Cooking Italy: Pot Roast of Been Braised in Red Wine

I love a good pot roast.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make one anytime soon. I just seem to have a gift for ruining some meats. And I tried to hard to follow all the steps and actually use the ingredients as called for.

This goal was slightly complicated by the fact that somehow, I got distracted and flipped over a page and began cooking on page 385 instead of 383 which was causing massive confusion as I could not understand why I had carrots in my refrigerator and spices in my cupboard that I normally wouldn't have unless I'd bought them for a purpose.

So there I was, happily sauteeing bacon away (with the wrong burner turned on) while wondering why it wasn't cooking. Finally, after turning on the right burner and starting to brown the meat, I realized why I did have the carrots. Right ingredients. Wrong recipe. Cranky cook.

Apart from that, everything went well. I wasn't altogether thrilled with the way the pot roast turned out. I had thought it would be a lot more succulent or at least flavorful. To me, it just tasted like boiled meat. . Then again, I may have contributed to that as after 3 hours of basting and cooking, I was hungry and took it out anyway to eat so it might have benefitted from a little longer in the oven. I also used a red wine I already had and not the one the recipe suggested so maybe that might have made a difference.



POT ROAST OF BEEF BRAISED IN RED WINE
Vegetable oil
4 pounds boneless beef roast, preferably chuck
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp onion chopped very fine
3 tbsp carrot chopped very fine
2 tbsp celery chopped very fine
1 1/2 cups dry red wine
1/2 cup of beef broth + 1/2 cup water combined
1 1/2 tbsp chopped plum tomatoes
Pinch dried thyme
1/8 tsp dried marjoran
Salt & Pepper to Taste

Preheat oven to 350.

Coat skillet with vegetable oil and heat until hot. Place meat in skillet, brown on all sides, and remove meat to platter.

Place butter, vegetable oil, and onion in cooking pot (large enough to hold roast later with a tight fitting lid) and cook until onion is gold. Add carrot and celery and cook for 4-5 minutes. Place browned roast in pot.

Pour wine into original skillet and heat at medium high until wine bubbles briskly. Stir well to incorporated bits from the original browning. Pour over mixture in pot.

Add broth to pot. Liquid should come up 2/3 of the way to the side of the meat. If not, add extra broth or water. Add the remaining ingredients (tomato, marjoram, thyme, salt, pepper). Turn heat to high, cook until boiling and then cover pot and place in preheated oven.

Cook for approximately 3 hours, basting the meat or turning it every 20 minutes. Meat should be very tender. Remove roast to platter and let rest 10 minutes. Boil liquid down to approximately 2/3 cup. Slice roast and pout sauce over it. Serve immediately.