Pot Roast Perfection: How to Cook a Killer Pot Roast

I come from a large family with lots of brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles ... We love to celebrate holidays together and usually get together on at least one day of the weekend to have a good meal and watch whatever sport is in season on TV. We love to eat and we love sports and the two just seem to combine wonderfully, to everyone's delight.

Somehow, over the years, I have become the family's meat cooking expert and usually get roped into cooking that part of the menu when we assemble. I just seem to have developed an intuition about cooking meat. Whatever it is, the results usually make everyone happy.

When I was much younger, I used cookbooks, but I don't anymore because I've found they are often unreliable when it comes to cooking meat properly and ovens and stoves can be tricky too.

Ovens and stoves vary widely in temperature settings. "Medium" on one stove's burner is often not comparable to medium on another stove. And as far as ovens are concerned, temperature settings can be compromised by the age of the stove, the kind of heat circulation it actually has and how reliable it is in turning on and shutting off (that is, regulating a constant temperature setting) to maintain the temperature you want.

This Pot Roast is a Family Favorite

During the fall and winter, the hands-down favorite dinner in our family is a nice big pot roast dinner. And it is truly delicious and satisfying, if you take the time to do it right. The members of my family get dreamy looks in their eyes just thinking about it. But I learned how to deliver this satisfying gut-buster by trial and error over a number of years. It didn't just happen. Believe me, I'm no Einstein of cooking.

What I'm going to do here is give you my Basic Pot Roast Dinner recipe and cooking instructions. You can put your own spin on it, anyway you like. The basic recipe is very versatile.

The Foundations and First Principles of a Great Pot Roast Dinner

• It takes time and patience to do it right. The meat has to be cooked slowly and watched carefully. You can't pop it in the oven and run off to the mall for a few hours. And this isn't any 30 minute quickie deal you can whip up after a hard day at the office.
• It all starts with a great piece of meat. This is essential. Preferably it should be fresh, never frozen, and well marbled, but not with big pockets of fat.
• If you have to use a frozen piece of meat, do not put it in the microwave to defrost, even on the defrost settings. This will ruin the meat and make it impossibly tough. Nor should you put it in water to accelerate defrosting. You'll lose a lot of flavor that way, and once it's gone, it's gone. Let it defrost naturally, and it should be fine.
• You will need a properly sized pan that allows at least 3 inches of space all around the roast when it is put in the pan. The sides of the pan should be 3-4 inches high from the bottom (or 3-4 inches deep). I've used both ceramic and metal pans, but I've always gotten better results with a good metal pan.

The Other Ingredients and Things You'll Need to Assemble

• Garlic powder
• 4-5 big yellow onions
• Sea salt or Kosher salt
• Fresh ground pepper
• A tub of margarine or butter
• Fresh potatos (as many as you want)

• Fresh carrots (same as above)

Preparing the Oven

Remove all oven racks but one and put it on the center shelf. Pre-heating: I pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees way ahead of time, 45-50 minutes, so that the heat is fully and evenly distributed through the oven. Probably isn't good for the electric bill, but this works wonders for cooking the meat correctly. Some cookbooks say to cook pot roast at 350, but that doesn't really deliver the most flavorful roast, I've found. "Low and Slow" are the watch words for a great pot roast.

Preparing the Meat for the Oven

• Season with garlic powder, salt and pepper
• Braise the roast on medium high on the stove top in butter or margarine in a frying pan. The roast should become dark brown and a little stiff to the touch on the surface when this is down right. But be careful not to cook the meat, just braise it.
• Fill the roasting pan with about 1/4 inch of water.
• Place the roast in the roasting pan and cover loosely with aluminum foil.
• Put the roast in the oven.

While the roast is cooking, clean and cut up the vegetables into large chunks. Put them aside until about the last hour of cooking the roast. At that point you will add them to the area in the pan surrounding the roast and recover everything loosely with foil and return the pan to the oven.

Check the roast every half hour to make sure the pan hasn't dried out or that the roast isn't cooking too fast. It may be necessary to add a little more water to bring it back to the 1/4" level.

How to Tell When the Roast is Cooked to Perfection

Usually, but not always, cooking time for a pot roast is about 30-40 minutes per pound. But you can't really go by that, because pot roast meat differs from piece to piece and ovens vary widely too.

The only way you can check accurately is with a fork. Stick the fork into the meat and twist it. If the meat gives way easily to the fork, the roast is done. The meat should be a little loose and easily pulled apart, if it is cooked correctly.

If you follow these directions, the only problem you are going to have is keeping people out of the kitchen asking, "Is it done yet?" The house will become full of a wonderful aroma and everyone will want you to hurry up. But you can't hurry a good pot roast or it will be tough and not half as tasty as it will be if you stick with this recipe.

Give those hungry folks a couple of raw carrots and tell them to be patient!

Remember, "low and slow."