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Beef Pot Roast with Beer and Juniper Berries


Flavorful beef chuck roast, braised with beer, juniper berries, onion, garlic, potatoes and carrots, is perfect comfort food on a winter evening.
Course Main Course, One-pan meal
Servings 3 with possible leftovers

Ingredients

  • 2 to 2-1/2 pound chuck roast (see Kitchen Notes)
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • olive oil
  • 1 large onion, roughly chopped (about 2 cups)
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 10 juniper berries, ground with a mortar and pestle
  • 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
  • 1-1/2 cups beer (see Kitchen Notes)
  • 1-1/2 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
  • 1 cup water, plus more, as needed
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 carrots, sliced thick on a diagonal
  • 2 to 3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 325ºF. Let the chuck roast come to room temperature about a half hour before you're ready to cook. Pat the roast dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper on both sides. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large, lidded ovenproof skillet over medium-high flame. Brown roast on both sides, about 4 to 5 minutes per side. Reduce heat to medium when you turn the roast. Transfer roast to a plate.
  • Add onion to the pan, drizzling in more oil, if needed. Sweat the onion until in softens slightly and turns translucent, about 4 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid browning. Add garlic, juniper berries and tarragon to pan and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Add beer and broth to pan and bring to a boil, scraping up any browned bits. Season lightly with salt and generously with pepper. Return roast to pan along with any accumulated juices. Add bay leaves. Pour about 1 cup of water around roast—liquid should come about halfway up the sides of the roast—and bring to a boil. Cover pan and transfer to oven.
  • Cook roast for about 1 hour. Check to see that the liquids haven't cooked down too much. Add a little water, if needed. Turn the roast and cook for another 1/2 hour. Add carrots and potatoes, distributing around the roast and stirring to coat them with cooking liquids. Again, add a little water, if necessary (my pan's lid didn't seem to fit very tightly, and I got a fair amount of evaporation and cooking down). Vegetables do not need to be submerged in liquid.
  • Cook for another 1-1/2 hours, turning the roast and stirring the vegetables midway through. Roast and vegetables should be very tender at this point. Remove pan from oven. Transfer roast to a cutting board and tent with foil. Discard bay leaves, taste vegetables and sauce and adjust seasonings. Slice roast across the grain into 1/2-inch slabs. Arrange slices on individual plates, spoon potato carrot mixture alongside and spoon pan juices over everything. Serve.

Kitchen Notes

The meat of the matter. Chuck roasts come in a variety of cuts, bone-in or boneless, thick, not so thick... Ideally, you want a thick boneless roast—ours was about 2-1/2 inches thick. But honestly, any cut will come out pretty nicely. The problem with thinner cuts is that you have to be careful to not completely submerge them with liquid (you don't want to boil the meat, but to braise/roast it). Thinner cuts also take up a lot of real estate in the pan, leaving less space for the vegetables.
Pick your beer. You can use any beer for this roast, but some kind of pale ale or other lighter flavored beer would probably work best.