Braised Beef Roast with Coffee, Orange & Roasted Garlic Onion Jam

Well, here another Meaty Monday has rolled around and I haven't been cooking. I've been nursing a nasty case of shingles. Actually, as far as shingles are concerned, there are nothing BUT nasty cases. It is slowly clearing up, and I have just started back really cooking, and promise some new recipes after I get done testing some new dishes. 

Meanwhile, here's a post I wrote last year, and I am actually planning to make it this coming weekend when I have time to run out for a nice, little beef roast. Enjoy!

Looks like a good dinner already, doesn't it?

Now that it's officially Fall, I feel some justification in making the first pot roast of the season. "Pot roast" is the un-fancy name for braised beef.   The fact that it's also gone from the mid 80º's to the mid 60º's in the space of a day doesn't hurt, either. Not that pot roast isn't a good thing to make when the weather is warm since it makes a wonderful cold sliced meat or a sandwich, but somehow, the scent of a pot roast helps take the chill off the house, even if it's not cold enough to turn on the heat yet.

This braised beef recipe evolved from a half-jar of Stonewall Kitchen's totally delicious Roasted Garlic and Onion Jam, that was leftover from the weekend. Rather than give myself the chance to eat the rest of it with a spoon (or a chunk of oozy brie) when no one was watching, this is a truly tasty was to force myself to share it. And no, I don't work for Stonewall Kitchen, and they don't pay me in any way to say nice things about their products. I just like them and want to share. So there, lol. It's a wonderful cool weather dish, garlicky, sweet, orangey, and very beefy.

Savory jams can add so much to your cooking repertoire, or hors d'oeuvre table.
Keep and eye out for good ones, and keep a few in the pantry.

That little pot roast from last spring  you may remember, uses root vegetables that add a lot of rich flavor to the dish. My favorites are turnips, carrots and celeriac, aka celery root. If you would like potatoes, in addition to what's here, feel free to add a few firm, waxy potatoes like  Yukon Golds to the other roots under the roast.  This will make 6 servings, but your mileage may differ depending on how big your roast is, and how lean it is. Or how piggy your eaters are. My favorite is chuck for this, but a bottom round roast or a rump roast will work well, too. Chuck makes for a messy, falling apart roast, but  very juicy, the rump and round will be neater looking but a bit less juicy. Be sure to ask the butcher to tie the roast if it's unevenly shaped, so it will cook evenly, or tie it yourself with butcher's twine. Don't worry if your "roping" job doesn't look great, you'll take the string off the roast before serving.

Notes: I know the anchovy paste seems odd, but don't leave it out. It adds a certain depth (umami) to the juices that you can't get with anything else. If you must, you can substitute a teaspoon of mushroom base, or 1/2 teaspoon of Asian fish sauce. This can be made in the oven, or in a slow cooker. If you choose the slow cooker, after browning the meat, place the vegetables in the bottom of the crock, and set the browned meat on top, then add the seasonings and liquid, pouring it all evenly over everything. Cook on Low for 7-8 hours. Remove the orange zest, and thyme bundle if using, before serving. Do not even consider not browning the meat for this pot roast. Don't make me come after you. I'll know.

Braised Beef pot roast with Coffee, Orange & Roasted Garlic Onion Jam.
 Grab a plate and eat!

Braised Beef Roast with Coffee, Orange & Roasted Garlic Onion Jam

Ingredients:

3 to 4 lb. Chuck or bottom round  beef roast
salt & freshly ground pepper
2T bacon fat or safflower oil
3/4 cup Stonewall Kitchen Roasted Garlic Onion Jam
3/4 cup strong brewed coffee, hot
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
4 medium turnips, peeled and quartered
6 medium carrots, peeled and cut in thirds
1 small celeriac (celery root) peeled and cubed
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and sliced 1/4"
1 tsp. anchovy paste
zest from 1/2 orange in 1-2 strips( use a vegetable peeler)
3 bay leaves
1 tsp of dried thyme leaves, or 1 small bunch of fresh thyme, bundled with string

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 300ºF. Season the roast on all sides liberally with salt and pepper. Heat the bacon fat in a deep dutch oven and brown the meat on all sides, allowing about 5 minutes a side. Remove the roast to a plate.

2. Stir the hot coffee, the roasted garlic onion jam, the balsamic vinegar and the anchovy paste together in a small bowl and set aside. Add the cut vegetables to the bottom of the pan, along with coffee mixture, and stir up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

3. Add the zest strips, the bay leaves and the thyme, stir, then add the roast atop the vegetable mixture. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Cover the dutch oven, and place in the oven, and cook 3- 4 hours until the meat is fork tender (depending on the size of the roast), turning the roast over halfway through the cooking time.

5. Remove the roast from the pan carefully and cut into slices or chunks.  Remove the zest strips from the pot, along with the thyme bundle and discard. Serve with the vegetables and the pan juices. A green vegetable like steamed spinach (soaks up the yummy juices) or broccoli is a great side, especially if you are grain or gluten free, otherwise some mopping up bread is suggested.

Crème Fraîche Dressing

Did you ever have something you make or cook so regularly that you've forgotten that there was ever a recipe for it? I admittedly have more than a few of those, but today as I was making my "house" salad dressing to doll up some cooked golden beets and baby spinach when I realized that some of you might find this a handy trick.

My family seemed to have an unusual fondness for salads that had both raw and cooked vegetables in them. We called them composed salads, just to fancify the whole thing. I think it really was my mother's way of recycling leftover vegetables so they didn't get tossed. Especially if there wasn't enough left to actually be reheated and served again. My frugal Depression-Era parent strikes again. I do the same thing. I had a cooked beet, some roasted cauliflower left from two nights ago, plus some baby spinach, red onion and olives lurking at the back of the fridge. As I went for the oil and vinegar,  I remembered I had just seen a jar of my famous homemade crème fraîche next to those lurking olives.  And I decided to make my favorite dressing.

About a million years ago, there used to be a  restaurant near school that specialized in crepes. As a genuine Francophile, and a poor college student, my weekly treat was often their $5 lunch which was generally a crepe filled with whatever filling that wasn't selling that week and a salad. I adored the salad dressing; it was creamy without being gloppy like the Russian, French and Ranch dressings in the cafeteria at school. After about my 6th visit I was finally brave enough to ask the waitress what the dressing was, and when she told me it was a cream dressing, it meant absolutely nothing to me. When I asked what that was, she brought the hostess, the chef's wife, who kindly explained how they made it. I've been making variations on it ever since. It's still fabulous. Not diety, fabulous. Delicious. Got it?

Cream dressing, often called a cream vinaigrette, is nothing more than heavy cream and an acid, like lemon juice or vinegar. Real sour cream works in place of the cream, or my favorite, crème fraîche. Salt and pepper are the only other constants and everything else is up to the cook. My current version uses homemade crème fraîche, and homemade herb vinegar. A tiny dab of Dijon mustard isn't out of place with a sweet vegetable in the salad like beets  or cooked carrots, but not essential.

Here's the basic recipe, feel free to extrapolate as you wish. I am going to just give you proportions, but if you want it sweeter, or sharper, add more or less cream, crème fraîche or vinegar. Wonderful on potatoes, eggs, beets, haricots or green beans, asparagus...anything, really.

Sorry, I was so hungry, I started to eat
before snapping a shot. My bad.

Crème Fraîche Dressing

3/4 cup homemade crème fraîche or heavy single pasteurized cream
1/4 cup herb vinegar, rice vinegar or sherry vinegar...or lemon juice
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
freshly ground pepper to taste

Optional: dab of Dijon, pinch of sugar, fresh herbs, pinch of minced garlic, chopped olives or pimentos, dab of anchovy paste...

Mix everything and let stand a few minutes to thicken. Add whatever optional ingredients that are appropriate for your salad.


  

Secret Ingredients and Techniques Part Deux: Anchovy Paste

One of the best things you can have hiding in your fridge.

There are some secret ingredients and techniques that I use, and some that others use that will make your cooking skills take a huge leap forward if you include some of these items and techniques in your everyday cooking repertoire. Every now and then I'll do a post about them.  These are things that can elevate a dish from good to great, from home cooking to “RQ” – Restaurant Quality,  which is the highest food compliment from Merry, my stepdaughter. 

I actually wrote about this before, but not with enough emphasis. To start: Anchovy Paste. Last night I had to whip up a shrimp and pasta dish, and I didn't want to open a big container of fish stock. Nothing ever tastes as good as the sauces that start with some sort of a stock, even a quick stock.  Many magazine recipes have you use chicken stock in fish dishes, but to me, that's just plain wrong. If you don't have time to make a real fish fumet, to make about a pint of fish stock, just cook a little onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil, add 1 cup dry white wine, 1 cup water, and a half teaspoon of anchovy paste. Add appropriate herbs if you want, like parsley, basil... Whisk well, bring to a simmer and use the stock as needed. Far better than that overly salty clam juice, and adds a great flavor base to any seafood dish.


My mother nearly always had a tube of anchovy paste in the refrigerator, mostly to use in Caesar dressing, since our small family wouldn’t use up an opened tin of anchovies fast enough. I always have a tube of anchovy paste going. It lives in my fridge door, and it goes into many dishes that you would NEVER think that included anchovies, because you can’t taste any fishiness. There is just umami. A basic definition of umami is that it is the 5^th taste along with sweet, sour, salty and bitter. The closest description I can give it, as do most other writers, is savory. I have fed dishes with it to scores of people who claim to hate anchovies and not one has ever said anything but "Mmmmmmm". This past week I just saw it as an ingredient in a turkey burger on the food website CHOW.

There are other food items up my sleeve I use to add umami, but anchovy paste I use more often than most of the others. Almost any homemade dressing will benefit from as little as ¼ teaspoon added, as does homemade mayonnaise. It goes into many of my pot roast recipes, gets rubbed into BBQ meats before cooking and even added to soups and chicken pot pies. One place where it also really shines is adding depth to other seafood preparations, a kind of deep background note that you can’t quite put your finger on. I have also admittedly cheated on my Italian Christmas Seven Fishes Stew and counted the anchovy paste as a fish. There, it’s out there. Sorry Aunt Weezie. Mea Culpa.

Most recipes serving 4 people will get about a half-teaspoon of anchovy paste added for the umami-factor. Places where I do want the seafood flavor to come up, plenty more will go in. When I make pasta with a clam sauce, a hefty 2 Tablespoons will get added to the olive oil, butter and garlic at the very beginning of the sauté. Same deal with crab cakes and shrimp dishes.There is always an opened tube in my fridge, and a few others in the pantry. The opened tube will keep, refrigerated for several months, if you can make it last that long. Never does around here.

Next time you are in the market, buy a tube, it’s usually found near the canned fish, although occasionally with the tubes of tomato paste and pesto. I promise you'll thank me.