The quest for the perfect pot roast

With my previous attempt at making a pot roast being relatively successful, I wanted to try to do better.  On this second attempt to make the perfect pot roast with the newly acquired All-Clad slow cooker from Williams-Sonoma, I did do a few things differently.  In this attempt, the modifications were:

1) switching up my protein and using a pork shoulder instead of beef.  Although the truely scientific method would be to keep my protein the same for taste comparison purposes, Safeway had a nice special on pork shoulder, and I had seen some good recipes using pork shoulder so I decided to go with it for this attempt.

1) changing the positioning in which I placed some of the vegetables.  In my last attempt, I found out that vegetable placement in the slow cooker was also important if one wants certain vegetables to be desired textures.  That is, the celery and brussel sprouts that I had placed atop everything and thought might still be fairly green and crispy once cooked were not so.

2) adding more chicken stock.  The last time I made a pot roast, I could tell I did not have enough liquid.  Why do I say so?  Well, once cooked the pot roast should be partly submerged in liquid to keep it moist and provide more flavor.  However, I was a little too stingy with the amount of chicken stock that I added last time so my meat was sitting atop my liquid vegetable bed.  This time I made sure to add enough liquid (deglaze + stock) so as to cover about half of the pot roast.  As juices will come out from the meat, and veggies, you don’t want to fill up the slow cooker completely with liquid.

For this blog entry, I’ve decided to provide a photodocumentary so as not to bore you with all the specifics.  Pictures speak a thousand words anyways so please enjoy!

So, what were the results of this pot roast attempt?  Compared to the previous attempt, this pot roast definitely turned out much better.  With the meat still submerged in the juices once cooked, the pork shoulder remained nice and moist unlike my previous beef pot roast.  The vegetables also turned out better.

However, the quest for the perfect roast is not complete and I shall continue attempting to perfect my pot roasts . . .

January 7, 2012 | Categories: Dinner, Home cooking | Tags: brussel sprouts, cherry tomatoes, garlic, onions, pork, pork shoulder, pot roast, potatoes | Leave a comment