Pot Roast - Chuck Roast (Photos)

What do you do for Sunday night dinner?

For us tonight, it was Pot Roast (Chuck Roast with gravy). There will be some who object to doing a chuck roast from frozen, but we keep one or two in the freezer just about all the time. They are a good deal especially when on sale and if cooked the way I am going to share, there is not much better in comfort food if thoughts of beefy gravy, rice and carrots make your pulse race.

Would I cook this for my boss? Maybe. Would I cook it for my wife? Certainly would because both she and I love this cut of meat cooked this way.

You'll need:

A chuck roast. This one was close to 2 pounds (maybe 4 or 5 servings). As you can see, it was wrapped in about three layers of plastic wrap for storage in the freezer and cooked from frozen. If properly wrapped in plastic or a zip lock freezer bag with the air pushed out, it will keep just fine for two or three months.

Salt and pepper and garlic for seasoning the roast and flour for coating it, a pack of Lipton onion soup mix, two bay leaves, a three inch sprig of fresh rosemary, a can of beef broth and a can of mushroom soup.



Also you need the vegetables (celery, onion and carrot) to make a mirepoix which is probably the French equivalent of the Cajun trinity. For my mirepoix, I chopped half an onion and a stalk of celery then peeled and ribbon cut a carrot with my potato peeler. The ribbon cut carrot breaks apart into smallish bits while cooking in the oven. There is a bit of that ribbon cut carrot on the roast shown in the fork view below.



I also peeled and cut up six carrots, which are added toward the end (last 45 minutes) of the oven cook.

Some people cut up (chunk) potatoes and add them with the carrots and that is good too, but I like/love rice and the wife gets panicked when I do both rice and potatoes with this dish. If your wife is really understanding, then go for both rice and potatoes, because a potato cooked in the gravy that forms with this dish is tasty.



I love rice and gravy, so I always cook rice and here is a dry measure cup of rice, cooked with salt and just a tad less than 2 cups of water, cooked in microwave (at max power until it boils and then at 20% power for 15 minutes covered) and set aside.



and cooked field peas



to turn this dish into a classic country food "meat and three".

To cook the roast, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and season the frozen roast with a little salt and pepper and coat both sides with flour.



Then sear both sides in a hot roaster pan with a little oil.



When the meat has been seared, add the mirepoix, onion soup, beef broth, bay leaves, rosemary and mushroom soup to the pan



I guess I added some black pepper too because I can see it in this photo. I didn't add any salt, because almost everything else (Lipton soup mix, beef broth, cream of mushroom soup) has salt already in it.



then covered and into the oven. Nothing better than a nice roaster pan with metal lid, or a cast iron dutch oven (enameled, porcelain coated or not) with lid. I use which ever is closer to the front of the cabinet. Both work fine. A glass oven proof cooker with lid works well, too. Use whatever you have that you like and is big enough to hold the finished dish.



At one hour I turned the roast over and spooned a little gravy over the top, replaced the lid and returned it the oven.



At two hours - probably done, but not very tender.



At two hours, the roast needed another 45 minutes or so, to get tender, and that is how long I wanted to cook the carrots in the gravy, so in they went.



and back into the oven for another 45 minutes.

At 2 hours and 45 minutes cooked covered, it came out like this.





On the plate.





Fork views







Country Pot Roast, rice and gravy, carrots and peas (a meat and three) at it's best.

Nice dinner plate.


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