Receta French Onion Pot Roast
I made one of the best tasting pot roasts for Boat Club last week. Well, I'm still working on perfecting the pot roast, but I'm getting closer. I really liked this one, and I have to say thanks to Trisha Yearwood for the idea.
I was watching Food Network last weekend and she made a roast using canned french onion and golden mushroom soup. It looked rather intriguing, but I don't use canned soups much and when I read the reviews on her recipe, a lot of the comments had to do with how salty it was. I don't use a lot of salt, but I do use Au Jus mix from time to time, and I know it is salty.
Did I get your attention? Really?
Good.
I decided to do a riff on her recipe for Boat Club. I picked up a couple of chuck roasts, and some onions and proceeded to do this.
First off, I sliced 4 onions, and sautee'd them in a little olive oil, over medium low heat for almost 45 minutes, until the onions were cooked through, and starting to turn golden. In the meantime I mixed up a package of McCormick's Au Jus mix and 6 cups of water, added a good tablespoon and a half of Worcestershire sauce and added the onions to the Au Jus mix and simmered them for another 45 minutes or so. And then since it smelled so good, I dished up a bowl and had it for lunch. But there was still lots of soup left.
Next up I took each roast and dusted it with a little pepper before dredging it in flour. Well, I dredged one side in flour. In the meantime I had a saucepan heating on the stove top with a tablespoon of olive oil in it, and then I browned the roast on one side.
While the first side was browning I added a little pepper to the other side, and sprinkled it with some flour and rubbed it in just a little. You don't need much flour, but some is good.
After browning them roasts, I placed them in a crockpot and poured some of the stock from the soup into the pan. I wanted the fond left behind, it was lovely and brown and I knew it would add so much flavour to the pot roasts. After deglazing the pan with the soup, I put the rest of it over the roasts and left them to cook on high for about 4 hours. I also raided pruned my Thyme plant and added a some fresh thyme sprigs to the meat. My crockpot tends to cook a little on the high side, temperature wise and I knew the meat would be tender in plenty of time for the Boat Club.
Of course while that was simmering away, I baked off a loaf of my new favourite recipe for bread. My No-Knead bread is fast becoming a staple in my house. I also baked a loaf of Rye Bread at the same time, and it turned out fantastic. I'll tell you all about that in a future post though.
After the pot roasts were cooked to tender perfection, I pulled the meat out, and cut them into chunks, well, tried to carve them up into slices, but the meat was so tender, it didn't work. I also took out the fattiest bits and my dog got a treat. She likes it when I do stuff like that.
I took some of the gravy and thickened it up, and added it back into the rest of the stock, then placed the meat back into the pot and kept it warm. The onions had cooked out and helped to make this such a lovely flavourful dish. I think though, I might just add some carrots the next time I make this, it was lacking something. Or maybe not?
And it was good.