Buffalo Pot Roast

 

Buffalo Pot Roast
Ingredients
  • 2-3 lbs. buffalo chuck roast
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 tablespoon cooking oil
  • 1 large onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
  • 1 medium carrot, coarsely chopped
  • 1 celery rib, coarsely chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1/4 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
  • 3 fresh thyme sprigs
  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 12 fluid ounces red wine
  • 32 fluid ounces stock
  • 3/4 pounds turnips, peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch wedges
  • 3/4 lbs. small new potatoes
  • 3/4 lbs. carrots, peeled and cut into 3-inch pieces
  • 3/4 lbs. pearl onions (frozen is easiest)
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F and let heat while chopping the vegetables.
  2. Season meat on all sides with salt and pepper. Heat a Dutch oven over high heat for 2 minutes. Then add enough oil to barely coat bottom of pot and heat until shimmering. Sear the meat until golden brown, turning to cook all sides evenly, about 8 minutes.
  3. Remove meat and reduce heat to medium. Add the more oil and the coarsly chopped onion and carrot, celery, garlic, bay leaf, peppercorns and thyme, and cook, stirring fairly often, until the onion is translucent, 2 to 3 minutes.
  4. Sprinkle the flour into the pot, and stir to coat everything evenly; cook about 30 seconds. Add wine and stock, and bring to a boil. Deglaze pot, scraping up browned bits from the bottom. Put the roast in the pot; the liquid should come up about 1 inch up the sides of the meat, and more liquid or water as needed. Once it reaches a boil, cover the pot tightly with the lid and place into the oven for 3 hours.
  5. If convenient, turn the meat over half way through cooking, but this is not totally necessary. After 2.5 hours, remove the meat from the pot. Strain braising liquid through a fine sieve, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible (discard solids).
  6. Return the roast and the strained liquid to the pot. Nestle the garnish vegetables around the roast, submerging them a bit in the liquid (the liquid should almost reach top of vegetables). Place the pot back into the oven for the final 30 minutes of cooking.
  7. The meat should be very tender by now and give no resistance when pierced with a knife. Transfer the meat and vegetables to a serving platter, leaving the sauce behind. If the sauce is too thin, heat until reduced or thicken it with a bit more flour, whisking until smooth. Let roast stand for about 20 minutes, then slice to desired thickness. Spoon some sauce over pot roast and vegetables to moisten and serve with remaining sauce on the side.