Thursday, September 11, 2008

World's Best (and easiest) Pot Roast

My mom is known at our church as the Pot Roast Lady. Whenever someone is sick or have some crisis from the church, she brings over a dish of pot roast to make their life a little easier. Her Pot Roast is so coveted, that folk in our church have been known to feign illness, in order to be recipients of her roast. Pot roast is one the most simple of comfort food. It is the epitome of meat and potatoes. You can put this on in the morning, turn the heat down and have a great, warm comforting meal in the evening. Since we had the first hint of fall in the air yesterday, I cooked my mom's recipe of pot roast. As usual, it was delicious.

Pot Roast

2 T vegetable oil
1 4-6 lb bottom round beef roast
1 large onion sliced
salt and pepper
1 c water
8 carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 c potato water (the reserved water from boiled potatoes)
1 T butter
2 T wondra flour

In a heavy dutch oven, brown the meat very well on all sides, add the sliced onions, heavily salt and pepper the roast, add 1 cup of water and reduce heat. Allow meat to braise for 3-4 hours until it is tender. Add carrots 1-2 hours before you are finished cooking the beef. Check occasionally and add more water if necessary to keep about an inch to 2 inches of liquid in the bottom of the pan. Remove meat from pan and cover with foil. Allow to rest at least 10 minutes before slicing. Remove carrots and onions from pan and set aside. Pour off cooking liquid from dutch oven and reserve for later. Deglaze pan with potato water, making sure you get all the browned bits from pan, pour into reserved cooking liquid. Melt 1 T butter in pan, add 2 T wondra flour and cook for about 2 minutes until flour is bubbly and slightly golden. Return cooking liquid to pan and whisk with flour making sure all lumps are removed, cook for 5 or so minutes until gravy is thickened. Slice meat against the grain. Arrange on platter with carrots and onions. Serve with gravy, mashed potatoes and red cabbage.

Enjoy!

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2 comments:

Maggie said...

I've never made a pot roast with bottom round. I'll give this a try.

Anonymous said...

Bottom round works great. Time to post more....I come back everyday to read about pot roast.

Similar to my Mom's by the way.