Pot Roast and More

Sinnetti Piper

Family

Family and food go hand in hand. I was born in Houston, Texas and lived there until I was 13 years old. My father was a chef who loved cooking fresh food, he inherited this trait from his mother. My grandmother grew fresh fruits and vegetables in her back yard. She had a strawberry and pea vine growing on the fence in her back yard. This is where my father developed his love of fresh home-grown food. My father passed in February 2007. My father adored cooking. He would cook for anybody and everybody. He gained pleasure in watching people eat his food. My father was a chef in Texas and Louisiana. No matter where my father resided, he had to grow a garden. Once he became a chef he understood the importance of growing and cooking fresh food. My father loved presentation, he felt food needed to look delicious, as well as taste delicious. The dinner table for the holidays always looked like a picture from a magazine. He also gained this trait from my grandmother. Every Thanksgiving and Christmas was a production when I was younger. When I went to live with him as a teenager he made sure he kept the tradition alive making sure to invite my grandmother to dinner, so she could see his enhanced presentation skills. I never learned any of these traits from him and I regret it. He would cook pot roast in the old Dutch oven and it always looked like it was from a world-famous painter. I didn’t want to eat it, I just loved the presentation. His pot roast had the deepest flavors and was so tender you could consume it with a spoon. I never took the time to learn how to make pot roast from my father or grandmother, so I had to find my own unique recipe.

Pot Roast Beginnings

Pot Roast has been a staple in my family for many generations. It’s a dish I began cooking for my family from an old green hardcover cookbook with no name on the outside cover. When my daughter was a year old we moved into a two-bedroom duplex in Oakland, California. Upon moving we discovered there was a small square cover in the ceiling of the hall way. About month after moving her father decided to explore this square cover and we discovered it was an attic. He found several books on different topics. The book he found most interesting was an old green hardcover cookbook. It was an American classics cookbook. This where I found my Pot Roast recipe and a too die for Chicken and Dumplings recipe. The dumplings were made from scratch not from biscuit dough. I lost the cookbook when I moved to Los Angeles but was able to cook the pot roast enough to memorize the recipe. I didn’t remember all the ingredients for the chicken and dumplings, but that’s another story.

Cooking pot roast for my family is truly a production because the pot roast dinner is a huge dinner. The full meal consists of pot roast, steak, red potatoes, yellow potatoes, baby carrots, rice, gravy and green peas. I only make pot roast once or twice a year and only by request from my family. When I began making pot roast I started off by only baking it in the oven and over the years I’ve alternated between the oven and the slow cooker. This cook book entry will combine both the oven and the slow cooker. I’m cooking the pot roast in the crock pot and I’m cooking the potatoes, carrots, and steak in a roasting bag in the oven. I love the roasting bag because it locks in the seasoning of the food. The flavor reminds me of when my father cooked pot roast. I put a lot of time and effort into cooking pot roast. Pot Roast is only cooked when I have the day off. Pot Roast is time consuming I love to place my blood, sweat, and tears into this meal.

Pot Roast and More

“Pot roast, is a term for browned meat cooked with vegetables in a covered pot. It began appearing in cookbooks in the late 19th century, but this method of slow cooking in liquid, known as braising, is centuries older”. (Robbins, 2017). Pot roast originated in New England, and then became an American staple. “Yankee pot roast is a dish that originated in the United States but is based off a European cooking technique called braising” (Cavallari, 2018). Pot roast is also a meal that can feed many in a family because the cuts of meat are thick but inexpensive and the vegetables and starches that accompany the pot roast such as carrots, potatoes and peas are inexpensive. The cuts of meat that are used to cook Pot Roast is very filling, which is a positive for a large family. Pot roast consist of cut of meat such as chuck roast, which are tough cuts of meat but easy to braise. This means they can make their own juices. The best cuts of meat for pot roast are chuck roast, rump roast, and my personal favorite when you can find it bone-in chuck roast. A bone-in chuck roast is the best because of the rich flavor and when baked in the oven is very tender. It melts in your mouth. Pot roast may not be the healthiest meal because most of meat is made from fat. “A 100-gram, or 3.5-ounce, serving of boneless beef chuck has 196 calories and 0 g of carbohydrates. It has 19 g of protein, or 38 percent of the daily value. Beef chuck has 13 g of total fat, or 117 calories from fat, since fat has 9 g per gram. This means that beef chuck gets nearly 60 percent of its calories from fat. Beef chuck roast has only 76 mg of sodium, but it will have more if you braise it in salty broth” (livestrong.com). I’m glad I cook this high calorie meal only once or twice a year.

Carbs and Gravy

Let’s discuss the delicious starches that go along with my pot roast such as the potatoes, rice, and gravy. The reason I cook so many starches with my pot roast is because the potatoes and carrots always go quickly. The process I use to prolong the meal is to add rice, gravy and green peas. “Potatoes are a good source of fiber, potassium, vitamin C, and vitamin B6, coupled with its lack of cholesterol, all support heart health. Fiber helps lower the total amount of cholesterol in the blood, thereby decreasing the risk of heart disease” (potatogoodness.com). I love roasted potatoes with pot roast. The best potatoes are red and yellow, and the roasting bag adds just the correct amount of flavor. Red and yellow potatoes are small delicious potatoes. They taste great cooked with the skin on and the flavor is amazing. Potatoes have been around for centuries. “The potato, from the perennial Solanum tuberosum, is the world’s fourth largest food crop, following rice, wheat, and maize. The Inca Indians in Peru were the first to cultivate potatoes around 8,000 BC to 5,000 B.C” (potatogoodness.com). There are several different types of potatoes, for example russet, red, yellow, white, fingerling and ect. “A medium, red-skinned potato that’s baked measures about 2.25 to 3.25 inches in diameter. If you eat the skin and flesh of the potato, you’ll get 153 calories, 3 grams of protein and less than 1 gram of fat, according the U.S. Department of Agriculture” (Kannall, 2017). The nutrition facts also shows that red and yellow potatoes are good for you if you are trying to live a low calorie and low-fat diet if you don’t consume too many.

I also cook rice which is a starch and rice is also very inexpensive. Rice cooks very easily and quickly. Rice and potatoes are staples in most households because they can sustain impoverished families. I can remember as child just eating rice because I loved the taste of rice with butter and sugar. Rice is a major source of food for people all over the world. Rice can be grown and eaten in almost every continent in the world, such as Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and so on. Rice can be grown in different type of weather conditions.  Rice comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors for instance we have long grain, medium, white, brown, red, and wild. Rice has help to save nations from poverty. “African rice helped Africa conquer its famine of 1203” (ricepedia.com). Rice tastes awesome with gravy. The one thing I did learn to make from my father was gravy and I rarely ruin gravy. I’ve placed the recipe below.

Vegetables

The vegetables for my pot roast consist of baby carrots in a roasted bag and plain canned green peas. “Carrots are healthy for the human body, they provide β-carotene, dietary fiber, antioxidants, minerals. Carrots can be eaten without cooking, carrot are a root type vegetable’s and usually are orange” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot). Carrots also come in variety of other colors such as purple, black, red, white, and yellow.  “Home of carrots and its numerous cousins can be tracked to dry and hot lands of Iran and Afghanistan. Earliest evidence of its use there was dated to 3000 BC” (www.vegatablefacts.net). The other vegetable I use with my pot roast dinner is canned or frozen peas. I love sweet peas, they are quick and easy to make. This meal is a huge meal, but it’s very filling and my family loves it. I love making this meal because it reminds me of my father. I dedicate this cookbook entry to my father.

Ingredients:

Pot Roast

2 lbs beef roast

1 pound of flat steak

1 table spoon of minced garlic

2 cups of red potatoes

2 cups of yellow potatoes

1 ½ cup of baby carrots

1 can green peas

2 table spoons of Worcestershire sauce

2 table spoons of white cooking wine

1 table spoon of sherry cooking wine

1 table spoon of lemon juice

Salt, seasoning and pepper to taste

Rice and Gravy

1 ½ cup of rice

2 table spoons of unbleached flour

2 table spoons of olive oil

Directions for Pot Roast in the slow cooker and

Directions for Steak, potatoes and Carrots in the oven

First, I brown the pot roast by placing about 1 to 2 tables spoons of oil in the pan. Let the grease get hot then I place the pot roast in the skillet and brown on both sides for about 3 minutes on each side.

I place the Worcestershire sauce, white cooking wine, sherry cooking wine, lemon juice, seasonings, and minced garlic in the bottom of the crock pot. Next, I place in the pot roast on top of these ingredients. Then I repeat the above ingredients again on top the pot roast. I place the top on the slow cooker.

I place the slow cooker on 8 hours and wait until five hours have passed then I will place in the potatoes and carrots.

For this recipe I cooked the carrots and potatoes in the oven along with the steak.

I preheated my oven at 350 degrees.

I season the steak with Worcestershire sauce, white cooking wine, sherry cooking wine, lemon juice, and seasonings.

I cut the red and yellow potatoes in 4 squares. I cut the baby carrots in half.

Then I placed all ingredients steaks, carrots, and potatoes in the roasting bag. I seal the roasting bag loosely to make sure steam can escape.

I place the roasting bag in a glass Pyrex pan and place in the oven to cook for 2 ½ hours.

Directions for Brown Gravy or Roux

In a medium skillet place 2 table spoons of olive oil (use olive oil, but any oil can be used)

Let the oil get very hot, next place in 2 table spoons of unbleached flour, stir together with the oil.

Next, I place in some seasoning and when mix the correct brown color I desire I then add in one cup of water, if the gravy is too thick I will add water until it’s the consistency I desire.

Finally, I taste and if needed I add more non salt seasoning, then serve.

The rice, gravy and peas from the can or frozen are cooked last with the meal.

References

Robbins, H. (2017, October 27). Yankee Pot Roast | Recipe with A History. Retrieved March 02, 2018, from https://newengland.com/yankee-magazine/food/main-dishes/pot-roast/yankee-pot-roast-beef-gravy/

Cavallari, D., & Harris, B. (2018, February 10). What is Yankee Pot Roast? Retrieved March 02, 2018, from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-yankee-pot-roast.htm

Stein, N. (2017, October 03). Boneless Beef Chuck Roast Nutritional Values. Retrieved March 02, 2018, from https://www.livestrong.com/article/542133-boneless-beef-chuck-roast-nutritional-values/

Potato Facts | The History of Potatoes | Facts About Potatoes. (n.d.). Retrieved March 02, 2018, from https://www.potatogoodness.com/potato-fun-facts-history/

Kannall, E. (2017, October 03). Nutrition in Red Potatoes. Retrieved March 02, 2018, from https://www.livestrong.com/article/322492-red-potatoes-nutrition/

History of Carrots. (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2018, from http://www.vegetablefacts.net/vegetable-history/history-of-carrots/

History of rice cultivation. (n.d.). Retrieved March 03, 2018, from http://ricepedia.org/culture/history-of-rice-cultivation

Chicken and Dumplings: The Great Equalizer of Southern Cooking. (2017, May 25). Retrieved March 05, 2018, from https://www.tastecooking.com/chicken-dumplings-great-equalizer-southern-cooking/

Spiegel, A. (2015, January 12). A Brief History Of The Crock Pot, The Original Slow Cooker. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/12/what-is-a-crock-pot_n_6443398.html

J., Says, R., Says, J., Says, G., Says, A., Says, K. B., . . . Says, D. L. (2016, August 29). Brown Gravy Recipe – Simple 5-Minute Comfort Food. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from http://www.unclejerryskitchen.com/recipes/brown-gravy-recipe/

Carrot. (2018, April 03). Retrieved April 03, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot