Pot Roast
Wipe five pounds beef cut from top of round; put bits of fat in an iron frying pan, shake over fire until tried out (there should be about one-fourth cup fat). Rub meat over with salt, dredge with flour and sear quickly over in hot fat turned into the pot in which meat is to roast. Add one cup boiling water, cover closely and cook slowly until meat is tender (about four or five hours), turn occasionally, add only sufficient water to prevent meat burning. The last hour of cooking sprinkle well with salt and pepper. Serve with brown gravy made from liquor in pot.
A plain braise with no oven, no aromatics and no liquid to speak of — the whole thing rests on a heavy covered pot and a very low flame. A few notes on translating it.
- The hinge: keep the liquid lowThis is not a stew. One cup of water at the start and only enough afterward to keep the bottom from scorching means the meat steams and browns in its own fat rather than boiling. Adding liquid to cover will give you grey, stringy beef and thin gravy.
- The cut"Top of round" is still sold as top round, but it is leaner than the chuck most cooks now reach for. Five pounds of top round will be firm and sliceable rather than falling apart; a boneless chuck roast of the same weight is more forgiving and yields richer gravy.
- Trying out the fat"Tried out" means rendered. The scraps of beef fat are melted slowly in the pan and the crisp bits discarded, leaving about a quarter cup of clear dripping. Beef tallow, lard or a neutral oil does the same job if your butcher has no suet to spare.
- SearingGet the fat shimmering before the meat goes in, and dry the surface after dredging so the flour browns instead of gumming. Sear all sides including the ends — the flour crust is what thickens the gravy later.
- Heat and timeFour to five hours suits a coal range's slow corner. On a modern burner use the lowest setting that keeps a bare tremble of a simmer, or set the covered pot in a 300F oven, where the heat is steadier. Top round is done at roughly 190-200F internal, when a fork twists freely.
- SaltingThe recipe salts the outside twice, once before searing and again in the last hour. Salting the whole roast the day before and refrigerating it uncovered will season it further in and dry the surface for a better crust.
- The gravySkim the fat from the pot liquor, then loosen the browned glaze with a little water or stock. There will not be much liquid; a cup of stock and a spoonful of flour cooked in the reserved fat will stretch it to enough for the table.
- YieldFive pounds of round serves eight to ten, with leftovers, which is part of the point: a roast this size was bought to be eaten cold as well as hot.
Pot roasting predates the household oven: a heavy lidded pot set over a low fire or banked in the coals let a cook turn a cheap, hard-working muscle into something carvable without a spit or a baking chamber. Top of round came from the hindquarter and was affordable in the way that rib and sirloin were not. The scheme here — sear, then close the pot — is the American reading of the same logic behind French boeuf à la mode and German Sauerbraten, minus the wine, the vegetables and the vinegar marinade. The instruction to try out beef fat rather than buy shortening is a reminder that a kitchen was expected to generate its own cooking fat from the meat it bought.