, and let proof.
Heat milk until hot, add butter and shortening to melt, cool to 80-90ish degrees – you don’t want to kill the yeast. Mix the milk mixture with the eggs and salt, and add the potato water, yeast and sugar mixture to that. mix the flour and mashed potatoes into this, forming a nice soft dough. It should be very moist but not gooey. Knead as typical for breads, cover and let rise until doubled, punch down, let it rise again. Punch it down and divide it into about 3 oz portions, and pan them in lasagna trays or similar, greased. Let rise, covered, again for about 20 minutes or so and bake in a 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes. When done, we rubbed a stick of soft butter on the top.

These are a truly wonderful potato hot roll that really isn’t a lot more work than any other bread. They’re soft, light, and so on, because of the fat and sugar. We both wish we had made these years ago. Mom hadn’t had them in at least 30 years, and thought they were absolutely wonderful.

Edit from Katie: Just as a side note, a full recipe of these made about 3 dozen 3 oz rolls, so unless you’re feeding an army, a half batch would probably be a good idea.