In-laws arrive in about ten hours. I have eleven hours of work to do beforehand—hence* zero *time to prep/cook. I’m not that used too cooking with slow cookers or packaged/prefab cooking, so thought to ask in case I’m doing it wrong (e.g. I’ve never tried the onion soup method of pot roasting). I have a 4 lb bone-in chuck roast. Here’s what I intend, starting about ten or eleven hours before serving: [ul][li]Take meat out of fridge to rest on the counter an hour before starting;[/li][li]Peel a handful of carrots, celery, and onions (and a bay leaf); drop in bottom of slow cooker;[/li][li]Put meat on a pan, take outside, connect flame thrower, and sear the hell out of it;[/li][li]Put meat on top of vegetables;[/li][li]Mix two pkgs of Lipton’s Dry Onion Soup into a couple cups home-made beef broth; pour over meat;[/li][li]Cover, set cooker to ‘low’;[/li][li]Walk away for eight to ten hours. [/ul][/li]
Besides wondering if I’ve forgotten something, what about timing of everything? Their arrival time is a bit ambiguous (traffic, etc.)—what’s the time-frame for overcooking? Will it be ready at eight hours and overdone at ten?Do the low temperatures mean it would take much more than that to get overdone? Is there a minimal time it can stay in? E.g. if they arrive hungry at the seven hour mark, what will it be like then?
Oh, the flame thrower I’m using to sear it with is a heavy duty, construction-like unit, the kind that heats roofing tar or burns weeds in a parking lot. Do I need to cover the bone with foil?
Anything else? Is the onion soup method going to disappoint, or will it make it by?
I’d toss in a little garlic and some Worcestershire. Are you going to serve this with any sides, or just the roast? That will affect what you also toss in the cooker.
Smashed, sliced, or just whole cloves? Dash of Worcestershire or several globs? Should I do the Marx Brothers Mr. Worcestershire Sir thing, or should I attempt to hold on to some semblance of dignity?
I am going to try and convince Mrs. Devil to make mashed potatoes and will head out to the garden to grab some corn (thirty seconds before serving everything else).
I love my pot roast heavy on the smashed fresh garlic, but that’s me. To each his own tastebuds. For a 4 lb. roast, a couple of tablespoons of Lea & Perrins should be plenty. You want it to accent the flavor, not dominate it.
With those veggies as sides, you won’t need to add potatoes to the pot. But you might want to take the roast out to rest a bit before serving and tighten up the liquid into a nice gravy.
I don’t use any water, and there’s plenty of free fluid. Not sure I’d let the bay leaf touch bottom, and I’d also put some carrots on top.
Worchester sauce is good, a little soy might add umami, and occasionally I use a little liquid smoke.
Both good points. Balsamic vinegar can be very nice, adding it to the other liquids. Don’t make my mistake, and near the end decide that the scent is insufficiently yummy, and sprinkle on a little BV.
I agree with the others… one packet of onion soup and maybe 1/2-3/4 cup of water… two cups of water is too much liquid… the beef exudes quite a bit. Also as far as the order in the pot, I’d put the roast on th bottom and the veg on top add the pakcet of soup to the 1/2-3/4 cup of liquid (water/wine/whatever) to lightly dissolve and ensure distribution and pour that over it all.
As long as you keep it on low, there isn’t really any chance of it being “overdone” in the conventional sense, you can keep it going for quite some time past 10 or 12 hours and probably will only have to ensure that it doesn’t “dry out”-it will just be fall apart tender in every way… I mean don’t expect a rare roast and al dente veg or anything… but then who really does with pot roast except some crazy foodies and french chefs? I’d probably say that it needs a minimum of 8 hours on low… if you want to hurry it along a bit … you can always turn it to high.
I ended up going with a soup/stock/Worcestershire mix. Not too much liquid, and while it tastes salty now, the volume of meat and vegetables should temper that.
Any consensus on time? Do I need to worry at the five hour mark?
Oh, and slow cooker-wise, do I care if the lid occasionally comes off to poke at it?
First, you can’t really overcook pot roast, particularly in a slow-cooker. Don’t worry about that part. I’ve cooked them for way longer than that; the longer they cook, the better they get.
If you want edible veg from your carrots & onions, you might want to throw in half early (for flavor) and half later (for eating). And put the meat on the bottom, in the liquid. I know the instructions say to do it your way, but they’re wrong.
Sear that puppy up, the bone will be fine. If it starts charring badly, then back off some on your torching right in that spot.
Another vote for not too much liquid in a slow-cooker. I don’t care for red wine in my pot roast. I’d put in a cup of coffee, maybe a little beef broth. (Really. Coffee is the dope for pot roast.) A little Worcestershire and soy wouldn’t hurt, either.
I don’t worry about dissolving the soup mix, just sprinkle it around. Just pour the liquid over it and it will dissolve as it goes. One packet is probably plenty. I would toss in a few whole garlic cloves.
I love pot roast. Good luck with dinner!
ETA: on review - nah, poke it all ya want. It’ll be fine. Pot roast is really hard to screw up.
I’m not sure what you mean by “worry at five hours”? By then it will just be coming around, so to speak. I think it needs a minimum of 8 hours on low. My mother turned ours up to high the other day around the 5 hour mark, because she thought the roast would “never cook” in the 12 or more hours I had planned overnight before serving dinner… I didn’t realize it until I noticed it was starting to “burn” a bit and get crusty, and she said she had turned it up. Pissed me off, if it did, because she completely ruined the groove I was going for and slightly “burned” the roast- but it was edible if not very good and my mother likes all of her meat way overcooked, anways… But even that did not ruin the roast. But that roast ran around 6 hours on low and the last seven hours on high, or roundabouts. It was perfectly edible at the 8 hour mark and anywhere thereafter, but it was just a matter of convenience and flavor that it went on crocking much longer.
I belong to the school of thought that the less you remove the lid or mess with it the better.
Ah, gotcha. So if they arrive early and want to eat at the 5-hour mark, it’ll at least be done. But if I can put them off (or they’re delayed) until it’s been in there for eight to ten hours, then it’ll be that much better.
I won’t be opening and closing often (I too like to let things sit untouched), but am thinking of poking at it once every hour or so to take a temperature and texture reading.
On low… no, it won’t be done at five hours. On high it will be close to it at five hours, but not quite. So maybe you should cook it on high and then turn it down to low after five or six hours. I essentially did it backwards in my example. Low at 5, then a few/several hours at high, and it was done by the eight hour mark
Ach, I’ll keep it simple and serve around the eight hour mark regardless of when they get here. If they get unruly I have about ten different single malts to keep him occupied with, and if she gets cranky I’ll throw the Dudeling at her; that’s very similar to giving a choo-choo train to the Winter Warlock. Not that she’s anything like the Winter Warlock. Really.
Well, the official rival crockpot recipe for potroast says 10-12 hours on low setting. I tend to agree. I said it probably needs to go a minimum of eight hours on low setting to be close to edible… not the best in terms of flavor and tenderness. I’d turn that puppy up to high, then turn it down after a few hours to low and you probably can’t go wrong… it won’t burn on low and will just keep getting better the longer you have to wait. If you know they are going to be there in 10 hours, or you plan on eating in ten hours just leave it alone on low stting. But if the are going to be early, if you had it on high… then it will probably be ready.
Hmm… I put it in around eleven AM. It’s been in there, untouched, on low ever since. If we want to eat between seven and eight, should I
Leave it as is?
Change to high for a couple hours now then back to low at five?
Change it to high at five?
Something else?
I’d turn it to high right now, and leave it there, with a projected dinner time of 7 or eight. Repeat my bass-ackward roast that I made last week. …but that’s just me.
Also, I did something pretty damn stupid with that crockpot last week and no longer have a crockpot anymore. I thought I’d make gravy straight in the cermaic crock and put it over my stovetop electric burner. It did fine for about five minutes until the gravy was practically done, then I heard a sickening “crack” on the bottom… I quickly took it away from the heat, and it seemed to hold together and seemed fine… didn’t see any visible cracks… so I scooped the gravy out and put the crock aside to cool hoping for the best. Later when I proceeded to wash it after it had cooled- the bottom fell right out. Swift move on my part.