Tavern Pot Roast! OH YEAH!

I've made a pretty mean tavern styled pot roast for many years. It's always been a great dish for a crowd, and you can make a ton of it and it always gets eaten.

Many moons ago I worked in a pub and on the weekends we'd always make something to eat. Always wanted to give people something good to eat to go home on. We'd always run out, so you had to show up early enough to get some. It was kind of my idea at this particular pub (as a bartender), and given my Irish roots I usually wound up doing the cooking.

Our fare would usually be something on the order of corned beef & cabbage, beef stew, lamb stew or one of my specialties, tavern pot roast. The place didn't really have a kitchen so we had to improvise (it was built in the 1800's). The tavern pot roast was always a favorite in the small cozy little pub, especially this time of year, what with the fire in the fire place and the great ales!

So, with no further adieu, here's the recipe... (I'll list the recipe for 4, but you can scale it up or down)

3 lbs of beef chuck pot roast (marbled is good)
8oz of whole mushrooms, cut in half
3 whole large carrots, cut into 2" pieces and sliced in half
4+ small Yukon yellow potatoes (any taters will do, just cut back if you use the big ID bakers)
2 cups of beef stock (and another cup of your secret ingredient*)
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1+ onion rough chopped
AND...at least one pint of some really good ale (something hoppy is really good here)

*Secret ingredient - about another cup of blended mushrooms, beer, beef stock, onions and spices (think - Basil)

Instructions-

1. cut the meat in half (unless the whole piece will fit in your pot). Salt and pepper both sides. Let stand for 30+ minutes to warm up.
2. Warm up your pot to saute temps and add some olive oil.
3. Brown the beef on both sides in the pot for at least 2 minutes per side. Remove, and put the next piece in.
4. De-glaze the pot with a cup of the beef stock. Scrape all the brown yummies off the pan into the stock.
5. Add the onions and the garlic, and simmer for a couple minutes.
6. Add the beef on top of the simmering onion chunks and the garlic.

Now, you have (2) directions you can go here...one is with a slow cooker, and the other is with a pressure cooker. The first takes 6-8 hours, the latter takes about 1.5 hours. The result is the same. (I mostly used a conventional pressure cooker over a gas burner).

If using a slow cooker (Crock pot type thing) - add in the rest of the ingredients and set to cook on med for roughly 6-8 hours.

If using a pressure cooker (best way) - add the rest of the ingredients and set to cook for 50 minutes on steam, and then let cool without releasing steam early (i.e. natural release) which will take another 20 minutes or so. Dump the rest of the steam safely (if any)...

...AND....

You now have one of the best tavern pot roasts known to mankind!!

Trust me...this works!

I'd do this dish with 10-12lbs of meat and gallons of ingredients at the pub. I don't think we made any money on it, but that wasn't the point. The money came on the other side in the form of drinks and tips (where we made thousands).

It was a limited time only thing, and not a regular fare...so we we weren't making money on it, but more than a few fellow man made it home on a nice supper and a coffee after a long evening at the bar.

This stuff is GOOOOOOOD!!!

What's for supper tonight????

Tavern Pot Roast ala FCD!

YUP!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I make similar roasts all the time in my pressure cooker. It's so easy to get them tender to where you don't even have to chew.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
What's for supper tonight????

Tavern Pot Roast ala FCD!

YUP!

Lemme help you out

Dad was a meat and 'patatah's' man. Full-on Irish blood. Maybe my hard-headed-ness comes from him, I'm sure it does.

Never give up, spirit, it's all in me. Good food too!

Best.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I'm going to try this soon, maybe this week or next. We are starting to have cold wet chilly days and this sounds perfect.

I'm just curious about the basil. I find that it gives a lot of foods an Italian flair, which I don't prefer unless it is an Italian dish.

Looked so familiar I asked my wife to read the recipe. VERY close to what we do in a slow cooker. 'cept not "10-12 POUNDS" of meat. Good Lord, that would feed us for a month. Will remember the basil. Thanks.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Actually, basil alone is a great spice...it's the oregano which gives it that Italian lean. As long as you don't combine the basil with oregano you're good.

Basil is actually a very sweet spice. Love me some fresh basil in just about everything! Has kind of a licorice hint, but not as strong as anise. Don't overdo it and you'll love it.

a reply to: schuyler

Well, remember, the recipe I actually posted was only for 2-3lbs of beef (not 10-12, that was in the bar days).

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Pot roast. The King of dinners.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Sounds good....but what if I want to do this in the oven?
350 for ???
250 for ???

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Actually, I'd probably do it on the stove in a cast iron dutch oven before I'd pick the oven. However, to answer your question I wouldn't go over 275 in the oven. Just make sure it's covered with a heavy lid. Two hours maybe (again, I've never made it in the oven so that's a guess). Note - 2 hours might be light, but I'd be checking it for done-ness on a pretty regular basis after this, it could maybe go to 3.

ETA - Just keep an eye on it if you're going to do it in the oven. Don't go past 325, else you'll risk catching it.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

The oven it is, then. Thanks.
I've done briskets in the oven, and they have come out moist and tender....but they have enough fat.

....unless..
I do have a dutch oven for the stove top, but it's a copper-bottom stainless steel.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

I strongly recommend a cast iron dutch oven (just in general). You don't have to go crazy and get a Le Creuset, but you can get something like a Lodge (they even make a porcelain one now) and still get fantastic results. I still have several Lodges also and I still love them (can't hold a candle to my Le Creuset's, but I can't cook over a campfire/grill with those like I can with my Lodge's). The thing about the cast iron pots is how evenly they heat, even with heat only under the bottom. It's like an oven, but without the oven. You can use them in the oven too (obviously).

As you probably might guess, I'm also going to recommend a pressure cooker, but that might be too involved, so I understand.

How many are you cooking for? I might have a dandy suggestion for you if it's just 2-3 people.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

It is 2-3 people.

I'm just not a crock pot fan....I've had them and given them away....to me, it dries out meat as it leeches juices into the liquid.

I hear what you're saying about the cast iron. But cupboard space is limited.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Well, here's a suggestion for you. You won't have to worry about cupboard space because you'll never put this away. It's a 3.2 quart combo which will serve as a dutch oven, a skillet, a sauce pan and a deep fryer, or all four at the same time. You can use it on the stove top, the oven and even in a fire. This is one handy pot. I love mine. I bought one about 2 years ago and I use it all the time.

You can pick these up at Walmart for about $49 bucks.

Lodge LCC3

The top seals down on the bottom just like a regular dutch oven, but can also be used as a skillet which is handy as heck.

Once you season one of these bad boys clean-up is a piece of cake. Just heat up some hot water in it, wipe it out and rub some oil on it. It's good to go for next time. Mine just stays on my stove, or if I need the space I just stick it in the oven.

ETA - All told we probably have about 40 pieces of cast iron cookware (half Le Creuset and half Lodge). This particular pot is one of my favorites next to maybe my big LC dutch oven.

ETA2 - One of the great things about cast iron is, the dutch ovens work a lot like a pressure cooker (believe it or not). Because the lids are heavy, and they're machined very well, so they seal on the bottom pretty snugly just with their weight. This creates pressure inside the pot which allows higher temps just like a pressure cooker.

A little off-topic here (all in the spirit of a great pot roast though!), but I usually do some mods to my Lodge cast iron pots which makes them even better than they already are. Lodge puts a pre-seasoning on their raw cookware to save people from having to season them. I don't like the way they do it so I actually grind it off. This is kind of an interesting process so I hope you'll follow along.

Cast iron, as you may know, is made by casting molten iron into sand molds. When the iron sets they break the sand mold away and you have the casting (a pot in this case). The finished surface of the metal has a sandy texture (from the sand). High end manufacturers then apply a kiln fired porcelain glaze to the pans to smooth them out. Raw cast iron doesn't have this and needs to be "seasoned" as a result. Seasoning is just building up a layer of baked on oil on the pan to make it non-stick. Food sticking is most people's #1 complaint about cast iron, but it shouldn't be. My cast iron is more non-stick than a teflon pan (truthfully).

Many people don't know how to properly season cast iron, so Lodge decided to pre-season it for them (nice gesture, but it doesn't work for me). I'm not sure what they do exactly, but I'd rather season my own. So what I do is grind off the pre-seasoning with a grinder and a sander, and then grind down the pan until it is as smooth as a baby's bottom (removing all the sandy texture). Of course this removes all the seasoning in the process (which is okay by me). Then I just re-season the pan my way (using olive oil and oven heat). After I do this several times I can cook a fried egg on one of these pans with no grease even, they're that smooth. Flip the eggs, no problem.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

I dream of Copper-clad Pots and Pans... but you need to cook Beef on Iron... Cast Iron. I have made Spaghetti Sauce in two different pans just to prove my point. One was my only copper clad pan (fries a mean chicken, or sweet Walleye), which, is a frying pan (love it). And, I also have an old Grinswold Frying Pan (actually a Dutch and Frying Pan passed down in the family) and the difference is startling.

Caste Iron is Beefs best buddy, plus it boosts your iron intake, and, steak smells like steak in iron, not fried dog food.