Mar 24

Rewriting a recipe – Slow Cooker Pot Roast

I made this recipe (Slow Cooker Pot Roast by Nagi) last night and it didn’t work for me. The first reason it didn’t work was that my slow cooker wasn’t big enough to fit in the potatoes after putting in the meat and the sauce liquid. The second is that my slow cooker really struggled to heat up room temperature liquid and so the carrots and celery were still crunchy (which is not bad, just not expected). And finally, the liquid for the gravy didn’t thicken. The flour sunk to the bottom and the bottom of my slow cooker is currently scunge (tasty scunge, but still scunge).

Now I haven’t actually tried the recipe I’m about to modify of Nagi’s, but I’m pretty sure that this recipe will work much better in my slow cooker (and possibly yours, everyone’s is different). If I cook something like this again, I’ll come back and let you know if mine is successful.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 kg (approx) beef chuck steak roast/rolled chuck/bolar blade roast
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, cut into large dice
  • 5 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
  • 5 carrots, peeled and cut into 2.5cm pieces
  • 3 celery stalks, cut into 4cm pieces
  • 1 cup dry red wine (or 1 cup beef stock)
  • 3 cups beef stock
  • 1/3 cup plain flour
  • 1 tsp dried rosemary (1 tbsp fresh rosemary)
  • 1.5 tsp dried thyme (1.5 tbsp fresh thyme)

Method

  1. Pat beef dry with paper towels. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper all over.
  2. Heat oil in a skillet over high heat. Brown aggressively all over – a deep dark brown crust is essential for flavour base. Should take about 7 minutes.
  3. Transfer beef to slow cooker.
  4. In the same skillet, add onion and garlic. On medium heat, cook for 5 – 10 minutes until onion is browned. Add carrots and celery, cook for 3 minutes.
  5. Sprinkle flour over the onion, garlic, carrots and celery. Continuously stirring, ensure that the flour had absorbed all the oil, and continue cooking the flour for 3 minutes or until beginning to brown.
  6. Add the red wine and stock (or just stock), and herbs. Continuously stir until boiling when the sauce should begin to thicken. Remove from heat and pour sauce and vegetable mixture over the beef.
  7. Cover and slow cook on LOW for 8 hours.
  8. Remove beef, let rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Serve with roasted potatoes and sauteed green beans, or very crusty bread. Ensure that the delicious sauce is drizzled over everything that you want it to be.

Other things you could add:

  • Like a bit of spice? You could add some chilli powder to the flour before adding to the vegetables
  • If you like things a bit richer, add 6 tbsp of cream to the sauce after it has finished cooking and after you have removed the beef.
  • Other herbs that would work well – oregano and sage.