I have heard and read about several pot roast recipes lately and was dying to give my new Crock-Pot from JCPenney a spin. I have never really been good at slow cookers, everything usually comes out so soupy but I killed it last night with this one. I did have to use my dutch oven to brown the meat first, so there are two steps here but the nice thing is you can leave the house without worrying about the oven or stove-top being on, and for this cut of meat, you need time.
If you grew up on them like me, you probably don’t get too excited when you hear “pot-roast” but I promise you will love this hearty fall supper. The good thing about the meat is it’s cheap and can feed a lot of people, it just has to be slow-cooked or it will feel like you’re biting into a tire.
So here is what you need to pick up from the store:
1) MEAT : From the front portion of the animal; look for chuck roast, shoulder steak, boneless chuck roast, chuck shoulder pot roast, chuck seven-bone pot roast, or beef chuck arm.
2) 1 yellow onion
3) 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar
4) 3 tablespoons of a good seedy dijon mustard
5) 1 quart of chicken broth (though you’ll probably only use half)
6) About 3 large carrots (not baby carrots, I have a thing about them in cooking, baby carrots are for snacking)
7) A bag of small potatoes like the red ones or yukon gold (but small, think golf ball size)
Here is what you have to do:
Get out your dutch oven. Set the heat on medium-high. Take out your beef and liberally salt and pepper it. Place it into the dutch oven and brown it on both sides, this seals in the juices, like this:
Next, take your meat out of the pan and put aside. Leave the residue in the pan. Chop up your onion and with a little olive oil, sauté the onion until transparent. Add your balsamic and dijon and let reduce so it becomes more like a glaze or sauce. Add your carrots and make sure they get covered with goodness.
Okay you’re done with oven portion. Now place your meat and balsamic-dijon reduction with the veggies into the slow-cooker. Add the potatoes and chicken broth so it reaches about half-way up like this:
Let this cook about 5 hours on the high setting and you will have the most delicious pot roast you’ve ever had, at least it was the best one I ever had, as well as hubby’s. Oh and I left to run errands, and came back literally smelling it from the outside.
OMG and here is the best part, as you can see from the photo above you get a delicious balsamic sauce from stewing all day. The NEXT day you can use your slow cooker with this sauce and chicken breasts. All you do is take out all the good sauce from your leftovers and put it in the pot with the chicken. You get DELICIOUS balsamic chicken. If you’re from Stamford you know the restaurant,
Pelicci’s and you KNOW their balsamic chicken. This is not that, but pretty damn close.
I hope you like it, and if you have any questions,
email me!
