This week’s French Fridays with Dorie (Boeuf à la mode, p 252) saw me making my first ever pot roast! (And if you are wondering, à la mode does not refer to “with ice cream” in this instance!) Yes, that’s right – I have never made a pot roast before, believe it or not! For what’s supposed to be a simple dish, I actually found this a little fussy – there were a lot of steps involved from marinating the beef overnight (I didn’t) to the complexities of straining the veggies, rendering the sauce, adding it all to a dutch oven after you’ve browned the meat in a skillet. I was in a right mess in the kitchen – tons of pans and dishes all around the place (does this sound surprising, mum? 😉 )
But once it’s in the oven, you just let it be for about 3 hours and enjoy the fabulous smells it permeates the house with.
I barely used the carving knife and fork – it was pretty tender straight out of the oven…
And instead of throwing away the soggy veggies (they had marinated with the beef, then been cooked with it in the sauce), I strained them from the sauce and blitzed them with an immersion blender to make a second mash to serve with the beef.
My sauce didn’t ever really thicken up, though I reduced it a lot, but that was ok. We had two types of mash to soak it up!
Verdict? This was pretty tasty (and left a lot of leftovers which I am thinking of using in this Jamie Oliver Korean stir-fried rice with poached eggs). I’ll make a pot roast again, for sure, I just might take a few shortcuts next time!
*** Hey Doristas – some of you know I spent a morning touring the giant wholesale market in Rungis with Dorie this past summer – well I finally got around to writing it up here***
French Fridays with Dorie participants do not publish the recipes on our blogs (though this week, you can find the recipe online here), we prefer if you purchase Around My French Table for yourselves which you can do here on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository. Go on, treat yourself then join us here!
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Beautiful, Mardi! Yeah, my usual pot roast takes about 5 minutes to throw together…but this one would be worth the effort for a special occasion.
Yeah I’d probably make this for a special occasion too…
Yup, a lot of steps but it was great at the end! Love that last picture!
Sigh. Summer really IS over, isn’t it? A pot roast is slightly depressing in that aspect.
BUT, hey, if one has to be depressed….one could at least be deliciously nourished at the same time. 😉
I love roasted and braised meats, generally. So Mardi/Dorie sort of had me captive at the outset.
The overnnight marinade would have added some nice flavour to the meat, which would have improved things. But the browning was superb, and the beef was a gorgeous quality so tasty in its own right. The veggie “mash” was an inspired idea; I would probably not whip so much, to retain a slight bit of chunky texture. But that’s my personal preference to avoid the “baby food” quality. A touch more garlic, too.
I paired this with a Pinyolet Garnacha from Spain. The dish could have handled something much heavier, of course: go for a full-flavoured robust red. Aussie Shiraz, Rhone, Californai Cab – whatever strikes your fancy.
A few months ago, I made my first roast trying to follow my mother’s recipe. It turned out well, if a little bland (the eye round I use is very lean). I thought marinating helped with that. Luckily for you, the richer chuck needs less help when it comes to flavor.
I have some leftover sauce in the freezer (my roast was just 2lb). I’m totally borrowing the carrot/onion mash idea. 🙂
We thought the same thing on this one… too many steps, unnecessary overnight marinade etc. Maybe because we both never made pot roast before we could step back from this recipe and be critical? Well, yours came out fantastic. How long did you actually marinade it, I’m curious?
Maybe 5 hours?
Clever idea on the mash – I always hate to waste those leftover vegetables and try to work them in somewhere if I can (after all, they have soaked up all that beef flavor!).
It looks lovely.
Fall is definitely here!
That roast looks CRAZY good!
My sauce doesn’t always thicken, either. You can add a bit of flour or starch,
but isn’t that what the bread is for?
Beautiful “first” pot roast. I love the idea of mashing the rest of the veggies…yum! I only marinated mine for several hours, otherwise I would not have had a post today. This was a bit fussy, but the outcome was wonderful!
If this comment seems hurried (I know my comments are usually very long and very wordy – sorry), it’s because I want to link over to Jamie Oliver (love him and what he stands for) and learn to do something different with my leftovers and I want to read about Rungis. So, Mardi, yeah, nice job with your first pot roast. I like your idea about sides even better. A little bread, to sop up the gravy, doesn’t hurt but it does add calories. While I will combine Dorie’s recipe with my mom’s recipe, the next pot roast I do, after marinating it, I’ll just throw into my slow cooker (crock pot) and let it cook all day.
Love the idea of using a crock pot!
My sauce didn’t thicken either. I ate (and loved!) the soggie veges! Glad you enjoyed this, but I think we all agree this week – it takes too long and there’s too much washing up!
Indeed – way too long and too much washing up!
It really looks incredible! Yumi!
Love Katie ♥
This was my first time cooking pot roast too, though yours looks more successful. I couldn’t bear to throw out the veggies, and meant to puree and add to the sauce to thicken it. Then I forgot about them. Maybe I’ll turn them into mash like you did. That sounds tasty too.
My veggies stayed sort of “whole” so we just ate them along side the meat, but that sounds
like a great idea to puree them, definitely flavorable.
I could smell this dish from the photographs.
Trouble is, quite warm down under at present and this really does look like a dish for a cold weekend.
Your kinda meal!
Great job with your first pot roast! I had made this before, and I figured out how to cut the number of pots way back. I used a Dutch oven and one saucepan. And it turned out perfectly.
We enjoyed this but I regret not throwing in more veggies. Of course now I also regret not thinking of hitting the ones I did use with my immersion blender 🙂 I like Mary’s idea of using Dorie’s recipe but sticking it in the crockpot. Why mess with success. PS- loved the Rungis post. Awesome !!
I like your idea of pureeing the veg. Seems such a waste not to use them! I may steal that when I make the beef this week.
Yup I thought it was a great way to not waste those roasted veggies!
OMG how beautiful!
For the record Mardi, I always thought that a roast beef dish (or pot roast, if you prefer) was a simple dish and little work goes into it – and for years, it did and for years, it was tough (or barely tender) and just wasn’t what I had expected it to be, and then learned it takes the labor of love and quite a few hours of roasting and resting to get it to be so lucious, but it’s worth the end result and we usually make quite a large roast since it’s one of our favorite leftover dishes! 🙂
My sauce didnt thicken either, but I loved the flavor! Great job!
Definitely the hours marinading make a difference to the tenderness…
Beautiful styling. I thought this was too fussy and could be streamlined – sous chef thought the same thing and kept wondering why I had to use another pan when the beef was just sitting there waiting, and wouldn’t it have been more efficient to do everything in the Dutch Oven. It was very tasty, but mine probably sat in the wine a tad too long.
This recipe could definitely be streamlined!
This was a first for me as well. I made it, I just haven’t gotten around to posting it yet. Hopefully this week. And I also found it to be a bit fussy for an “easy” dish. It was tasty, but not sure I’ll make it again.
A few of the “easy” dishes have been fussy lately…
Your photos of this are gorgeous. And it’s hard to make meat look all that gorgeous. Your sauce is beautiful and I love that you made a second mash out of the discarded veggies, why did I not think of that? Next time. I fell off the wagon after 35 recipes at FFWD with the extremely difficult times we were going through with our youngest son at the time and always regretted not doing this book so nine years later, I’m going through the book and making the recipes I really wanted to make from it and posting them on Fridays. The original connection to FFWD is broken at the site, so I can’t remember who all was cooking, but I remembered that you were so I will come each time I make a recipe and post it and see what you made and what you thought of it. Don’t feel you need to see mine, I just wanted you to know why all of a sudden you are getting comments on posts that are so old: it’s because I always love what you do with recipes and my treat after I make mine is to come and see what you did with it!