Recipe 17-Beef Pot Roast with Aromatic Vegetable Gravy

Recipe 17- Beef Pot Roast with Aromatic Vegetable Gravy 

Recipe 17 started off with a quick stop at the grocery store. I need some baby potatoes, rosemary and a pot roast. Now I was standing at the meat counter looking slightly puzzled. What is the difference between a pot roast and an oven roast? 

Well I asked the butcher and he said, a pot roast is for extended cooking times as it had more fat on the meat, and the oven roast was more of a quick cook (less fat on the meat).

I got my ingredients and headed home to start the cooking process asap. 

On this day in particular, I would be serving 10 people this evening and this roast needed 4 hours of cook time. Not to mention I also was serving this with Recipe 16- Barley Asparagus risotto.

  

As usual I chopped my vegetables first. Some carrots, celery and onion. Shocking to me... NO garlic? 

hehe

Everything went into my large pot and for about 10mins so that everything could get warmed up and flavours could come together. Next into the pan went some red wine, bay leaves and some rosemary. 

The whole mixture was smelling terrific at this point. 

Now this recipe says to use a large dutch oven. I do not actually have one of these because I am saving up my nickels for a beautiful Le Creuset dutch oven. This has been on my 'want' list for a VERY LONG TIME! I made do with my pot, so if you don't have a dutch oven, a pot like mine or even everything moved from a pan to a roasting pan would work. 

After all of the ingredients have had some time to simmer in the pot, I literally just plopped in the pot roast. I also picked up a nice selection of baby potatoes which I added around the roast. 

My oven had been pre heating to 350' but just before placing a lid on my pot I was instructed in the recipe to turn my oven down to 300'. Into the oven went my roast and the long wait began. 

4 hours! Let me tell you how much torture it is to smell this roast cooking for that long! 

I swear you could smell every ingredient in the pot as it cooked.  

So what did I do for 4 hours other then drool? I made some cheddar & dill scones.

This recipe is actually not from Chef Michael's book, but they made a GREAT addition to the meal. 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cheddar-dill-scones-recipe.html

This is the link to the recipe. I think we ate about half of these before dinner was served, they were VERY tasty! I used the Kerrygold Aged cheddar for these scones and it really made the cheese flavour pop. I would really go with a nice bold cheddar for these. 

So 4 hours later this is what I got when I opened the lid... 

Some beautiful tender pot roast with perfectly tender baby potatoes. The final step in the recipe before you dig in for the big bite, it taking all the potatoes out of the pot and your roast. You allow the roast to rest under a tent of aluminium foil. You then take the leftover juices and vegetables and blend them in the blender. This is the gravy. This gravy was so delicious that I could of eaten it like a soup. So full of flavour and it compliments the beef so well. After my roast had some time to rest, I cut into it and was pleasantly surprised at how tender the meat was.

I paired this roast with Recipe 16- Asparagus Risotto 

My guests throughly enjoyed this meal and were looking for seconds. I really hope you give this recipe a shot. It really breaks away from the tradition pot roast methods and gives you an excellent dish! 

Credit goes to my dear friend Craig for the plating of this dish! 

Can you tell he's done this a few times? 

He is a very talented chef himself and has been guiding me through a few of these dishes.

I am so thankful to have his help! 

As always my compliments to the chef and cheers to you, my friends! 

Can you believe we are already down 17 Recipes?  WOW! 

You can also find me here: 

https://twitter.com/Leslie1669

https://www.facebook.com/100recipesin52

http://instagram.com/100recipes52weeks