All my life I have had a love/hate relationship with beef. There are some ways to fix it that I love (a juicy hamburger) and some ways I hate (most pot roast).
My mother loves beef. It goes back to when she was in college and was severely anemic. Beef made her feel a lot better.
I am not wild about cooking beef, unless I can make it taste like French Onion soup, which I love, and which is traditionally ( I think) made with beef broth.
This is last night's London Broil.
The only reason I got that kind of roast was because my mother had warned me not to buy a chuck roast, which she said are flavorful but not a bargain because they have a lot of fat and bone. Plus, the chucks and shoulders were $20-$30. This London Broil was actually cheaper, and smaller.
Problem was, I have my new Instant Pot (electric pressure cooker) and this roast wouldn't fit in there. I fixed other things for days, pondering the problem. Finally I thought, this is stupid. I will just fix it the way I know.
Searing it in the cast iron skillet was a challenge because it was too big to fit in the skillet. I cut it in half. The halves were almost too big!
In my family we have a longstanding tradition of cooking all beef with soy sauce, sherry, and lots of onion and/or onion powder.
I was at a friend's house once, years ago, and we ate beef roast. It looked pretty. It tasted utterly bland. I remember taking a bite and immediately wanting to spit it out. Tasted like hospital food. UGH. "Do you cook with Sherry and soy sauce?" I asked. He looked at me in utter puzzlement. "No, I don't like to cover up the beef flavor."
I didn't want to sound ugly so I just let it go. I wanted to scream "THIS IS HORRIBLE! YOU ARE MAKING A HUGE MISTAKE COOKING LIKE THIS!" but of course I didn't. I was raised right.
The first and easiest way to fix better meat is to put lots of salt and pepper on it and let it sit out on the counter for an hour or two before cooking.
Above are the main ingredients in excellent beef roast. I didn't try to photograph everything I put in the beef broth last night. Pretend there's a stick of butter, a red onion, balsamic vinegar and garlic, in the photo. When it comes to measuring, I don't. Put in LOTS of soy sauce and sherry and onion. LOTS.
After searing it and putting the meat in the dish, I made my broth. See above ingredients.
I cooked it at 300 for 3 hours, tightly covered with foil so the onions turned soft as butter, but they infused the broth with oniony goodness.
When it came out of the oven I was very tempted to just pick up the dish and drink the broth.
Mom said it was the best roast I've ever made.
I served it with rice and a spinach souffle. No, I don't do souffles, but Stouffers does.
After last week's rain it has turned bitter cold again. So beef is a welcome addition to a nasty winter day. Give it a try. Buy good beef and cook it for hours, so the magic happens. Fix it the way my mama taught me, as explained above, and yours will be wonderful too.