Pot Roast
3 to 4 pounds chuck, round, 1 cup sliced carrots rump or brisket
1 cup sliced onions
Flour
1 cup chopped celery
3 tablespoons fat, preferably
1 cup sliced turnips from salt pork
If the meat is not in a solid piece, skewer or tie it into shape, wipe it with a damp cloth and roll it in flour. Heat the fat in a frying-pan or Dutch oven. Put in the meat and brown on all sides. If the frying-pan is used, transfer the meat, after it is brown, to a kettle deep enough to hold the beef and vegetables when the cover is on. Cover tightly and let simmer slowly for from four to five hours, turning twice. Add the vegetables at the end of four hours' cooking. After removing the meat and vegetables, thicken the gravy by adding one to two tablespoons of flour mixed with cold water for each cup of broth.
A straightforward braise, but the original text leaves out one thing a modern cook expects and includes one habit worth keeping.
- The ingredient list is garbledThe column layout has collapsed: it reads as 3 to 4 lb chuck, round, rump or brisket; flour; 3 tablespoons fat, preferably from salt pork; and 1 cup each sliced carrots, sliced onions, chopped celery and sliced turnips.
- No liquid is specifiedThe recipe assumes you know to add some; a pot roast simmered dry for four hours risks scorching. A cup or two of water or stock, replenished as it cooks, is the usual remedy.
- "Simmer slowly" means barely bubblingOn a modern burner that is the lowest setting, or 300F in the oven with the lid on. A hard boil over four hours squeezes the muscle fibres tight and gives you dry meat in plenty of gravy.
- Four to five hours is generousWritten for tougher beef and less controllable stove heat. A 3-4 lb modern chuck roast is often fork-tender in 3 to 3.5 hours; test rather than clock-watch, and add the vegetables about 45 minutes to an hour before the meat is done.
- Fat from salt porkRendered salt pork fat is still the best choice here for flavour; beef drippings, lard or a neutral oil all work. Butter alone will burn at browning heat.
- TurnipsMost likely white turnips rather than rutabaga, though the book does not say. They cook down faster than carrots, so cut them larger if you want them to hold shape.
- Thickening the gravyOne to two tablespoons flour slurried in cold water per cup of broth; two gives a thick gravy, so start at one and let it boil a full minute or two so the raw flour cooks out.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; 3 to 4 lb of beef with the vegetables will serve roughly six to eight.
Pot roast is the American name for the oldest way of cooking beef that is not tender enough to roast: brown it hard for flavour, then hold it in moist heat until the connective tissue turns to gelatin. The technique is the French braise and the German Schmorbraten, of which the vinegar-soured sauerbraten is a variant. Butterick's inclusion of chuck, round, rump and brisket as equally acceptable is the practical point of the entry: these were among the cheaper cuts, and a recipe that made them palatable earned its place in a household manual from a company better known for dress patterns. The single pot doing meat, vegetables and gravy at once also suited a coal or wood range, where heat was regulated largely by moving pots about the stove top.