- 6 weeks ago
Looking for a comfy new roast recipe for your slow cooker this fall? In this video, Chef John teaches you how to make apple cider pot roast, a cozy and savory sweet recipe to break out for those chilly autumn nights. Seared beef chuck roast, apple cider, carrots and celery cook in a slow cooker for a delicious medley of flavors. Serve up over a bed of mashed potatoes and enjoy!
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Apple Cider Pot Roast.
00:08That's right, while it's more commonly used to braise pork,
00:11apple cider really does make for an incredible beef pot roast.
00:15And if I was a pile of mashed potatoes on a plate,
00:17especially when the weather turns chilly,
00:19this is what I want laying on top of me.
00:22And to get started, we're going to take about 4 pounds of beef chuck roast,
00:26which for me are going to be these two 2-pound pieces.
00:29And we'll go ahead and generously season those on both sides
00:32with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, plus a little bit of cayenne.
00:37And we will blend those together and cover both sides.
00:41And I know at this point it always looks like a shocking amount of seasoning,
00:44but 4 pounds of beef is a lot of meat.
00:46And if you're not using like a teaspoon of salt per pound of meat,
00:49it could be under-seasoned, or some people would call it bland.
00:53So reduce the amount if you want, but that's how much I'm putting.
00:57And once that's been applied,
00:59and we've picked up as much of the excess on the plate as possible,
01:02we will head to the stove, where we're going to sear this over high heat,
01:06and a little bit of avocado oil, or some other high heat oil.
01:09And as usual, I do not want you to rush this step.
01:13Okay, we really do want to try to achieve a nice dark brown crust,
01:16which is going to produce a deeper, more meaty flavor,
01:19as well as help give our sauce a nice beautiful color.
01:22So please take your time.
01:25And once both sides have been thoroughly browned,
01:27we'll remove that to a plate and we'll turn off the heat
01:30so the pan doesn't start smoking before we grab the next set of ingredients,
01:35which we'll start with 3 tablespoons of butter,
01:38which we will transfer in, and we'll set our heat back on medium.
01:42And once the butter melts, we'll transfer in a diced onion,
01:45along with its traveling companion, a nice big pinch of salt,
01:48and we will cook that stirring for a few minutes.
01:52And what's going to happen is that salt's going to draw moisture out of the onion,
01:56which is going to start to deglaze that goodness from the bottom of the pan.
01:59And after about 3 or 4 minutes or so,
02:02your onions will turn translucent and start to get a little bit golden brown.
02:06And once they're looking a little something like this,
02:08we will stop and make a space in the center,
02:11and we will transfer in our minced garlic,
02:13and we will cook that for about 30 seconds or so,
02:16just to take off the raw edge.
02:18And then once we feel like our garlic has cooked long enough,
02:21we'll go ahead and toss in our flour,
02:23and we'll cook that stirring for a minute or two.
02:26And by the way, I do not want a thick, starchy gravy here.
02:29I'm going for more of a refined sauce,
02:32or something closer to like a classic beef au jus.
02:35But if you do want your sauce nice and thick,
02:37you could easily double that amount,
02:39or even triple it if you want something really thick.
02:42But either way, once that flour has cooked for a minute or two,
02:45we will transfer in almost all of our cooking liquids,
02:49starting with some apple cider vinegar,
02:51which is very important to balance the sweetness of the next ingredient,
02:54which is the star of the show, our apple cider.
02:57And we'll go ahead and whisk that in,
03:00and we'll turn our heat up to high,
03:02since we want this to come up to a boil.
03:05And while we wait, we'll transfer in a couple other things,
03:08like any and all accumulated juices from our reserved beef,
03:11which we will follow with a small but important splash of Worcestershire sauce.
03:16And then I think with these ingredients,
03:18we definitely want a nice big spoon of Dijon mustard,
03:21for its sharpness, acidity, and other magical powers.
03:25Speaking of which,
03:26we will finish up with one spoon of poultry seasoning.
03:30And if you don't have that,
03:31you can toss in a nice big pinch of dried sage,
03:34dried thyme, and dried rosemary.
03:36And after giving that another nice thorough whisking,
03:38we will let this boil for about 10 minutes or so,
03:41or until it reduces down,
03:43and starts getting a little bit thick.
03:45And once we get to that point,
03:47and our mixture is looking something like this,
03:49we will transfer in a couple cups of chicken broth.
03:52And we'll stir that in,
03:54and we'll continue to let this boil and reduce,
03:56until we get it back to about that same thickness level,
03:59that we were just at.
04:01And yes, if you want to save a step,
04:03you could add all the liquids at once,
04:04and reduce it once.
04:06But the German chef I learned this recipe from,
04:08insisted that we reduce the cider first,
04:11and concentrate that before we add the chicken broth.
04:14And since it came out so good,
04:16that's just the way I've always done it.
04:18So you do what you want,
04:19but I let that boil and reduce,
04:21until I got it down to this point.
04:23And once that's been accomplished,
04:24we can turn off the heat,
04:26and we can transfer our beef into the bottom of our slow cooker,
04:29and we'll make sure that all fits in,
04:31in one uniform layer.
04:32And by the way, yes,
04:34you can do the exact same thing in a Dutch oven,
04:36and this recipe will work out exactly the same.
04:39And then once that beef shoulder's been situated as shown,
04:42and we've transferred over any of the remaining accumulated juices,
04:45we will add some sliced up celery,
04:47and chunked up carrots to the crock.
04:49And yeah, somehow one of the carrot tops got past my quality control, people.
04:53So I pulled that out,
04:55and I saved it for a little chef snack,
04:57before distributing those veggies here and there.
05:00And once we've wasted a few seconds doing that,
05:02since it probably doesn't matter,
05:04we will carefully transfer in our cooking liquids,
05:06and there should be plenty enough to cover the meat.
05:09And that's it.
05:10We'll grab the lid,
05:11and we will lock that on,
05:13and then we will cook this very slowly on the low setting,
05:17for like six, seven, or eight hours,
05:19depending on the size and shape of our meat,
05:21and which brand of slow cooker we're using.
05:23But we're not going by time,
05:25since we're going to cook this until it's fork tender,
05:27no matter how long that takes.
05:30Oh, and one tip here.
05:31Whenever you go in for a peek at the meat,
05:33instead of letting all that condensed moisture go back into the crock,
05:37I like to drain that into a bowl next to the slow cooker,
05:40which is going to help our sauce thicken up a little bit,
05:43as well as concentrate the flavors a little more.
05:46And even though it's only going to be a couple tablespoons each time,
05:49if you did that six times,
05:50you'd have close to three quarters of a cup of water,
05:53which is way more than nothing.
05:55But anyway, we'll continue to cook,
05:57and remove liquid and test for doneness,
06:01until like I said, our meat is fork tender.
06:04And right here, my time had elapsed,
06:06and the slow cooker had shut down.
06:08So I gave it a test to see if it needed more time,
06:11but it was actually feeling perfect.
06:13And once we are happy with the doneness,
06:15we'll go ahead and remove the meat to a platter.
06:18And besides the meat,
06:20we'll also remove the aromatic vegetables,
06:22and we'll keep everything warm for a few minutes
06:24while we finish our sauce.
06:25And for that, what we'll do is turn the setting to high,
06:29so that our sauce is simmering,
06:31at which point we have to make a few decisions.
06:34The first one being, should we skim the fat off the top,
06:37which I usually do most of.
06:39And then the other decision is,
06:41should we serve the sauce as is,
06:43or thicken it up a little more?
06:44And personally, I would be fine with this.
06:47But I do want to show you a really nice trick,
06:50which involves adding a little bit of cornstarch to some water,
06:53to form what we call in the business a slurry.
06:56And once we give that a stir,
06:57and it's nicely dissolved,
06:59we'll go ahead and whisk that into our simmering sauce,
07:02and almost instantly,
07:03it will thicken up slightly,
07:05and get a little bit shiny,
07:07and your sauce will have a little more body to it.
07:09And even though I really didn't have to do it here, as I said,
07:12I want you to know about this technique,
07:14since we're heading right into peak sauce and gravy season.
07:18And if one of those is a little too thin for your liking,
07:20this is a very fast and easy way to thicken it up a bit.
07:23But anyway, that's optional,
07:25and for you to decide.
07:27I mean, you are after all this deaf curry,
07:29of whether to use a slurry.
07:31And that's it, besides tasting that for seasoning,
07:34we'll go ahead and spoon that over our meat and veggies,
07:36of course, reserving a whole bunch of it
07:38to serve alongside our mashed potatoes.
07:41And yes, I always strain this before it goes on,
07:44since I find those little particles of onion and garlic and celery
07:47a little bit distracting.
07:49And I just think the sauce looks better in its purified state.
07:52And then I think this is so beautiful,
07:54we could just leave it alone.
07:56But to complicate things,
07:58I decided to garnish with some sauteed apples,
08:00plus a nice scattering of freshly snipped chives,
08:03which I thought would look really nice on top.
08:06But anyway, garnish or not,
08:08we will cut up some nice thick slices of meat
08:10and serve those on some mashed potatoes,
08:13with copious amounts of our sauce being ladled over the top.
08:17And that's it, I grabbed a fork and knife
08:18and went in for the official taste.
08:21And that, my friends, really was a truly amazing bite of pot roast.
08:25All right, as you know, I usually do these kind of recipes,
08:27so I have an excuse to eat mashed potatoes.
08:30But here, I enjoyed the actual meat every bit as much.
08:34All right, I think the balance here between the acidity
08:36and the sweetness was perfect.
08:38And like I said in the intro,
08:40even though this is a more common preparation for pork shoulder,
08:43I think this works just as well on the even more flavorful beef.
08:46And because of the cooking time,
08:48the slow cooker really is a nice way to do this.
08:51But a Dutch oven on low heat with a tight-fitting lid
08:53will pretty much produce the same magical results.
08:57But no matter which method you use,
08:59I think you and yours are going to love this as much as I did.
09:02And this might very well end up being the pot roast
09:05you enjoy the most,
09:07which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon.
09:11So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
09:14a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual.
09:17And as always, enjoy.
Be the first to comment