What are you, my long-lost brother? My Mom made this the identical way.
Not nasty. Pretty salty however, what with the Onion Soup Mix AND the cream of mushroom soup. It was easy for Mom to put together, heave into the oven and let it do its thing.
Cheap is relative. Buy a big hunk o pot roast, cook properly. It’d be enough for 3-4 dinners for my sweetie and I. The PROBLEM is reheating it. You’d be cooking it over and over again. I’ve not figured out a fix for that. Perhaps making a pot roast but stopping about 60% into the cook time. Cool. Slice and package up. Then, put the portion you want for dinner tonight back into the oven for a bit to finish- recognizing that 70% of the roast is gone.
Dunno. Haven’t ever tried cooking something this way, though it suddenly makes a lot of sense…
Pot roast, at least as I (and my mother used to) make it, cooks long and slow for several hours on top of the stove (though I expect an oven would work as well), and is often started one day and finished the next (refrigerating inbetween). Reheating it for a few minutes is if anything only going to improve it slightly. And cooking it for 60% of the time and then only reheating it for a few minutes isn’t going to get it properly tender.
I agree with @thorny_locust - long and low (though in my case I use my slow cooker, a perfect option for low, slow and wet) means that all the collagen of a chuck roast (my choice) is rendered leaving the meat moist, tender, and dripping with collagen infused broth. Reheat it and it’ll remain wonderful, possibly better than the first taste as it continues to meld with the supporting elements. Though if you’re trying to do a pot roast with something lean and/or tough like round roast… well… just don’t if you can avoid it.
Tough is fine – chuck roast would be tough if it weren’t for the long, slow, and wet. (Try chewing a piece sometime when it’s only just done through.) But I agree that the collagen, and for that matter a bit of fat, is necessary for the best results.
In the very old days people used to add fat to cuts of very lean meat. The technique largely disappeared with the demonization of fat. It is very useful with game meat, which tends to be extremely lean, but it will also work just fine with lean cuts of beef.
Not the same technique but I used to see filet mignon have a slice of bacon wrapped around the outside and then cooked to lend it some fat it did not have (lots of Google hits if you want to try it.)
I like this technique even if making sausage or meatloaf. Fat is often healthy. And more so if you choose a healthy added fat like olive oil or canola^. Of course you could sometimes up the flavour with butter, lard or suet as part of the added oil.
^Canola is sometimes demonized as a “seed oil” but it has a higher ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 than olive oil. Few demonizes flaxseed, which is very high in ALA, an omega 3.
Nothing wrong with butter, lard, suet, tallow, etc. in moderation. Of course, a lot of people have no clue what “moderation” actually means. And if you eat a lot of processed or ultra-processed foods you’re fat/oil intake is already probably higher than ideal.
In the old days when people cooked from scratch they had a much better idea of how much fat/oil they were actually eating. Our ancestors’ lifestyles that often involved more manual labor or more of just plain walking around helped them burn the calories ingested.
Fat provides calories, it helps you absorb/use/store fat-soluable vitamins, the various components (like omega-3’s) helps your body in various ways, and is needed. Trying to go entirely fat-free, or very low fat, isn’t healthy, either.
For infants and children fat intake is crucial for their health and development.
This can get very complicated, but can also boil down to “eat a variety of fats and oils, but not too much”.
Oh, of course I agree - I mentioned in another thread where I did bacon wrapped pork tenderloin medallions, similar to what @Whack-a-Mole talks about for filet mignon. And at times, I watched in amazement as Chef Walter Staib on A Taste of History used a larding needle on a number of occasions.
Like most things in cooking and life, it’s about reaching a balance, or moderation in all things (occasionally including moderation!). Adding fat almost always adds flavor, but you (and many others have said) want to balance type and quantity of fat as well as part of your overall diet. The whole blame game (be it fat, sugar, carbs, etc.) seems to constantly chase a magic bullet of a fix, when it’s so much more complex than that, even leaving out individual’s personal biology and biome.
ANYWAY, and back to the thread, it’s a point that many of the pricey meat options right now are tied to a high level of fat avoidance. Ground beef is pricey, but extra lean ground meat is even pricier! Though of course an argument can be made for the additional costs of removing or selecting leaner cuts, I think it’s more about what the market will bear. Similar for other ground means, or “hand-trimmed” boneless, skinless chicken breasts, though again there’s a non-zero additional cost involved.
Many of the cheapest cuts of meat are outliers on either end of the spectrum: either very lean or very fatty, and so need to be cooked in a way that respects their unique characteristics.
I recently bought a pork butt from Kroger for $2.00 a pound and threw it into the smoker this past weekend. I’ll be eating pulled pork in various dishes most of this week and freezing some for future use. Pulled pork is probably one of my most economical meat options right now. Maybe not so economical when you consider the price of the smoker and fuel.
There’s a wider shot in the album showing how white the feet are against some other bones & organs. There are some bones in there but it’s mostly skin and hoof.
Which is why I do most of my quasi-pulled pork in a mustard vinegar mix and some smoked paprika (for the smoky flavor, natch) in my slow cookers. No, it’s not the real thing, granted, but a no-frills slow cooker is like $25, and needs nothing but electricity. No the result isn’t NEARLY as amazing as a skilled smoker provides, but it’s good enough to make the most of cheap meats!
So I presume that guy is not normally the cook of the couple? Because frankly he seemed to have no idea what he was doing. I especially liked how he seemed confident in his knife skills while he held the chef’s knife like a rookie. Having said that, it does look really good.
