Name: Pot Roast
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 4 h
Total time: 4 h 45 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 2 kg beef brisket or chuck; 1 tbsp coarse salt; 2 tbsp oil; 2 onions; 6 cloves garlic; 2 tbsp tomato purée; 2 tbsp plain flour; 750 ml beef stock; 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce; 2 bay leaves; 4 carrots; 800 g waxy potatoes; a handful parsley

Prep: 25m
Cook: 4h
Waiting: 20m
Total: 4h 45m
Serves: 6
Effort: Easy

Scale

Units

Method

Pot Roast — recipe grid
2 kg	1 Brown deeply on every side 20m 20 minutes of genuine browning. This is the only place this dish gets colour.	3 Return the beef, add the liquid, bring to a simmer 8m	4 Braise at 150°C / 300°F, covered, adding the vegetables at 2½ hours 4h Root vegetables need about 90 minutes. Added at the start they disintegrate.	5 Rest 20 minutes, then pull into pieces or carve thickly 20m
1 tbsp
2 tbsp
2	2 Soften and cook out 12m
6 cloves
2 tbsp
2 tbsp
750 ml
1 tbsp
2
4
800 g
a handful

Read left to right: ingredients merge into steps, and the rightmost cell is the last thing you do. Steps account for 5h of hands-on and cooking time.

Big pieces, late

Vegetables cut small and added at the start of a four-hour braise are gone — literally, they dissolve into the sauce. Large chunks added for the last ninety minutes still taste of themselves and thicken the sauce with what they do give up.

Notes

Tie the joint. It holds its shape and carves rather than collapsing.
Tight lid. This one wants the moisture kept in, unlike a chilli.
If the sauce is thin at the end, take everything out and boil it hard for ten minutes.

Method

Brown deeply on every side

Soften and cook out

Return the beef, add the liquid, bring to a simmer

Braise at 150°C / 300°F, covered, adding the vegetables at 2½ hours

Rest 20 minutes, then pull into pieces or carve thickly

Big pieces, late

Notes