Bootlegger’s Roast Redux

So last night I took out the leftover chunk of roast I had frozen after St. Patricks day and had to figure out how to cook a roast from frozen. I ended up sticking it in a ziploc bag and defrosting in a pot of room-temperature water. Then I emptied out the water and the roast founds its way back into the pot again this time accompanied by (maybe more than) half a bottle of red wine, olive oil, soy sauce, a mixture of baslamic, malt, and white vinnegar. I also added salt and pepper… I should NOT have added salt! I basically added liquids that sounded like they’d taste good in the gravy later and water until it covered the roast most of the way. Then I put on a movie and let it simmer covered in foil. When the movie was done so was it! So I transferred the roast to a pan and began to sear it in butter. Then on a whim I decided to throw in some brown sugar and glaze the sucker hehehe it turned out sooo crispy and delicious!

I almost didn’t need the gravy…. but I loooove gravy so I turned up the heat on the liquid still in the roasting pot and let it reduce down. Next I added butter and flour … yes, I know that to make a gravy appropriately I should make a roux separately and then work in the liquid, but I get impatient… so I accept that it won’t be perfect and the flour will make little lumps … so I whisk it in and once I get the thickness I like I strain it into a serving dish.

So here’s the difference between the first roast and this one. When I cut into the roast cooked in the oven it was pink in the middle and looked like little steaks. The pot-roast, however, couldn’t really be cut because it just sort of fell apart … they were both so tender, but in totally different ways. The second was hardly pink at all, but those tender little chunks of delicousness went better with a heavy gravy. Whereas the first roast on St. Pattys day didn’t really need gravy at all, but it tasted and looked much more sophisticated. In the end they both tasted qually delicous

Bootlegger’s Roast

So I realized last night that I never followed up about the potroast I made for St. Patricks Day! Actually the reason I remembered was because I had frozen a chunk of it and took it out of the freezer to make for dinner last night.

Bread n’ Cheese:

• Sourdough and potato bread
• Drunken goat, goat cheese
• Stout infused Irish cheddar

Marinade:

• Red wine
• Balsamic vinegar
• Soy sauce (no need for salt now)
• Worcestershire sauce
• Several cloves of garlic … some stuck into slits in the roast and some minced and in the marinade itself
• 1 onion, minced
• Black pepper
• Herbs: thyme, rosemary, chives, parsley, sage … whatever strikes your fancy

Because I’m a sucker for a beautiful peice of meat, I picked up a gorgeous 12 inch tenderloin filet at Whole Foods…. um that wasn’t supposed to sound dirty! Anywho, it should be marinaded overnight in the fridge and patted dry before roasting. Now the cooking part of this went pretty haphazard as I’ve never done a roast before and my parents didn’t really cook many growing up so I didn’t have much to go on. That said, I would look at someone elses recipe for oven temperature and cooking time. That said, I seared it first in a pan to get some nice color and flavor on it before sticking it in the oven with some super-fatty bacon peices draped over top to keep it moist while it roasted.

Whiskey Gravy:

• Reduce whiskey, beef broth, and red wine
• Deglaze roast pan with reduction
• Add flour and butter to make gravy
• Strain into serving dish

Horseradish Roast Potatoes:

• Potatoes (diced and cleaned, not peeled)
• Horseradish
• Garlic (mince half and leave some cloves whole)
• 1 Large white onion, diced
• Herbs: thyme, rosemary, chives, parsley, sage … whatever you like
• Salt & Pepper
• Coat with vegetable oil

Now how one chooses to roast their potatoes is really personal preference. You can boil them and then broil them in the oven, but I don’t really like that. You can cover them with foil so that they don’t brown too quickly and cook on a lower temperature (350) until tender and then broil them until golden brown … or you can just be lazy and put the oven on 400 or 425 and stick the whole thing in and take whatever it dishes out! Which is typically a bit al dente and doesn’t get as crispy golden brown a crust than if you do it “right” … which for me would be the second option. Plus the longer all the flavors cook together, the more delicious everything is!

Irish Coffee:

• Intelligentsia coffee
• Baileys Irish Cream and/or Whiskey
• Brown Sugar
• Whipped cream