Kari Jo Cooks: Low and Slow Pot Roast

I love pot roast. I have since I was little. But I decided there had to be a better way to cook it than what my mom did (sorry mom!) It was good, but pot roast shouldn't need to be doused in ketchup to be flavorful.

I'm still tweaking the recipe--sometimes I use too much rosemary, sometimes not enough, or sometimes I cook it too long (which is really REALLY hard to do with roast, but I'm an airhead).

First, you need to pick your roast. I usually go for a 3 pound chuck roast. Basically, anything that has nice marbled fat in it (that stuff is flavor and a lot of it will 'disappear'...I'll explain that later). You can do rump roast as well.

When you make a pot roast, the key is to go slow and low. You're gonna cook it on a low temp for a very long time. Here is why:

when you cook a roast to between 160-180 degrees farenheit, that connective tissue in the roast dissolves into gelatin, which is good for you and makes the roast tender.
if you cook it at too high of a temperature too quickly, the muscle fibers will lose their juices. that sucks.

For a three pound roast, I usually do 275 degrees for 3-4 hours. I check it every hour, and once it is fork tender (pulls apart with a fork) that baby is done.

Ingrediants: 2 photos

3 pound chuck roast

2 large carrots

4 shallots (shallots are onions, but better)

rosemary

thyme

salt

black pepper

red wine

beef broth

olive or canola oil

preheat oven to 275

warm three tablespoons oil in skillet (stainless steel/non stick is best)

find a covered roasting pan. your mom will know what that is and probably has seven extra in your basement at your childhood home.

Put on some good backround noise. I recommend anything on HBO. (RIP James gandolfini)

Matt got me a great chefs knife for christmas. I was so pissed off trying to open it I wanted to chuck it at the wall. Tried scissors, can opener, knife...GOOD GOD.

Cut up your carrots into sticks and the shallots in half.

dump them in that oil.

this splattered everywhere so I whipped out my splatter shield. I got three of them in varying sizes for like 10 bucks at TJ Maxx. Let the stuff cook til it looks like its burning, mixing it around.

Then, with tongs, remove the carrot and shallot. Put them in the roasting pan.

There is gonna be stuff stuck to the skillet.

This is called "fond." It is full of flavor and aromatics and its the shit.

Fond actually means "bottom" in french.

Keep your skillet on medium heat or whatever you have it on. but it should be medium. Then, generously rub the roast with sea salt and black pepper. The more salt the better. Trust me.

Put it in that same pan that had the fond in it. Sear it on all sides for about a minute or two each side.

Now, grab your beef broth. I poke a hole in the top of my beef broth because it makes the broth pour out faster. I'm sure my engineering friends (go huskies!) could explain why, but I can't.

Pour it in the roasting pan with the carrots and shallots.

==1^TR

meat is roasting and getting delicious. Take it off the pan and put it in your roasting pan right on top of the veggies.

LOOK at all that fond. This is going to make a delicious sauce.

Grab your red wine. I used 4 dollar shiraz.

Take the pan off the heat, and pour in about a cup of wine.

Return it to the heat, turn it up to high, and with a wisk, stir the wine and scrape the bottom of the pan.

This is called deglazing. Its amazing and I try to do it every time I cook, if possible.

Deglazing basically allows all those awesome bits of carmelized food on the bottom of the pan to get lifted and mixed into the liquid you poured in. It creates a sauce and will get thicker the longer you let it sit. After about 5-10 minutes depending how anxious you are, take it off and pour it right on the roast.