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For a truly successful roast you can't be afraid to attack the person's faults. Roasts are about bite and accuracy, tempered with fondness, embrace the "its funny because its true" form of comedy-wait, wrong kind of roast.

For a really successful roasting of a cut of MEAT you need good meat, a good roasting pan, a thermometer, some kind of liquid to simmer it in, added vegetables or fruits to feed of the flavor of the meat and vice versa. But most of all you'll need patience. Roasts aren't the slowest dish in the world but they do take up to two hours and won't cook faster if you check its progress every few seconds.

There are various ways to cook a roast but the one described here is the one I've had success with, so I'll impart that to you, it's called "Winter Pot Roast." Adapt whatever you wish of its trimmings.

The roast recipe described here calls for a bottom round roast or a boneless round rump roast. "Round" doesn't refer to the shape of the roast but to the cow's leg the round cut of meat is taken from. A round cut of beef can be cooked in a moist or dry heat.

You'll also need 1 tbsp cooking oil, 2 cups beef broth, 1 tbsp lemon peel, 2 tsp dried oregano, 2 minced cloves of garlic, 5 peeled carrots, 1 large onion cut into quarters, 1 cup pitted prunes, (optional) cup dried apricots (optional) and tsp salt and a dash of pepper

On a stovetop heat the cooking oil in the roasting pan and brown the roast on all sides. Then place the meat in pan fat side inside the pan, this way the meat bastes itself as the fat melts and drips down the sides of the meat. Combine the broth, lemon peel, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper and cover the meat with this mixture, brush or pour it on if you like.

Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce heat and let the sauce simmer and the roast cook for approximately an hour and 45 minutes. Add the carrots, onion plus the prunes and apricots if you choose to use them for an extra hint of autumn flavor. Cover the pot and simmer again for another 30 to 40 minutes until the meat and the trimmings cooked with it are all tender and the meat is cooked through at 180 degrees.

Pot roasts can also be cooked inside a stove if the thought of keeping something on the burner for almost two hours seems risky. Set the oven to 350 degrees and cover the whole time.

Source:

"Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book". Des Moines: Better Homes and Gardens Books, 1996

Gisslen, Wayne. "Professional Cooking". 5th ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2003

Learn more about this author, Holly Huffstutler.
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