Pot Roast from top round
Yesterday I got a 4# top round on sale for $8. I wasn't sure if I'd used this cut for pot roast before - certainly I have done them with bottom round, and I recall not liking top round for homemade roast beef although I know it's used for deli roast beef. Posts on this board have advised against braising it, saying it is too dry. I seared it well in bacon fat in my naked cast iron Dutch oven, then added 2# of sliced onion, 3 bay leaves, 6-8 cloves, and some crushed garlic smeared on the top, because that was my mother's SOP for pot roast and goulash made from boneless chuck roast. Covered and braised for 3 hours, turning hourly. At that point the section the had a membrane and some fat was soft enough to pull off from the main piece, which I then cut in half so the meat was more submerged in the considerable liquid produced by the onions and meat juices. I added a tbsp tomato paste, a glug of Mr. Yoshida's cooking sauce, a squirt of honey mustard, and some pepper. It took a total of 5-1/2 hours for the meat to become extremely tender, but it did, and is not at all dry. It's probably the first time this century that I've made a pot roast but I definitely need to do this more often.
The meat and sauce are delicious, and there was less shrinkage than with a fattier cut.
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ipsedixit
Nov 12, 2009 08:41 PM
I do something similar, except I call it the "Lazy man's pot roast"
Top round (or rump round), a packet of Lipton's onion soup mix, a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom condensed soup, some Worstershire sauce; preheat oven to 250F, stick the meat in the dutch oven, dump all the ingredients in, pop it in oven and leave it in the oven covered for 10 hours.
