#beef roast

We did clean up in the backyard garden this weekend. Some things got converted into ash & biochar:

I like the way this woodland phlox spreads. It forms little clumps or communities rather than a wall of invasion like our blue salvia:

"We're not buying any more plants this year...":

Our crabapple blossomed for the first time. They smell amazing. I don't expect many but I hope we get a couple of fruit this year just to taste:

We harvested some of our leeks today. You can smell them all over the house. It is glorious:

We knew it was a gamble & our bay tree did die back hard but there is new growth so maybe we can manage to keep it alive year to year with heavy leaf mulching:

We had a cut of beef roast & my queen said, "Do you want to try grilling it?" In deed I would. There are angels still weeping over how good it was:

First I’ll listen ingredients and then my process. They will not have accurate measurements! You measure that roast with your heart!!!

Ingredients:

2-3 lb roast (can be chuck, mock tender, whatevs you want bby)

5-7 carrots (I prep mine so they’re on a slant bias, just means I cut them ✨Fancý✨)

At least one onion, I put in three

1 lb of potatoes (I just buy the small bite sized ones to make this easy for myself)

Seasonings:

Salt

Pepper

Bay leaves (3)

Garlic (preferably fresh, granulated is fine)

Onion powder

Thyme

Sage

Rosemary

(Ok now stay with me)

Ginger

Turmeric

Mustard (I use both yellow and Dijon)

Worcestershire sauce

Chicken bullion

Red wine

OK I KNOW ITS A LOT HERE WE GO

1. Get your Dutch oven over medium heat and oil it lightly. Olive oil is fine or butter, just not margarine because that stuff is terrible for you. While doing this set your oven to 325.

2. Sear the beef on all sides or as many as you can get.

3. Chop your onions into half moons (you can dice if you want) and mince your garlic, once the beef is done searing you’ll take it out to rest. Toss your onions and garlic in to sauté.

4. Once those are sautéed, add in equal amounts of thyme, sage, and rosemary. This is also the time to add salt and pepper. This step and the next are kind of the “add everything together” steps.

5. I add only a little of ginger and turmeric, I’m talking like 1/8 of a teaspoon. Does it affect the flavor?? I think it does but I could be hallucinating, idk. I also add about two teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce, one teaspoon of each mustard, and a good spoonful of the Better than Bullion chicken. (I actually just eyeball all of these so adjustments may be needed.

6. Add half a bottle of wine to deglaze the bottom of the Dutch, add your bay leaves, and add your beef back to the whole mix. Put into the oven at 325 for like three hours.

7. While that’s in the oven, cut your carrots and wash your potatoes. Once three hours has gone by double check that the meat is falling apart. Add your carrots and potatoes and let that cook in the oven for another hour.

8. I cheat and make a cornstarch slurry for my gravy but basically I spoon out all the stuff into a big metal bowl, make the slurry, add slurry to broth making gravy, add everything else back.

Tonight's pot roast plan. (With probably half of that giant rutabaga chunked up. Some of the carrots are looking pretty scabby, but that will hopefully peel right off.)

The fransyska seems to be a pretty popular cut here, though I haven't actually bought one before. Got a pretty good sale deal on this one, so why not. Meat in general has been running relatively pricey enough that I've been falling back more on, like, ground and cheapish chicken legs.

Getting used to British meat cuts was already fun enough, and not at all surprisingly they are even more different here. Though I have been very glad to readily be able to find something that corresponds to chuck again.

That steer on the right looks so reproachful, and no wonder.

That appears to be out of the round, and apparently sometimes gets called "beef knuckle" in English even though it's located nowhere near what anyone who is not a butcher would refer to as a knuckle. Where by "knuckle", they apparently mean near the hip joint. (?!) It may correspond to sirloin tip elsewhere, if you're further breaking down the round? Seems to depend on the details of exactly where it's cut from. Idek. I am not a meat expert, just an idiot trying to figure out how to cook new-to-me hunks of the stuff.

So yeah, as I was thinking, a good braise (if under pressure to speed things up) is probably not going to be too wrong. We'll see how it turns out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯