You probably think of pot roast as a winter dish, and you surely would not want to heat up your kitchen for hours on end by cooking it long and slow in the oven or even on top of the stove. But if you find yourself with a hankering for it, you can always just pop it into the slow-cooker and let it rip all day! Slow-cookers do not heat up your kitchen, and also use very little electricity, to boot. Using a slow-cooker also means a lot less work, just set it and forget it, and then go about your business, lounge on your contemporary furniture, whatever. This is really the best way to cook a cheap cut of beef, no matter what time of the year it is.
I found this recipe in the book “The Best of Mr. Food: Slow Cookin’ Quickies”. This is a must-have book if you have a slow-cooker.
My only gripe is that he doesn’t tell you to brown the hunk o’ meat before putting it into the slow-cooker. That’s actually a gripe I have with a lot of slow-cooker books. By all means, if you can’t be bothered with this part, skip it…but it really does add more flavor and a much more attractive color to the meat. Just heat some oil in a skillet and brown the hunk o’ meat until nicely browned on all sides. Once that is done, proceed with the recipe as directed.
For the beer, I used good old Guinness – I had a couple of cans of it sitting around that needed using up. I’m not a big stout drinker, and Mike prefers to get his on draught at a bar. Even with that plastic gizmo inside that can that makes it nice and fizzy just like the tap, he says it still isn’t quite as good. Although the recipe calls for 12 ounces of beer, I just used the entire 14.5 ounce can of Guinness. Exact amounts of stuff are not always important in cooking. In baking, yes.
The original recipe calls for a sirloin tip roast. I could not find one at the store, and we didn’t feel like driving to 4700 different stores to find one, so I just bought a bottom round roast and used that. Any cheap, tough cut of beef will work here, save the pricier cuts for another recipe.
For they mustard, I like Grey Poupon Harvest Coarse Ground – not too expensive and easy to find in most stores these days. But of course, you can use what you like or have on hand.
For some reason, plain frozen pearl onions are a bit hard to find around here. Most of the time they come with a cream sauce, and sometimes mixed with peas. You almost NEVER see a store brand version of these. But Birds Eye does make them, you just have to look closely. It’s a pet peeve of mine, the ever-growing difficulty in finding any PLAIN frozen veggies anymore. Half the stuff in the freezer section has some sort of sauce on it; sheesh, don’t people want to put their own stuff on it any more?
Anyhoo, onto the recipe!
1 (10-ounce) package frozen pearl onions
1 (4-pound) sirloin tip roast
1 (12-ounce) bottle dark beer
1/4 cup stone-ground mustard
1 tablespoon caraway seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1 teaspoon pepper
* 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
* Hot cooked medium egg noodlesPlace onions in a 4-quart slow cooker; place roast on top. Add beer and next 4 ingredients.
Cook, covered, at HIGH 8 hours or until roast is tender. Remove roast and onions, reserving drippings in cooker.
Whisk flour into reserved drippings; cook 10 minutes or until thickened. Serve with roast, onions, and hot noodles. I also like to serve some sort of other veggie with this. Mr. Food suggests roasted root veggies.
Enjoy!
For some reason, I bought a large
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This is a version of Beer Can Chicken that I made in my new
I wonder if perhaps that’s the whole idea behind this silly gimmick. You have probably seen the ads on TV – this box of beer has a special window that lets you know when the beer inside is cold. It’s opaque when it’s warm, but becomes see-through when it’s cold enough. Also, the mountains on the bottles or cans in the box turn blue, so you can be extra sure that it is cold enough for human consumption!

