Smoked Chuck Roast
I wanted a pot roast, but I wanted it smokey instead of bathing in the crock pot. I did it on the smoker instead and it turned out amazing. Two hours at low temp to coat it in smoke and get a ring....
Forum Discussion
It's funny that two of you asked about the gravy. I had never made gravy before, but my wife shamed me into it. It wasn't a ton of shame, but just a subtle "You'd better make gravy out of that".
Message received.
She didn't give me a recipe though and just said "don't forget to make the roux", as if all dudes even know what a roux is or how to do it. Luckily we're 34 years into our dance and I've seen her do it enough times to kind of have an idea. But there's a difference between "see her do it" and "watched her do it".
Anyway, my orders were "gravy" and "roux". Check.
The pan had a ton of juice in it. More specifically, there were seven cups of juice. Some of it was drippings from the meat, some was perspiration from the veggies, and there were also four cups of beef bone broth from the braise.
So my extremely scientific method was...
- Separate the fats from the liquids and add them to a hot skillet.
- Fetch our smallest measuring cup and canister of flour like I've seem my wife do it so many times before and just start sprinkling flour into the fat and whisk it in.
- Let it boil but not burn (not high heat, but hard medium) and keep whisking it.
- Slowly add more layers of flour and whisk them in.
- Ask myself what a "roux" is, how is it spelled, and wonder if I should have watched 45 minutes of youtubes first.
- Slowly integrate the rest of the liquids. If there's one thing I knew, it's that my wife never just dumped anything into that pan. It was slow and full of Merlin's alchemy.
- Keep fussing with the consistency of liquids and flour and dutifully whisk the lumps out of the flour globs.
- Stop and taste.
- It's not great yet, so add a ton of fresh cracked pepper and taste again.
- Keep whisking while I think and decide what it's missing. I see tons of seasoning in the bottom of the rest of the liquids, so I need to take those into account.
- It needs red wine, so I poured a glass of open Cabernet into the pan, one into myself, and put another one "on reserve" as the chefs like to say.
- Add a little more flour in anticipation of the rest of the liquids, whisk it in, and then add the remaining liquids and their herbs and seasonings.
- Sip wine, add more pepper, keep whisking, more wine, pet the dogs, and keep whisking.
- Get bored and call it "done".
And that's the bulletproof science behind my gravy. Lord knows whether I'll ever be able to repeat it, but it was a winner.
My only regret is that we didn't have any white pepper (translation: I couldn't find the white pepper). I think a good gravy needs to take its bite from the white pepper.
It was still good though.
Lotsa luck following these horrible directions.
Message received.
She didn't give me a recipe though and just said "don't forget to make the roux", as if all dudes even know what a roux is or how to do it. Luckily we're 34 years into our dance and I've seen her do it enough times to kind of have an idea. But there's a difference between "see her do it" and "watched her do it".
Anyway, my orders were "gravy" and "roux". Check.
The pan had a ton of juice in it. More specifically, there were seven cups of juice. Some of it was drippings from the meat, some was perspiration from the veggies, and there were also four cups of beef bone broth from the braise.
So my extremely scientific method was...
- Separate the fats from the liquids and add them to a hot skillet.
- Fetch our smallest measuring cup and canister of flour like I've seem my wife do it so many times before and just start sprinkling flour into the fat and whisk it in.
- Let it boil but not burn (not high heat, but hard medium) and keep whisking it.
- Slowly add more layers of flour and whisk them in.
- Ask myself what a "roux" is, how is it spelled, and wonder if I should have watched 45 minutes of youtubes first.
- Slowly integrate the rest of the liquids. If there's one thing I knew, it's that my wife never just dumped anything into that pan. It was slow and full of Merlin's alchemy.
- Keep fussing with the consistency of liquids and flour and dutifully whisk the lumps out of the flour globs.
- Stop and taste.
- It's not great yet, so add a ton of fresh cracked pepper and taste again.
- Keep whisking while I think and decide what it's missing. I see tons of seasoning in the bottom of the rest of the liquids, so I need to take those into account.
- It needs red wine, so I poured a glass of open Cabernet into the pan, one into myself, and put another one "on reserve" as the chefs like to say.
- Add a little more flour in anticipation of the rest of the liquids, whisk it in, and then add the remaining liquids and their herbs and seasonings.
- Sip wine, add more pepper, keep whisking, more wine, pet the dogs, and keep whisking.
- Get bored and call it "done".
And that's the bulletproof science behind my gravy. Lord knows whether I'll ever be able to repeat it, but it was a winner.
My only regret is that we didn't have any white pepper (translation: I couldn't find the white pepper). I think a good gravy needs to take its bite from the white pepper.
It was still good though.
Lotsa luck following these horrible directions.
