Traditional Yankee Pot Roast
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“This smells like something my mom would cook,” my husband and I said in unison as this tender, succulent pot roast was just above ready to make its way out of the oven and into our mouths.
I could have described this pot roast just from the smell: Warm, rich, flavorful, melt-in-your-mouth. On the lazy Sunday that we sat doing nothing special, this roast filled our home with the most mouthwatering aroma and we couldn’t wait to dig in to it with a side of steamed broccoli and these buttery rosemary rolls.
I can’t mention this roast without mentioning, though, the kindness that a family member showed in giving me the recipe. My stepsister’s husband is quite the adventurous cook, too, and around Christmastime, he and his wife surprised me with a cookbook edition of Yankee Magazine, an authority in traditional New England cooking. Not to mention, the food styling in the cookbook is really something else! I was beyond thrilled at the sweet gesture and have had great fun trying many of the recipes. However, this one was just too incredible not to share with you.
The ingredients for this roast are simple and honest but combine to create a wonderfully delicious meal: Carrots, celery, onion, garlic, beef stock and red wine, to name a few. The meat, salted and peppered and tied up with butchers twine, bathed in this mixture for 2-1/2 hours and became incredibly juicy in the process. After it was taken out to rest and tented with foil, my handy dandy new immersion blender pureed the vegetables and liquid into a brown gravy for pouring over the delicious meat.
It was heaven!
To take the chill off, impress a special someone, or just to have a meal that provides a lot of yummy leftovers, this wonderful Yankee pot roast is the perfect comfort food. Just thinking about the tender, juicy meat draped in warm homemade gravy made with carrots, celery, wine and beef stock is getting me hungry again!
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Yield: Serves 5-8, depending on size of roast
Ingredients:
1 (3- to 5-pound) top round or chuck roast, tied with butchers twine)
Kosher or sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup red wine
1 large onion, diced medium-size
2 carrots, diced medium-size
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1-1/2 cups beef stock
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
4 Tbsp. water
Equipment needed
Large Dutch oven (I used a 5-1/2 quart Le Creuset)
Immersion blender or food processor
Directions:
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Season meat to taste with salt and pepper on all sides.
In a Dutch oven on high setting, heat oil and sear roast on all sides. Remove roast and set aside. Deglaze pot with red wine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom.
Add vegetables to the pot, including garlic, and return roast to pot. Add stock and cover pot. Roast 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 hours (my roast just under 4 lbs. took 2-1/2 hours), until tender.
Remove roast and cut off string. Tent with foil.
Whisk cornstarch with water until well mixed, to create a slurry, and set aside. With an immersion blender, or in the bowl of a food processor, puree vegetables and braising juices. Add the slurry, stir well and simmer for just a few minutes. The juices will thicken into a nice gravy. Salt and pepper to taste.
Slice the roast. Serve with gravy on the side or poured over the meat.
Enjoy!
Adapted from Yankee Magazine’s Best New England Recipes
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Wow, Georgia! This photography reminds me of a spread I saw a few Falls ago in one of my favorite cookbooks. Absolutely fabulous shots! Looks delicious!
Yum yum Georgia! The roast looks wonderful and I can imagine how great it would taste.. just like heaven. The pictures are fantastic! Well done.
Simple comfort food is the best kind of food. It looks perfect Georgia.
Love how homemade and comforting it looks! I’ll have to make it without the red wine though since I can’t have alcohol for religious reasons :) Thanks for sharing :)
Georgia, your photography is just so gorgeous . . . and I LOVE the idea of blending the veggies to make a gravy at the end! Brilliant.
You are killing me with those pictures!!! This looks beyond delicious, and ur a genius to blend the veggies into gravy at the end! This is perfect weekend food when everyone is home – it’s going on the list!
This is the best kind of comfort food and your photos are gorgeous;-)
Georgia, your plating of this is impressive and beautiful! This comfort food reminds me of living back home in the Midwest as I’m sure it does for you, too. :)
Girl you made this looks so divine…if I show my husband he will leave me for you! Lovely pictures, what a gorgeous blog you keep.
What time is dinner???? = ))
MMM I can just smell the aromas form this right now…and what awesome photos you took! That roast looks beautiful! I bet the leftover juices would flavor a good soup nicely.
My husband would be drooling if I showed this to him. :) It looks absolutely wonderful! (Those buttery rosemary rolls sound good too.) :)
Excuse me while I wipe the drool from my keyboard!! Georgia, that pot roast looks divine! And I can only imagine how wonderful it smelled when it was roasting!
Wow….beautiful job. This is like the ultimate comfort food.
Wow, Georgia… when I think of pot roast I totally think of something else – in a good way, of course! Yours looks so fancy and elegant. Awesome job with it. I can only imagine what mine would look like – it would be funny.
Wow, your pot roast sure looks a piece of heaven…so nicely done…I can only imagine the taste of it. Great pictures as well :-)
You can’t beat tradition – this looks so good!
looks like a perfect comfort meal and I’ve been looking for any and every excuse to bust out my new le creuset!
A hearty and delicious pot roast! I will have to get one big le creuset!
Oh my word what I wouldn’t do for a mouthful of this right now! This looks quite amazing.
one of my favorite combo for roasts – garlic & red wine. gorgeous photos!!
Family recipes are always the best, and there is nothing better than a warm and flavorful roast on a cold winter day. Thank you for sharing. As always your photographs are stunning and your words worthy of praise!
I love a good roast! I bet it smells wonderful. Your photos are lovely and I would love a warm plate of your roast tonight, Georgia:)
Georgia, you did a great job cooking up this pot roast, styling it and photographing it. This could be a tricky one to get right – but you sure did. The perfect meal :)
this is just stunning! love how comforting this dish looks:)
Beautiful classic and the photos are gorgeous :)
Is it the addition of wine that makes this a Yankee Pot roast? It looks pretty much the same as any pot roast recipe I have seen… except, of course – that you r photos are lovely.
:)
Valerie
No, it isn’t the wine but the addition of carrots, onions and other vegetables that affords it the “Yankee” a.k.a. “New England pot roast” title. I hope that clears things up for you.
great pictures! love them.
Turned out so good!! The gravy was fantastic, too! Thanks!
This was delicious!
The recipe didn’t call for celery but it was in the pictures so I added 2 stalks, diced. I also added a couple of sprigs of thyme and 1 sprig of rosemary because I had it on hand. I was a little skeptical about the gravy, but it was genius. Sooooo much flavor! Thanks for sharing this recipe!
would this be possible to make in my crockpot? I don’t own a dutch oven, but would love to make this!
Georgia — August 7th, 2013 @ 2:37 pm
I’m not sure how this would work in a CrockPot, but you could try searing the meat in a large skillet, then transferring to a large casserole dish and covering with foil to continue roasting.