Pot roast in the pressure cooker

I used my new pressure cooker for the first time the other night.  I got home around six thirty or so, decided I wanted to make pot roast, went to the store to get ingredients at seven, which means I didn't start cooking till maybe seven forty-five.

What I Done:

I grabbed a couple pot roast recipes online to get an idea of the cook time and ingredients, and what I came up with was something like:

• 2.5 lb. chuck, salted for 45 mins, tied
• 6 yukon gold potatoes, peeled but whole
• 2 yellow onions, in thin rings
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped fine, crushed with salt
• 1 carrot, peeled and medium chopped
• 1 celery rib, medium chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig fresh thyme
• 2T butter
• 2T oil
• 3C beef stock
• 1T tomato paste
• 1T balsamic vinegar
• Salt + pepper

The beef I washed, dried, salted and let stand while I chopped the vegetables (on a tip from cooks illustrated). I then sauteed the onions in butter until floppy, then added the carrots and celery for five minutes, then the garlic for 30s.  While I was doing that, I heated the 2T of oil in the pressure cooker pot and browned the beef on both sides, about two minutes a side, to get some of that Maillard goodness going.  Cooks' Illustrated says you can skip that step because browning will occur even at low temps given enough time, but their recipe has a 3 1/2 hour cook time, while my pressure cooker one only cooks about an hour, and doesn't include flipping the beef in the middle.

Once the veggies were done (after the garlic), I took the beef out and put it aside, put the veggies into the pressure cooker pot, added the stock and tomato paste, and brought everything to a simmer.  I put the peeled potatoes into the veggie/stock mixture, then put the beef back on top of all that so its bottom was just under the surface of the liquid (because it was sitting on the potatoes).

I sealed the pressure cooker up and watched it to see if the lock indicator would pop up.  I'd never used a pressure cooker before, so I was alternately reading the directions and adjusting the heat. Eventually the little yellow tab thing popped up--very clear change in the sound from hissing steam to *shoop* and then nothing.

It cooked for 40 minutes, then I moved it off the heat to let it keep cooking while it released pressure. That took another 15-20 minutes, during which time I steamed some green beans.  When the pot released, I took the beef out and tented it with foil while I ran the potatoes through a food mill.

Again on the advice of the CI article I'd read, I sieved the liquid and veggie mix to get the solids out, ditched the bay leaf and thyme stems, and let the liquid sit so the fat could settle out a bit.  I had to use a turkey baster to get the liquid from under the fat layer, but eventually got about a quart of it which I heated in a sauce pan with the veggie remnants.  I ran an immersion blender through it to make a sauce, and added balsamic vinegar to that to give it a little bite.


How was it?

Well, it was kind of ok. It was nice to have a meal, but I think the beef upset my stomach a bit--possibly it was just a bit too fatty still.  I also wish that I'd had some time to reduce the sauce a bit--it came out thinner than I would have liked.

Probably the biggest issue with the meal was that I didn't have milk for the mashed potatoes, so they came out sort of cakey and dry.


Do it again?

I'm thinking not--turns out I was sort of thinking of roast beef when I decided to make pot roast. Once I started eating it, it quickly became apparent that I'd forgotten what pot roast tasted like.  It wasn't bad, it's just not one of my favorite foods--in all honesty, I'd much more happily have a vegetable soup with beef chunks, if I'm going to be doing the whole softening-via-melting-collagen thing.

A list of intentions

Some things I would like to do, hopefully in service of living a bit better:

• Remember to take my various pills, since they seem to help me, oh, not have heartburn, or do my job better, or whatever.
• Meditate somewhat regularly, to try to keep my anxiety in check and make my brain magic.
• Try to have better sleep hygiene, so less reading in bed.
• Get up in the morning with time to exercise before work, because I work better and feel better.
• Work outside the house at least two or three times a week.
• File my incoming mail to avoid the dreaded mail-valanche.
• Keep a moderately clean office and desk.
• Keep a clean car if I can, so my eventual offspring doesn't have random junk to put in their mouth when they sit in the back seat.  NB: This is how I swallowed a toy jack as a child.
• Get an alarm clock or watch, so I can leave my cell phone outside the bedroom.

Most of those things aren't about food.  I've got a whole other list of things about food, but they're on an index card I left at home today.

Hey, blog, why you is?

There's a lot of blogs out there, and a metric crap-ton of them are about food. So, why another blog about food?

Reason the first: I need a hobby. Cooking will get me away from my desk sometimes.

Reason the second: To do things that are "healthy" or "good for me" I kind of need some extrinsic reason. Documenting what I cook will probably help me eat more of the things I intend to eat (whole grains, vegetables) and less of the things I don't, when I think about it, really mean to eat (fried stuff, sugar in large quantities, street lamps, pacific-rim cities, etc.)

To be clear, it's about me.  In fact, I have a great suspicion no one will read this except me, but I look forward to your company if you choose to join me on my journey!  Welcome, spambots and comment fraudsters! I hope you like pictures of food and cooking equipment.