A classic beef roast made by boiling (er, simmering, thanks Trina) a large chunk of meat in a pot with vegetables and broth. The meat is very tender and flavorful, absorbing flavor and juices from the vegetables it is cooked with. The pot roast cut is typically from the chuck; cuts include boneless chuck pot roast, cross rib pot roast, under blade pot roast, and 7-bone pot roast. You can usually also use any other beef roast, such as a rib eye roast.
A recipe,
from memory:
- Peel the onions, leave them whole, and stick 2 cloves in each.
- Chop the rest of the vegetables into largeish pieces, bigger than bite-size.
- Heat a large pot on hight heat and melt some butter or oil in the bottom of it.
- Sear the roast in the pot on all sides. It should be brown like a well-done steak on the outside, but still raw inside. This is to let the juices stew inside the roast.
- If you have red wine, pour on enough to be absorbed by the meat, plus a little extra.
- Once the roast is fully seared, turn the heat down to medium. Fully surround the roast with vegetables, packed tightly. Lift up the roast at first and put some potatoes and carrots underneath it.
- Add beef bullion to cover the roast about halfway. If you don't have beef bullion or bullion cubes, french onion soup mix is another option. Of course you could just use water, but the roast wouldn't be as flavorful.
- Cover the pot and let the roast simmer for a good 5 hours. You should flip the roast halfway through, but otherwise leave it undisturbed.
Find the bay leaves and discard them. Take the cloves out of the onions. Remove the roast from the vegetables and carve it into thick slices. Serve the vegetables separately and the broth as gravy. Leftovers make kickass beef stew.
This is a great meal to cook while camping, if you have a dutch oven. It can be tedious tending a fire for 5 hours while cooking, but it's worth it. I've found that suspending the dutch oven from a tripod allows you to most easily maintain the temperature.