Comfort food: The ultimate (easy) pot roast

I finally have my kitchen back and it’s about time! I decided to cook something comforting as it was the weekend and being in the new kitchen with the family around just begged for comfort food. Braised beef cooked in a pot roast was just the perfect winter warmer and I knew it would make the house smell gorgeous for hours.

I started with a visit to the local butcher hoping to get hold of a solid lump of braising steak (chuck or top blade). This is a tasty meat with lots of collagen that will break down during the long cooking process, so perfect for braising. Unfortunately, braising beef usually comes diced (makes a lovely stew!) and I wanted to roast a roll so I could get melt-in-the-mouth slices. They had brisket, which is also a perfectly good choice for a pot roast and with it I headed home ready to (re)start cooking.

Making a melt-in-the-mouth roasted meat dish really is easy because it is the cooking time that does all the work for you and with only a handful of ingredients you are set to make something delicious.

You don’t have to brown the meat like I did but I do it because it creates a nice caramelised outer layer that is full of flavour. And you can add a lot more ingredients like carrots, celery and stock, but I have to say that you can make it really simple and still get fabulous results and I’m not sure how much more flavour you can get beyond what you get if you cook it with the ingredients listed here.

This pot roast is better for the day after for a few reasons: it will taste better if you have cooked it the day before, it makes next day’s dinner super-easy because you only have to warm the meat up (perfect if you have guests) and it allows time for the fat in the sauce to solidify so you can easily remove it and you get left with a lovely, healthier deeply flavoured sauce.