This one goes out to the Irish guy who got really angry about the tomato-based
pot roast that I cooked one time. He insisted that pot roast has plain brown gravy — and,
well, that sounds good to me today. The trick is how to
make the gravy taste like something. We'll get there. But first the meat.
Today I want a sliceable pot roast, rather than one that you break up into chunks,
and to get the best slices you want to look for an oblong piece of meat — meaning the
muscle fibers run side-to-side instead of up and down. We will slice across the fibers.
There's lots of cuts from the animal's hind quarters that people use for a sliceable pot
roast but this is from the shoulder. It's called the mock tenderloin, because it kinda looks like a
tenderloin, but it is not. It's one of the rotator cuff muscles. Much more intramuscular fat and
better flavor than any kind of round roast. It iss super chewy, but that's why we braise half a day.
Just to save on dirty dishes I'm oiling this up right in the cold
pan. A ton of pepper. A few big pinches of salt and then I'll just smoosh everything
around to get the roast coated. Then I'll turn on the heat to brown it.
For a steak or something you really have to get the pan hot before you put the meat in,
otherwise the inside will be overdone by the time the outside is brown. But
this is a big thick roast, so it's gonna be fine.
While that's heating up I'll peel and dice a few shallots — not necessary,
but they'll help the gravy taste like something, and if I cut them small
they're pretty much just gonna dissolve into the sauce over the long braise.
Let's see how the meat is doing. Gonna need more color than that,
but I really advise going easy. I'll actually turn the heat down a bit. You can brown a roast
really slowly and it comes out just as good. If you're too aggressive with your heat you
end up scorching the pan, like that. When that dissolves into the sauce it's gonna
make everything taste burned, especially in a plainly flavored dish like this.
You can grab like a wet paper towel with some tongs and rub it off — just deglaze that one
bad spot of the pan while you leave all the good brown fond intact. My heat is like medium and
I'm just gonna go nice and slow browning all the surfaces a bit. And if the brown is on the bottom
of the pan or on the meat itself it doesn't really matter. Everything is gonna dissolve
together in the braise. You just need some browning somewhere to create a base of flavor.
And honestly, that's enough. People think you've gotta get maximum browning
on every square millimeter but you hit a point of diminishing returns
where you mostly just risk creating burned flavors. That's good enough.
I'll throw my shallots in and let them fry for a couple minutes until
brown. And I swear this will not be a tomatoey pot roast. You will not
perceive a little squeeze of tomato paste as being tomatoey, especially if you brown
it. A little just goes a really long way toward intensifying the taste of a gravy.
Once that's browned, it's time to deglaze. And sure,
I'll use a carton of beef stock because I have one but it really doesn't make a huge
difference. You could just use water. You know what I need? My broad wooden spoon,
the queen of all cooking utensils. Use that to scrape all the brown stuff off the bottom.
If you look at those instant brown gravy packets they sell, the ingredients are
mostly just garlic powder, onion powder, maybe some powdered dry mushroom or yeast extract for
umami but if you don't have that you could just use some soy sauce, and then some assorted dry
herbs. Also those packets have starch, for thickening, but we'll do that later.
Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover so that the exposed meat steams. You could transfer this
to the oven, I would do 275ºF/135ºC but I'm gonna do it all on the stove today.
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Here's the roast like two hours later. I'll rotate it so the other side can soak a bit. Oh,
sorry I steamed you. If I poke at the meat a little and I can tell it's starting to soften
but it's gonna need like another two hours until it's tender. When I think I'm an hour,
hour and a half away I will start leisurely working on my vegetables.
Carrots will take the longest to cook, so those first. I think I'll do big, hearty chunks today.
Skinny ones can be whole pieces, fat ones I'll cut in half lengthwise. Honestly you
could have the carrots in from the beginning. Overcooked carrots are still pretty good.
Overcooked potatoes are not. In a stew, they fall apart and make the
gravy all gritty. It helps to use waxy potatoes. But I would not put these in
until the meat is pretty close to being done. When in doubt, wait,
because you could always take the meat out and hold it while the vegetables catch up.
I've got some celery I'll also cut into big, hearty chunks. And the last thing
I'll put in is some big chunks of green onion. Love these in stews, but I would
only cook those for like 20 minutes, max. I'll chop up the greens and save them for garnish.
Roast has been simmering for almost five hours when I push on it I can feel the meat fibers
pulling apart. I actually think I overcooked this a bit. If you want to be able to slice
your meat you've gotta stop braising just before it gets fall-apart tender. I'll take that out.
Give the veggies another few minutes until they're almost fork tender. Remember they're
gonna keep softening even after you take them out. I'm taking everything out with a slotted
spoon and transferring to a heat-safe platter I could hold in a warm oven until it's time to eat.
Time to finish the gravy. Sometimes I thicken at the beginning so that
I don't have to pull all the food out, but the advantage of doing it
at the end is you don't have to guess how much thickener you're gonna need.
It's not necessary, but I think one of the easiest ways to sex-up a gravy is to throw
in a packet or two of powdered gelatin. You can scatter that right onto the sauce,
but it's safer to disperse it in a little cool water first, to avoid clumps. It just
needs to sit for a few minutes to "bloom" and thicken. You'll see it happening.
Stir that into the sauce and it won't do much to thicken, at least not at such a low concentration,
but it will give the sauce a really sticky, glossy finish that I associate with good French
cooking even though this is ostensibly Irish. I'm really just trolling that Irish guy today.
For my main thickener I'm using a cornstarch slurry, but you could use any starch or flour.
Just disperse it in a small amount of cool water — cool so the starch doesn't gelatinize prematurely
and clump. Speaking of which, you've gotta drizzle really slowly and stir vigorously as you do this,
or else you're gonna get little ropes of starch in your stew. That looks like enough for now.
Let's taste that plain brown gravy — not bad. A little bland. Needs acid and pungency
and great way to get both is some mustard — any tart mustard. That's a great way to
elevate a plain gravy while not turning it into a curry or something. It still tastes
northwestern European, in that way that is bland at worst but clear and clean at best.
No one will know if you summon forth the upside down bear — they'll just know that
the gravy tastes better. A little sugar or honey just enhances everything else.
Adjust seasoning and all that, remember that the gravy is gonna thicken more as it cools to
eating temperature and yeah, we're done. Time to slice our beef against the grain. Yeah,
see, I overshot the mark and now it's shredding a bit as I slice. It's fine,
obviously. Gonna look great once covered in gravy. There's certainly no shortage of gravy.
Really satisfying and comfy, that is. Fall came all at once this year in East Tennessee,
and in that context this is really hitting the spot.