Sunday Gravy with yeah right: Company’s Comin’!

Good morning everybody!

Welcome back.

We are coming to the finish line on another season of Sunday Gravy. Next week will be the season finale and I’ve got a really fun one for you. The only hint: it’s a great recipe for game days.

Today I am going as old school classic middle America as fucking possible.

POT ROAST!

Let’s get a better look at that banner photo again.

Goddamn! That’s the good stuff right there.

When I was younger family cooks were often measured by how good their pot roast was.

Ma did indeed make a kick ass pot roast and we had it at least once every couple of weeks. Always for Sunday dinner. In all honesty this is the meal I had in mind when I came up with the Sunday Gravy title for my insane ramblings.

Ma had several versions of pot roast including one that used this.

This is one of the many cheats used by home cooks during the 60’s and 70’s and to be completely honest with you, it’s still mighty fucking tasty. It is a weapons grade sodium bomb but tasty none the less.

It was always fun when Ma bought a box of the soup mix because I could always talk her into also buying a bag of Ruffles and a pint of sour cream and we could make some goddamn onion dip.

Will I be having onion dip on opening weekend on the NFL Season? Fuck yes I will!

What were some of the other cheats used by home cooks back in the day you may wonder?

Every household had this shit. Ma used it to turn her beige or light brown gravy into a more aesthetically pleasing dark brown gravy. It’s basically a darkening agent and only adds a bit of flavor. When doing the research on it just now I also found out that the company who makes it is owned by Clorox and now I’m NEVER gonna buy this shit again.

Here’s a fun cheat that was also used!

This shit is pretty much pure MSG. Ma used the SHIT out of this stuff. It was used instead of salt and it gave foods a salt kick but also added a savory element. It also worked fucking wonders on spiking your blood pressure. TASTY!

And of course the single greatest kitchen cheat code known to man and one that I have shared with you fine folks a couple of times…

Did Ma use all 3 of these at the same time during some meal preparation? Hell fucking yes she did!

Am I now taking medication for my blood pressure?

You better fucking believe it!

This was like better cooking through chemistry. While I know and will swear that my dear departed Ma loved us kids dearly and would do anything for us I’m pretty sure a modern judge could charge her with some form of child abuse for dropping these culinary bombs on her poor unsuspecting children.

Love and miss you Ma!

You will all be pleased to know that not a single one of these cheats were used in the making of today’s pot roast. I can hear your sigh of relief from here!

My method involves centuries old cooking techniques with no short cuts and clean, pure simple ingredients.

And our dear old friend.

The Instant Pot!

I swear to you folks that I did not intend to make my pot roast using the instant pot. I was going to slow cook for 3 hours in a 285 degree oven but…Well? Shit happened. I can’t tell you today but I will try to fill you in next week. Basically I ran out of time to slow roast.

See how fucking quick we can get spoiled my modern technology? I got this dish started a lot later than I wanted to for reasons to be explained and rather than slow cooking and having Sunday dinner at 9:00 o’clock, I broke out this bad boy and sped up the process dramatically.

Besides this season has been filled with Instant Pot recipes and I figured one more couldn’t hurt. I promise not to be as Instant-Pot-centric next year!

The prep I will be showing you and the ingredients will be EXACTLY the same had I not ran out of time and slow roasted the pot roast in the oven. It will still work for the aforementioned 3 hours covered in a 285 degree oven if you would rather try it that way.

Let’s do it!

Pot Roast!

1 slab of chuck roast between 2-4 pounds – cooking time will vary depending on weight. Mine was a little more than 2 pounds.

6 or so carrots peeled and cut into chunks.

1 large onion cut into wedges.

6 cloves of garlic minced.

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil for searing.

Lots of salt and pepper.

1 to 2 cups of beef stock.

1/3 cup to 1 cup of red wine – use the good stuff so you can drink the rest of the bottle.

1 tablespoon of tomato paste.

2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.

1 bunch of fresh rosemary.

1 tablespoon of thyme – I used dried thyme.

2 bay leaves – optional.

2 tablespoons of butter.

2 tablespoons of flour.

Additional salt and pepper to taste.

That’s it!

If you wanted to add potatoes, peel and quarter 3 or so potatoes and add to the oven cooked slow roasting pot for the last 45 minutes of cook time.

Since we are using the Instant Pot I couldn’t sort out the details of the potatoes since cooking them in a pressure cooker would only add potato soup to the finished product.

Which explains the rice.

Anyway!

Grab a nice looking slab of cow at the store. I prefer a chuck roast for this application.

We are going to season this right fucking proper with some salt and pepper. Don’t be shy, says the guy whose Mom almost poisoned him with sodium.

Take out your handy Dutch oven – yes this applies to cooking in the Instant Pot as well. We need to slap a solid sear on old Bessie here to build an outside crust on the pot roast. First thing though, add the oil to the pot over medium heat. First, in goes the onion.

The onion will cook for about 5-6 minutes or so. It would be perfectly fine and dandy to season the onion with some salt and pepper while it’s browning. Cook the onion until it reaches this stage.

Remove the cooked onion with a slotted spoon and place in a large bowl for later use.

Next victim!

The carrots. Into the pot you go!

Cook these for another 5 minutes or so until slightly cooked and slightly caramelized. Remove from the pot and put in the same bowl as the onion.

And then?

Sear that meat! This will take about 4 minutes per side. When the roast has been seared, remove it from the skillet. This will require some tongs and a fairly deft touch since the roast will be hot and a little heavy for the tongs. I trust that you can figure it out. Rest the roast on a plate.

Next we are going to deglaze the pot with the beef stock and the red wine. The reason for the varying amounts of stock and wine in the ingredient list will be based on the weight of your chuck roast. I used about 1 cup of stock. If you have a larger roast adjust accordingly.

See that wine? That’s 19 Crimes shiraz. 19 Crimes is an Australian wine and the shiraz is very, very nice. Clean and not too dry. It has worked itself into my regular vino rotation.

Add in the wine AFTER the stock to avoid any flare ups and potential loss of eyebrows.

Stir this around with a wooden spoon and be sure to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Next we will add in the aromatics.

That’s the garlic, fresh rosemary, thyme and bay leaves if you are using the bay leaves.

Again. Where did the rosemary come from?

My herb garden. Look at that sexy Christmas tree smelling motherfucker!

Once the pan is deglazed we are ready to cook. If you want to slow cook in the oven simply add the seared roast back to the pot, then cover with the onions and carrots, put a lid on the Dutch oven and cook in the aforementioned 285 degree oven. For a 2 pound roast it would be 3 hours for a three to four pound roast it can cook for 4 hours.

Since we are using the Instant Pot instead of the oven, the order goes like this. Put the seared roast into the Instant Pot, add in the onion and carrot and pour the stock/wine deglaze mix over the top of everything.

Sock that lid on top, set the cooking mode to “high pressure”, set the timer for 1 hour and get this fucker cooking!

When the hour is up, let the pressure “naturally” release from the pot for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, do a “quick release” be pressing down the steam vent unlock thingy. Be sure to cover the steam release valve with a kitchen towel to reduce the sauna effect in your kitchen.

After the steam releases you can safely remove the lid of the pot. What’s inside I wonder?

That looks like a well cooked… Something! Trust me, there’s a roast in there. Remember earlier when I told you to use caution when removing the seared meat from the Dutch oven? Yeah, well double that caution here. This is falling apart tender and rocket fucking hot. Use your widest slotted spoon or spatula to remove everything but the liquid from the pot. Cover the cooked items with some foil and let’s make a goddamn gravy!

Let’s get a roux started with the 2 tablespoons of butter and flour.

Cook this over a medium-low heat on the stove top for about 3-4 minutes. We will cook out the flour taste but we don’t have to go much past “blonde” as far as our roux is concerned. Here you go.

At this time we will adjust the cooking mode on our Instant Pot to “saute medium” and we are going to add the roux and reduce the leftover pot roast liquids by about half. Yes we are making the gravy right there in the Instant Pot.

Be sure to season with salt and pepper as this reduces. When the sauce has thickened up and is no longer a sauce but a goddamn glorious gravy we are in business my friends!

As mentioned earlier, since we didn’t make potatoes today – yes, you could have made a batch of mashed potatoes on your stove and served this beautiful collaboration over the top – I made a batch of white rice instead.

If you hearken back to a recent post where I discussed rice and brown gravy and how much I love that shit you will get where today’s inspiration came from.

I mean, just look at this!

Fuck! Let me get after that!

Now we have pot roast.

One more time.

Simple preparation. Complex and yet familiar. The sweetness of the onion and carrot, the savory of the fatty rich beef and the awesomeness of the rice with the brown gravy. Is there any wonder why the humble pot roast remains to this day one of the great American meals?

No. There is no dispute.

If there is any leftover – spoiler alert, there probably won’t be! – you can make a HELL of a batch of roast beef hash with this business.

A goddamn classic is what it is!

Hope everyone out here has a great rest of the weekend!

Fun note: as of the time of this blog posting I will be hanging out in Denver watching some baseball, drinking some craft beers and doing the Denver thing. I will be there until Wednesday. There will probably be a Boots On the Ground later.

Be sure to tune in next week for the Season Finale of Sunday Gravy! You will want to have a lot of beer on hand!

Thanks for being there folks.

PEACE!