PINOY POT ROAST

I just tried my hand at cooking a pot roast yesterday, because I was afraid that hurricane Emily might knock out the electricity and make the frozen stuff rot. Aside from that, I've wanted to try pot roast because it looked similar to my favourite Filipino dish that my daddy used to make, beef caldereta. In the interests of energy efficiency, I also baked the potatoes I had left, as well as the pork chops I marinated with cracked pepper marinade for an hour.

I started with a very simple recipe and switched to another right in the middle, because the first one would take too long and too much electricity. I also took some (okay, a lot of) liberties with the recipes (ingredients, measurements and cuts), so I crossed my fingers and toes that the end result wouldn't come out too badly. Anyway, I'll call it Pinoy pot roast.

First, I rubbed the boeuf (3.5 lb bottom round roast) with salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. What that was, I didn't know, so thank goodness I had bought a couple packets of Italian seasoning a few weeks ago - for the free cruet. I suppose that's what the recipe meant, so I just dumped the whole packet. It contained sugar, salt, garlic, onion, red bell pepper, carrots, parsley - all finely ground - and other stuff that sounded chimique, so I won't include them here.

I then browned each side of the beef in 1 tbsp oil for exactly 8 minutes in a large wok. It was supposed to be a really large covered pot, but I didn't have one big enough. While I was doing that, I was chopping 2 onions with this handy gizmo bottle and I also got out the roughly chopped garlic that comes in jars. Hey, if I don't have to make it from scratch, so much the better. ^_^

I opened a can of diced tomatoes Italian style (with basil, oregano and olive oil) and readied a cup of red wine. When the roast was browned on all sides, I removed it and placed it on a 2 1/4 in deep baking pan. I added 2 more tbsp oil, dumped the onions and about 3 tsp garlic into the pan with the beef essence. I cooked them for 5 minutes, then added the tomatoes and wine and cooked it for a further 3 minutes.

In the meanwhile, I had defrosted what was leftover of a packet of mixed veggies already and I added them to the baking pan with a capful of dried thyme and 5 basil leaves. I was following the recipes, but I also substituted stuff, like, instead of leeks, celery and carrots (as the second recipe stated, but were not even in the first recipe), I just used what I had, which were the mixed veggies (chopped string beans, peas, & carrots).

The pan of onions et al. I poured into the baking pan, then covered the whole thing with foil that I had poked some holes in to release steam. I put it in the oven to cook for 2 hours.

At this point, I needed some space to prepare the potatoes, so I cleaned up the dishes in the sink. I put out about 3.5 lbs of potatoes, 2+ lbs. to bake and 1+ lb to cut up for the pot roast (must've been 20 potatoes or so). I scrubbed them with a wire brush that Hubby bought from Home Depot (his toy store), and it's wonderfully effective for getting out the soil. After drying them on a paper towel, I pricked about a dozen of them all over with a fork 8x and lightly coated them with oil and sea salt. I placed them carefully on the rack with the pot roast, which, at this time, had already been baking for 1 & 1/2 hours. I also needed to put my flat baking pan under the potatoes to catch anything that fell.

The rest of the potatoes - about 8 of the smallest ones - were quartered. After 2 hours in the oven, I removed the pot roast to insert the potatoes and put it back to bake for another 30 minutes. I also put in 3 pork chops, still in their marinade, under the pot roast to use the space.

When all was done, I removed the pot roast from the veggies and had Hubby slice it. I strained the veggies and put the sauce back into the pot with 3 tbsp of butter and 3 tbsp of flour which had been mashed into a paste beforehand. This was done to make a gravy, and was cooked for 5 minutes. I poured it over the sliced beef, and put the veggies in a separate dish.

Hubby liked it a lot, and that's the highest praise I could ever want. ^_^ Thank goodness everything turned out well. This wasn't the first successful recipe I did, but the second. My first was clam chowder from Julia Child's recipe, and it was rather easy. That's when I first used the potatoes. I do so love anything with clams. Next time I'll try to do spaghetti alla vongole (spaghetti with clams in fresh tomato sauce) - which I really miss and is my absolute favourite - and the best I've had was from Dulcinea.

The baked potatoes will go nicely with butter, crumbled bacon, parsley, and freshly ground pepper for a snack. I already got one and ate it straight for a midnight feast. Yum!













images from
http://www.txbeef.org/recipe.php3?111211212
http://www.waterstreetco.com/corpus_christi/menu_sidedishes.html