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We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

In after Baud. Damn.

I really should read my own blog.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Petty moves from a petty man.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Sunday Pot Roast

Sunday Pot Roast

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Dropping by on a day when there’s a nor-nor’easter blowing where I am–at a secure undisclosed location on Cape Ann, north of Boston…

Sunday Pot Roast 2

…–and that makes it a perfect pot roast Sunday.

I do a lot of braising, and often get fairly elaborate–but we’ve just been eating our way through a chuck roast that is the simplest prep I know, and yet tastes just amazing.  So I thought I would share, both because it’s ridiculously easy (and probably well-known to the many excellent cooks/fressers amongst the jackaltariat) and as a kind of proof of life. I have several posts I want to write, but until the embarrassingly overdue MS is done, I don’t have the mental space or time to do more serious blogging. (Just got over the TB chapter, and am now confronting cholera…).  So think of this as a piece offering. (Hava noice piece o’ beef..)

Sunday Pot Roast 3

The recipe came to my by way of this cookbook, which I highly recommend–except for their cooking times, which are waaaaay long.  They call it beef braised in Barbera wine, and it just works.

The recipe has been copied verbatim without credit at at least one place on the internet, so I’m just going to lay it out here in narrative form, and you can enjoy as you like (or search for it, and you’ll find it fast enough).

So here goes: take a 3 lb chuck roast and brown it well on all sides in a glop of olive oil. (The one I made this week was only two pounds, but no worries–I made the same amount of braising sauce, because one great use of the outcome is a shredded beef pasta sauce, and the liquid-meat ratio with a smaller piece works just fine.)  Cut up two carrots, a good sized onion, a stalk of celery and three large cloves of garlic.  No need to be dainty, for reasons that will become clear in a moment.  Fry the vegetables in the rendered beef fat/oil over medium-medium high heat for several minutes, until the onions just begin to color around the edges. I add the garlic after six or seven minutes, though the original recipe says dump it all in at once.

Then add a tablespoon of tomato paste (I am a bit more generous than that, usually–a heaping  TB), stir around for a moment or two, and dump in a whole bottle of robust red wine.  The cookbooks, as they are wont to do, specify an expensive bottle (cook with what you drink). I get a big everyday Trader Joe’s bottle and no one is the worse for wear.  Reduce it by about a third, then add a dash of ground cinnamon, some nutmeg, a bay leaf, and a teaspoon and a half of rosemary.

And with that, you’re basically done: return the meat to the pot, bring it to a simmer, cover it and shove it into a 350º oven, dropping the temperature to 250º after about twenty minutes.

The recipe as written says one should let it go for 3-4 hours, turning it over occasionally. This is nonsense.  I find a 2-3 lb roast will cook in about 1.5 hours to my preferred tenderness. YMMV.

Once it is to your liking, pull it out of the oven, put the meat on a plate and use a slotted spoon or a strainer to get the vegetables into a food processor.  Add just enough braising liquid to smooth the way, and grind it into a puree. Add it back to the rest of the liquid, stir it up–and you’re done.  I sometimes add a little bit of roux to the pot–I like butter–but not always.

It’s literally ten minutes of prep, maybe half an hour doing the stove top stuff, and then you have this unbelievably rich meal and even better leftovers.  Perfect for a day when the wind’s gusting to fifty and the spindrift is blowing for miles.

Anyway–we haven’t had that many food threads lately, so have at it. What’s your favorite antidote to a stormy day?  And beyond that, this thread is, as usual, as open as a big box store on Black Friday.

Image: Jean Siméon Chardin, Still life with a rib of beef, 1739.

 

Reader Interactions

150Comments

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    Mmmmmm. I love a good pot roast and I love how it fills the house with a yummy aroma.

    Here in NorCal, the weather has been super nasty, too.  We stocked the fridge with several soups that we were able to make in the days that we had power.  We have had 4 longish power outages here but the gas burners work on the stovetop even when the power is out. So heating up soup has been nice when the power was out.  A nice hot meal in a cold house.

    Today we have power.  Woo hoo.

  8. 8.

    New Deal democrat

    Very similar to my K.I.S.S. Method, except after I braise the meat just as you do, I toss it into a slow cooking crockpot along with the sliced veggies, pepper, and 1/3 beef broth, 1/3 tomato paste, and 1/3 everyday red wine.

    Walk away for ~3 hours, come back, slice the meat, pour the liquid over it and mashed potatoes, and Enjoy!

    [cinnamon sounds like an interesting addition. I’ll have to give it a try.]

  12. 12.

    Elizabelle

    Wow, that sounds delicious.  Thanks Tom.  Obtaining a chuck roast, soonest.

    Cape Ann.  And a northeaster. Good luck there.  It is red wine and beef weather, for sure.  Fireplace, too.

  13. 13.

    Elizabelle

    @New Deal democrat:   Yours sounds excellent too, and works if one wants to leave the house for hours, or just not have to tune in.

    I love cinnamon in stews and chilis, and in spice rubs for salmon, etc.  Warm spices can be so good, and subtle, even.

  15. 15.

    ZeeLizzee

    Inspired by this post, I wanted to make a mushroom stew. So I went to the big, new fancy Whole Foods in the next town over for a bigger selection of mushrooms. No such luck. 😢

  16. 16.

    mvr

    @ZeeLizzee: Yeah, our whole foods had good mushrooms between Two weeks before Thanksgiving and New Years.  And then occasionally over the rest of the year they have something interesting. Unfortunately not enough people round here know about Chanterelles (though with the prices they charge for them how would anyone just try them out without knowing) and they then keep them too long stored in some way that makes them get moist and disintegrate.  So you have to be choosy and still some get thrown out.  Dried mushrooms can work OK in some dishes though.  I don’t know about your stew.  I use dried morels in instapot risotto adding some less interesting sauteed mushrooms to the finished pot. It turns out pretty good.

  17. 17.

    mvr

    As far as stormy day antidotes, I used to find the storm sounds themselves quite soothing. Now that I’m a homeowner in one of the two tornado alleys, I’m not so easily soothed.

  18. 18.

    Geminid

    @oatler: No, but I’ve heard “Big Butter and Eggs Man.” Louis Armstrong’s group recorded that in the 1920s.

    “I want, a big butter and eggs man….”

  20. 20.

    H.E.Wolf

    Thank you for the post and the recipe – my mouth watered as I read it. Thanks also for the “fresser” description! I was reminded of my housemates from [institution of higher learning redacted, to protect the guilty], during a short sublet in my early 20s. A fressloge indeed. :)

    Wet chilly weather here too. I’m baking experimental bread (a.k.a. change everything in the recipe and cross my fingers) to go with vegetable soup leftovers.

  21. 21.

    Geminid

    @Kristine: That makes me really want to go to Santa Rosa, New Mexico and get green chile stew from the Comet II restaurant. It’s 1700 miles away though, which is a little far to run for takeout. But if I were camping at Santa Rosa Lake State Park I’d be running for my car!

    Do you put potatoes in your green chili stew? That’s what the Comet Ii does.

  27. 27.

    JoyceH

    Just as an aside, I’ve never understood that Old Masters schtick of painting pictures of food at its least appetizing. I mean, if you want to paint a chicken, why not paint it beautifully roasted, rather than unplucked and hanging upside down on a wall by its feet? The number of paintings of dead birds and rabbits is just baffling to me.

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    @Geminid: Was introduced to carne adovada during my only trip to Santa Fe and have never had a translation of it since, that comes close to the real deal. I’d make that drive (1,200 mi) RIGHT NOW if I could (which I literally cannot, due to the mountain passes).

  33. 33.

    delphinium

    Recipe sounds delicious-thanks for sharing Tom. Don’t eat meat often, but this is definitely something that would be perfect to make when family/friends come over.

  42. 42.

    jeffreyw

    @Tom Levenson: Yeah, it was in sign language, but I don’t understand Cowtalian.  He was drawing geometric figures in the dirt, too, but before I could get a good look the big guy brained him with a big assed hammer.

  43. 43.

    CaseyL

    My go-to comfort food when the weather is dreary is soup, good and hearty.

    Since I barely ever cook, I rely on other cooks to provide the soup.  Yesterday at the U District Farmer’s Market, I found an amazing soup vendor.  Her soups are, AFAICT, vegan – which I usually take to mean, “no body, no fullness.”  Flavorful, yes – but it’s like they use spices to compensate for the lack of, well, actual heft.  But the soups I got from Wendy Just Cooks are amazing: an umami-rich mushroom broth, and a black lentil soup that’s more like a stew.  Her secret is long, long lists of other ingredients and surprising uses of spices.

    I’m happily chowing down on the lentil soup right now. Hearty, rich, satisfying.

    (No Nor-Easter storms here; just the usual overcast-and-drizzle.  Yesterday was sunny and warm, and I’m glad I was out running around in it.)

  48. 48.

    Mike in NC

    We bought an air fryer at Christmas because everybody else is buying one. Have yet to use it. Looks like a lot of things that have conventional oven and microwave instructions (like frozen burritos) are now adding air fryer.

  49. 49.

    randal sexton

    @delphinium: very similar to lamb.  Maybe a tad less delicate.  This recipe real makes you appreciate tomatillos and those dried peppers.  You can sub dried anchos instead of the Jalisco peppers to make it milder

  50. 50.

    Dangerman

    I’ve been playing with Sous Vide Steaks lately, mostly because, one, it is not humanly possible to fuck it up and, two, I get to sear with a Sears All torch when done (insert a string of Tim Allen grunts here).

    I wonder how a roast would work? When I get bold, I’m thinking about a turkey breast SV because … well, torch, to be honest.

    ETA: Raining in SoCal, sitting down for big bowl of Pho. Rain, rain, go away …

  52. 52.

    cope

    @trollhattan: I discovered that scrumptious dish at a little place called Bruno’s in the little northern NM town of Cuba when I did oilfield work in the late 70s, early 80s. I actually found a reasonably close slow cooker recipe that currently lies buried somewhere in a box as we are currently unpacking in our new home.

  55. 55.

    randal sexton

    Also I went Dungeness crabbing crazy this season and now have a lot of crab cioppino and crab cakes in the freezer I’m going to munch on.  At the moment I’m stuck on a ferry boat and getting really hungry reading and thinking about this

  56. 56.

    cope

    @eclare: Yes, the drive is done, we’re in the new place and unpacking and moving around a four bedroom house’s worth of stuff into a two and a half bedroom home. Sale of our old place closes on 1/23. What an adventure.

  59. 59.

    Jay

    Actually went out to eat indoors for the first time since the pandemic. Met T’s sister and brother in law at White Spot for brunch. Haven’t seen them in years. They are doing well, moved from Calgary to Duncan, on the Island to drop it into slow gear for a few years before retiring. Both quit their jobs recently, as what was supposed to be brain dead, coasting jobs wound up, because of the pandemic and other issues, 60 hour work weeks with few promises kept. Good to see them and catch up.

    Tonight, I am prepping Alton Brown’ed ribs. Lime, siracha, brown sugar, Montreal Steak spice short marinade, then airtight seal in foil and 270 degrees for 2 and a half hours. Once cooled, into the fridge overnight, so all the chewy stringy stuff turns to meat butter. Some we will sauce, warm through and caramelize under the broiler, some will be frozen for later use.

  62. 62.

    cope

    @delphinium: Thanks, we are so happy to have done it, however grueling it was for us. I’m still feeling like it won’t be a done deal until the old home closes, though.

  63. 63.

    JPL

    @Leto: My son and his wife went to Mexico for one of the pop up restaurants.   He was duly impressed which is good considering the amount of money they paid.

  66. 66.

    JPL

    @Sure Lurkalot: That looks delicious and I’ll definitely try it

    Super Bowl weekend I have company arriving Thursday and leaving Monday.  That’s when I turn into a gluten free, dairy free household, although I do use butter.   That looks like a possibility for Friday.

  68. 68.

    JaneE

    My cold and gloomy Sunday pot roast is in the oven, a little over 2 hours to go.  I cook the whole time at 250.  I cook with what I drink, because that is all I have in the house.  Standard carrots, celery, potatoes, onions and garlic.  Sometimes I use tomato paste and sometimes I don’t, today is don’t.  And about a foot of rosemary sprig snipped off to throw in the pot.

  70. 70.

    Kristine

    @Geminid: I put diced russets in hatch green Chile, onions, garlic and cumin and chicken broth, Mexican oregano and salt and pepper.  Make enough to freeze for later meals.  Never been to Santa Rosa to eat; passed through on my way to other places tho….btw Indian Tacos are the best – made with Indian Fry Bread – there are several booths in the Indian village of the New Mexico State Fair every year – and long lines to go with…..as for the Carne Adovada, yes, yes and yes!!! I also make Carne Asada….I grew up in Albuquerque and learned from my hispanic neighbors how to make good New Mexican food.  My lesson learned from them was don’t be afraid of lard….  :D

  72. 72.

    EarthWindFire

    Everything sounds so good. I’m practically drooling on my phone.

    On this sunny but windy NOVA day, I took my frozen leftover turkey from New Year’s Day, and added it to sautéed veggies, gnocchi, the leftover gravy and chicken broth for a play on chicken and dumplings. That’ll be lunch most of the week.

  73. 73.

    cope

    @CarolPW: We have multiple working hypotheses about what to do with the room. It has a mostly glass door opening to a small courtyard at the front of the house in addition to the interior door to the rest of the house and a closet so wall space is limited.

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    Instant Pot is a champ at turning out a superb pot roast.,

    What’s your favorite antidote to a stormy day?

    In fall and winter, hearty beef & barley soup. Open secret to making it stick-to-your-ribs thick is letting it cook with beef bones (what years and years ago they practically gave away for nothing at the market in packages labeled Soup Bones).

  75. 75.

    trollhattan

    @cope: Yass, do share if you manage to find the recipe!

    Hatch chilies seem to be the must-have ingredient, but I suspect there’s more to it than just that.

  76. 76.

    Barbara

    @JoyceH: ​ Among other things, they were probably allowed to hang out much longer with the kitchen staff than the folks who got to eat a whole roasted chicken — which would definitely not have been normal daily fare for most people until, well, pretty recently.​​
    ETA: I made barbecued beans yesterday. It took all day. They were lovely, lots of leftovers.​​

  77. 77.

    trollhattan

    Given the nevereverending rain, it will be interesting to live without heat for N hours tomorrow, while our gas furnace+AC system gets ripped out and replaced with a heatpump system. Weaning off PG&E, one appliance at a time.

    I’d prefer sunny and 65, but am not that lucky.

  78. 78.

    Salty Sam

    @Dangerman: I wonder how a roast would work?

    I did a cheap Chuck roast last fall- Sous Vide at 129°F for 10-12 hrs, then cranked up the gas grill as hot as it could go, seared the outside well.

    It as as good as any Prime Rib I’ve ever had…

  79. 79.

    trollhattan

    @Barbara: Also, too, chicken’s dinner table domination is pretty recent. Mom told us of her mother’s high-labor mock chicken dish that substituted veal for the chicken.

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    @mrmoshpotato:

    [checks] 51. Raining so hard I can barely see the full length of our backyard.

    Need to find my old Seattle “Sumbitchin’ Rain” t-shirt.

  83. 83.

    Leto

    @JPL: ​ From both articles it sounds like they were just putting in… well, deployment level of hours for this. And you can’t do that for this long without inevitable burnout. The flip side is that, per the article, he’ll basically be able to work for roughly 2 months out of the year, cooking for celebrities/billionaires/special events (like the pop up) and make like 5x what he did at the restaurant without the headache of the place.

  85. 85.

    JPL

    @Leto: ha  I just finished making gluten free cocktail meatballs that I’ll freeze until the Superbowl.   They’re pretty good and didn’t need to be cooked in special leaves underground.

    Now that my son and dil have two imps, those foody days are over.

  86. 86.

    Scamp Dog

    @cope: There had been talk of scheduling a get-together to welcome you, did anything happen about that? You’re in near Grand Junction, IIRC.

  88. 88.

    frosty

    @cope: We have a half bedroom like that, and worse, it’s a pass-through room to get to the semi-finished attic, so it’s useless as a bedroom. It’s now an office and will be converted into a sewing/reading room for Ms F next month.

    We ended up building an addition with a family room in the ground floor and a big bedroom on the 2nd.

  90. 90.

    schrodingers_cat

    In food related news, my air fryer purchase has been a winner. Its great for reheating Indian snacks (home-made and store brought) and a quick alternative when I don’t want to use the big oven in the range.

  91. 91.

    Peter

    @Tom Levenson: Lamb is amazing, and shoulder has more intramuscular fat than chuck roast so it gets, in the words of our people, wicked tendah.

    Also, when you’re frying the onion, try adding 3-5 oil-cured anchovies to the mix, or a few generous glugs of Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce along with the wine. The extra umami will make everyone ask what you did to make it so delicious.

  93. 93.

    Barbara

    @Leto: ​If it was a la carte it was probably not far short of torture trying to pull it off. A set menu is more sustainable, but people have such distinctive dietary needs and preferences that it’s very difficult to accommodate. There is (or was) a restaurant in SF called Cotogna that we could never get reservations for until Easter, when they offered a set menu. A lot of people won’t even consider going, hence, there was more availability.

  95. 95.

    Leto

    @JPL: ​ that’s why it’s foodie date night with the wife ;)

    I appreciate what he did, what he’s doing, but yeah. Just give me some no hassle food and we’re good to go.

  97. 97.

    schrodingers_cat

    I made some Kashmiri rogan josh with beef in my slow cooker and it was to die for. Similar idea to the pot roast but without the veggies and with a lot more of the aromatics and spices

  98. 98.

    Leto

    @Barbara:

    Noma was named the world’s best restaurant five times in the past 11 years and was awarded a third Michelin star — the province of only a handful of restaurants across the globe — in 2021. Dining there was as much about the experience as the food, which included reindeer and foraged greens. The 40-seat dining room might be decorated with fish skeletons or dried seaweed; multicourse meals end with the presentation of a menu.

    Just going to say, a la cart doesn’t exist there. Not aware of any three star Michelin restaurants that do. They don’t do set menu’s because that was never their deal. Part of what is doing them in the culture of “chef is genius” and needing to constantly update because their clientele expects new. That’s what’s doing them in. They talk about it in the articles, and the entire food culture that’s evolved over the past 30-40 years.

    Like the article says, he can work two months out of the year and earn multiple times what he did with the restaurant without the headache/stress/hassle. The restaurant itself will continue on but in a different direction.

  99. 99.

    Tom Levenson

    @schrodingers_cat: Sounds delicious. I often make Madhur Jaffrey’s rogan josh recipe (not the Kashmiri variant she also offers) from one of her old cookbooks, usually with bone-in lamb shoulder chops. Really lovely. (A whole lamb shoulder has been happy in that setting as well.)

    Haven’t made it with a beef pot roast cut yet. Should try that.

  100. 100.

    Tom Levenson

    @Leto: I chuckled at the note in that article that one of the chefs who trained/worked at NOMA has gone on to do a chicken sandwich  chain.

    Less hassle…

  101. 101.

    sab

    Tom Levenson OT Art history. There was a Rembrandt show touring major museums in the mid to late 1980s. It came through Cleveland and I saw it and loved it.

    One of the minor paintings was of a wall with a bunch of ledger notes and receipts all pinned or stabbed to an office wall. Kind of an accounting still life. As an accountant I saw this and thought “Early fund accounting! How cool!” The catalogue did not think it was important so it wasn’t included but I think it was, and an intelligent person could make a killing selling copies to underappreciated  government and non-profit accountants who have to deal with fund accounting. Also too I loved the painting.

    Do you have any idea what I am talking about?

  102. 102.

    delphinium

    @schrodingers_cat: Nice! My uncle bought an air fryer but has only used it sparingly. While he used to cook more frequently, he rarely does now, so think it was more of a ‘want to have’ rather than ‘need to have’.

  104. 104.

    zhena gogolia

    @Leto: I tried to watch The Menu, which is a kind of parody of that restaurant and others like it. I thought it was hilarious and brilliant, I always love Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes, and then I noticed the “graphic violence” tag at the top of my screen. About 30-40 minutes in, it becomes clear that the graphic violence is about to begin, so I checked out. Not in the mood for graphic violence in my entertainment these days, there’s enough of it IRL.

  105. 105.

    sab

    @Tom Levenson: I have been searching for an image for 35 years. My sister is an art historian but she is all China so she is worthless about this.

    ETA Somebody thought it was important enough to go on the road with the rest of the show.

    ETA Just bugged my sister and invoked your name so she might help.

  106. 106.

    Leto

    Here’s the flip side of an amazing experience. This made the rounds a few months back, and let me tell you… buckle up, because it’s a hell of a ride! Bros., Lecce: We Eat at The Worst Michelin Starred Restaurant, Ever

    @Tom Levenson: oh man. Just having to deal with normies? Haha! Here’s something that might have led him to do that: Culture of the Kitchen: Rene Redzepi

    This was written about seven years ago, but I feel like it’s something we’ve known for a while? I know it’s something that the military/AF transitioned to. Not all branches, but yeah. Treating your people like shit leads to poor outcomes.

  107. 107.

    Leto

    @zhena gogolia: true, regarding the violence. Check out the article I linked at comment 106. Talks about that being the norm of kitchen culture, and the predictable outcomes it’s had. Personally I still love Chef and Jiro Dreams of Sushi as my fav chef movies. Dustin Hoffman’s owner character, and the molten lava cake scene… haha!

  109. 109.

    Tim in SF

    I do a lot of cooking and experimenting with fancy recipes, but none have given me and the family more joy and contentment than the exceedingly simple chili recipe from Americas Test Kitchen.

    To save you the trouble of transcribing it from youtube, here’s the recipe in full:

    Mise en place:

    Six Ancho Chilis
    2 lbs 80% ground beef. Measure it out.
    2 T water
    1 ½ t salt
    .75 t baking soda (if new, more if old)
    1 oz tortilla chips or corn tortilla
    2 T ground cumin
    1 T ground paprika
    1 T garlic powder
    1 T ground coriander
    2 t dried oregano
    2 t ground black pepper
    ½ t dried thyme
    14 oz can of tomatoes (or use fresh stuff if you have it)
    1 big onion
    3 minced cloves garlic
    1 T chipotle
    2 cups of water or stock
    1 (ish) can of pinto beans
    2 t sugar
    (I add one T MSG because Uncle Roger is right)

    Directions:

    Tear the 6 anchos into bits, put them in dutch oven on heat. Toast, don’t burn.
    Add the 1 ½ teaspoon salt, 2 Tbl water, and ¾ t baking soda in mixing bowl and dissolve
    Add meat to bowl and toss.

    Into the food processor goes the:

    toasted chilis into dutch oven
    1 oz tortilla chips or corn tortilla
    2 T ground cumin
    1 T ground paprika
    1 T garlic powder
    1 T ground coriander
    2 t dried oregano
    2 t ground black pepper
    ½ t dried thyme

    Ground for two minutes
    Dump into a bowl
    Grind up the can of tomatoes,
    Chop the onion
    Put some oil in the dutch oven
    Cook the onion about 4 minutes
    Add garlic
    Stir for one minute
    Add meat and break up into small pieces
    Med-high until brown, 12 to 14 minutes
    Add the chipotle
    Add 2 cups of water or stock (I use my home made stock)
    Add can(s) of beans
    Add 2t sugar
    Add tomatoes
    Bring to simmer
    Cook  in oven for 1.5 to 2.5 hours at 275
    Serve with onions, cheese, sour cream, avocado, cilantro

  113. 113.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Tom Levenson: Rogan josh is a Kashmiri dish. There are two variants

    One that the Muslims make has onions and garlic, the one Kashmiri Pandits make leaves out both but adds hing (asafetida). I make the one with onions and garlic.

  115. 115.

    Leto

    @raven: is this another Trumpism? :P No, I have not; just wiki’d it and it looks like something up our alley. Is it on any streaming service?

    Edit: so I just said the movie’s title into our Xfinity remote, and Avalune just asked me if that’s another Trumpov thing… also it’s on Freevee and Pluto TV; score!

  118. 118.

    sab

    @zhena gogolia: Just bugged my art historian sister about this. She knows Cleveland Museum people and Tom Levenson’s dad was revered by China people so she might finally be interested enough to help.

  121. 121.

    Tom Levenson

    @Leto: I’ve never used the Parable of the Rich Fool in blogging, as it has a real whiff of Jews-and-money antisemitism to me.

    which is too bad, as it’s an amazing painting.

  123. 123.

    Tom Levenson

    @schrodingers_cat: Ah. Thanks for the correction. I too do the one with onions and garlic.  I don’t have the cookbook (sold in the UK but not in the US, I think–it’s from the 80s) in front of me, so I’m not sure how Jaffrey distinguished between the two recipes; I have a vague memory she called the one without the alliums “Kashmiri.” But I have the memory of a goldfish, so that might be me making it up.

  124. 124.

    Tom Levenson

    @sab: Thanks. I’m curious now.

    (And funny you should mention my dad. I’m working right now on a little piece about him for the first-ever Chinese language edition of his collected works. He’s very much in my mind right now.)

  125. 125.

    raven

    @Leto: Ang Lee is one of my favorites.  Pushing Hands is not strictly a food film but it’s good as are The Wedding Banquet, Rider With The Devil (Civil War Film) and the Life of Pi among others.

  126. 126.

    sab

    @Leto: Sister thinks it might not have been Rembrandt but just included for context, but I saw the show and read the labels and I would have noticed if the painting I loved wasn’t actually Rembrandt,

  130. 130.

    sab

    @Tom Levenson: Sister won an important award important to her career named in his honor.

    ETA She started at Harvard then bailed for Berkeley with Cahill. Your father was revered by China people there.

    ETA As I assume you know. Just letting you know people in Ohio also know his name.

  131. 131.

    Miss Bianca

    Well, all you cooking geniuses inspired me to go out and get some pork stew meat that is now marinating in a combo of sesame oil, soy sauce, and spicy ginger stuff before getting stir-fried. Drinks menu will be a choice between Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale or local Bristol Brewery’s Hazy IPA brought home in a growler the other day. Hmm…decisions, decisions…

  132. 132.

    Tom Levenson

    @sab: Wicked cool! Tell her this Levenson says congrats and hi

    Interesting. I knew/know the Harvard people (I took the intro course, nicknamed Rice Paddies, in Fairbank’s last year of teaching it, and had Ben Schwartz as my professor four times. Cahill was amazing (and died just a few years ago, IIRC).

  134. 134.

    Miss Bianca

    @zhena gogolia: Swoon! Ang Lee is just such an amazingly *versatile* director, too – I can’t think of another director who’s had such a wide variety of contexts and tone for his work as to go from Eat Drink Man Woman to Sense and Sensibility to The Incredible Hulk, for all love!

  135. 135.

    Tim in SF

    Well, OK, I guess it’s only simple because I have all those ingredients already. That said, other than the chilis and the can of chipotle, both of which I think you can get in just about any grocery store and on Amazon, you probably have everything in your kitchen right now. Once you get the chilis, you have them for this time and the next two times. And the chilis are CHEAP. This recipe makes a lot of food for a little bit of money.

  138. 138.

    cope

    @trollhattan: I just found the recipe and, as I remembered, it has many steps. My day is done and this thread is likely dead but I will type it up for a paste job in another post.

  141. 141.

    mvr

    @sab: ​
     Spouse who is an art historian says that some things have been reattributed, so the label might have said that back in the day, but it may no longer be counted as one by those who are supposed to know. Also might now just be “Rembrandt School” without attribution to the person. She also says there was a book a while back which was supposed to be a comprehensive list of of all his works at the time it was written, but she can’t remember the title. She is rummaging through her brain trying to remember it.

  143. 143.

    cope

    @Scamp Dog: Yes, we are in GJ but nothing concrete has been proposed about a Western Slope meet-up. I’m in favor of it but expect to be a while in getting moved in and acclimatized.

  144. 144.

    randy khan)

    My go-to pot roast recipe is a variation on the 1980s vintage Joy of Cooking version:

    3 lb chuck roast

    1 tbsp olive oil

    1 clove garlic

    2-3 carrots, cut into 2-3 inch lengths (you may want to split the larger pieces)

    2 ribs of celery, cut into 2-3 inch lengths (keep the leaves)

    An onion, peeled with 4 cloves stuck in it

    Baking potatoes, cut into 2-inch chunks

    1 large or 2 small bay leaves

    2 cups of beef broth/Half a bottle of red wine/Water in any combination (not quite enough in total to cover the meat.

    Cut the garlic in half and rub the meat with it; reserve the garlic.  Heat a Dutch oven over medium heat, add the olive oil, then add the beef after the oil is hot.  Brown two sides of the meat, then add the carrots and celery, then brown the other two sides.

    Once the meat is browned, add the potatoes, bay leaf, garlic, and broth/wine/water just to cover the meat.  You can put it in the oven at around 300 or leave it on the stove (in both cases, covered).   Cook until the meat is more or less falling apart.  On the stove, cook for 2-3 hours (almost always closer to 2).  In the oven, it’s about 2 hours.  Check periodically to make sure you don’t need to add more water and to move the veg around a bit.

    Fish out the bay leaf before you serve.

    The original does not include the potatoes, but they ar really tasty after cooking in the sauce.  But if you don’t like that idea, leave them out and serve over noodles.

  145. 145.

    NotMax

    @<a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2023/01/15/sunday-pot-roast/#comment-8737001″>zhena gogolia</a>

    Have a sneaking suspicion, then, you’d get a kick out of <em>Le Chef</em>. Currently on both Tubi and Kanopy. Comes and goes on other services periodically. French, with subtitles.

  146. 146.

    NotMax

    Dunno wha’ hoppen at #145. Attempt to fix.

    @zhena gogolia

    Have a sneaking suspicion, then, you’d get a kick out of Le Chef. Currently on both Tubi and Kanopy. Comes and goes on other services periodically. French, with subtitles.

  148. 148.

    karen marie

    • @Mike in NC: Baked potatoes made in an airfryer are the best – crispy skin, fluffy inside – crazy good. I smear with olive oil, coat generously with kosher salt, and airfry at 400F. It takes about the same as a conventional oven.
    • Blame my cat for there being bullet points. I’m lying in bed as I write this, and she keeps walking on my chest, blocking me from seeing my tablet, and headbutting my typing hand.
    • If you do nothing else with your airfryer, make baked potatoes.
  150. 150.

    Carlo Graziani

    Very nice, sorry to have missed this thread when it was fresh.

    The recipe seems clearly related to Brasato di manzo al Barolo (braised beef in barolo wine), a Piedmont (Torino region) dish. No cinnamon or nutmeg are called for there. Cooks Illustrated did a version circa 2003 that works well. It calls for pancetta at the beginning, the rendered fat from which is used to brown the roast. The roast itself should probably be tied beforehand, to make it into a nice cylinder for even slicing at the end. Cooks also, very sensibly, advises those who prefer to drink barolo rather than fling it in a pot to use any robust red, and I find that a $5-6 cabernet from TJ works just fine.

    One feature of the BBIB recipe is that the sauce is strained at the end. I’ve tweaked the Cooks version a bit over the years. The vegetables can be broken down with an immersion blender after the pot roast comes out (doing this in the sink might be a good idea, to avoid splashing), to help release the flavors, and the sauce liquid then reduced at high heat for 10-15 minutes. Then strain the puree through a large strainer into a bowl, pushing it around in the strainer with a rubber spatula to encourage the liquid to drop. Clean the pot, or use a new pot, and return the resulting tawny liquid to the heat to reduce it a bit more. This is where 90% of the flavor is. If you like it thickened a bit (I do), dissolve a tablespoon or two of corn starch in a small amount of cold water making sure to eliminate lumps, and when the liquid is nearly boiling start adding the corn starch slurry a little at a time, whisking as you go, and stop adding slurry when you get the consistency that you are aiming for (try not to go for “pudding”). Then slice up the roast, pour the sauce over it, reserving some for a gravy pitcher if desired, and serve…

    …with hot polenta, traditionally, or mashed potatoes, or rice, or any other starch that will take up that gravy. Good-quality bread, freshly sliced, is also nice, but the starch on the side is crucial, because as I said, most of the flavor of the dish is in that sauce.

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