Pasture-raised beef makes great pot roast
Al0ng with milk, cream, yogurt and cheeses, our local dairy will deliver a variety of meat products. And not just from their dairy herd. They’ve arranged with other farmers to make pork, lamb and chicken available, too. But you have to check the website periodically to see what’s on the menu. Recently I put in an order for items I had not seen lately: pot roast, liver and even some beef tongue.
Everything arrives frozen. That’s one thing you typically find with locally farmed meats. They can’t be processed on the farm, so they’re sent to a butchering facility where the animals are broken down and the cuts are vacuum-sealed in plastic. The pot roast had been sitting in the fridge de-frosting until yesterday when it had Sunday Supper written all over it.
In the past, our favorite method for making pot roast was a Jewish cholent, wherein the roast baked slowly in a piquant broth flavored with ginger and paprika, surrounded by barley and pink beans that soaked up all the juices. To my mind, that is the ultimate comfort food. But we are no longer eating carbohydrates, so out go the barley and beans. My fall back position is to cook the roast very simply in a heavy Le Crueset pot with what I had on hand: an onion, diced; a leak, cleaned and sliced thin; three cloves of garlic, chopped; some “baby” carrots, meaning the morsels we buy to put in daughter’s lunch; three or four previously stewed tomatoes; a few sprigs of thyme; two cups of beef broth; salt, pepper, powdered ginger.
This wasn’t a particularly large roast, maybe three pounds. It went into a 250-degree oven and baked for about four hours. What emerged was meat more flavorful and just as succulent as anything we could remember. We are continually impressed by the flavor in the meat raised on pasture at our dairy.
We love the cows when they are making the milk we turn into our yogurt, and the cream we whip to top our spring strawberries. But please note: these mother cows are not the same animals we are eating as steak and pot roast. The meat comes from the steers, or male version of cows in the same herd of Holsteins and Swiss Browns. The females are raised for milk, the males are raised for the butcher shop.
Each sex has its role to play.
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House.
Hello,
Very excited to hear about this collaboration amongst farmers. I don’t know what the best way to get in touch with you is, Ed. However, I am a recent graduate, living in Maine, moving to D.C. in July, and I am eager to get my hands dirty and find a little country in my (soon-to-be) new city! I am especially interested in employment opportunities that pertain to farm to market interests. If you get a chance and would not mind me picking your brain, I’d greatly appreciate it. More than happy to provide a resume, as well. Wonderful blog! It makes me very excited to get down to my new home and explore.
Thank you for your time.
Cheers,
Colleen
PeaksSeason@gmail.com
We have started buying local beef that have been completely grass fed from our local farmer’s market. We find it a bit “gamey,’” in particular the ground beef. But, it’s so healthy it’s worth working with. Some of the more tender cuts are better than corn fed, and with a few extra seasonings even the ground beef is good. We love buying local and avoiding anything that has been subjected to a feed lot. This is not only a health one consideration but a humanitarian one as well.
Skylark, grass-fed beef definitely has a more assertive flavor, but I wouldn’t describe it as gamey. Just more beefy, I think. We made some burgers the other night and my wife declared them the best ever. So simple, just getting the better ingredient. Couldn’t agree more: buy local meet raised on grass. It’s the best.
Hi Skylark-
Just checked back to check on my post and saw yours. I have distributed all grass fed beef and pastured lamb, chickens and pork to the islands off of Maine through my company PeaksSeason. Along with the job, came a lot of experimenting with grass fed meats.
Cookbooks definitely help…grassfed is almost like dealing with a completely different animal (in terms of taste, Omega concentrations, everything). The Grassfed Gourmet Cookbook (Hayes) and my favorite, The River Cottage Meat Book (Fearnley-Whittingstall) are two good go-tos for getting the most out of your grassfed meats.
Also, any steaks or roasts should always be tenderized (as much as possible, without defacing the meat:) ) with a fork. If this is too tedious, meat tenderizing tools are a somewhat less brutal way to go about the task:
http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=311807&CCAID=FROOGLE311807
Usually, with a little experimenting, once you go grassfed, you don’t go back. If this is the case for you, you might even want to look into half cow quantities, which will save you and the farmer time and money.
Hope that helps and happy eating!
Cheers,
Colleen
Colleen, thanks so much for the tip on books. I own “River Cottage,” but was unaware of “Grassfed Gourmet.” I will definitely look into it. Also, we spend our summer vacation in Maine near Freeport. I’ll be checking the map to see if you are anywhere near there. There is a big grass-fed beef operation just across the bay from where we stay. I’m sure you’re familiar.
Ed- No problem! Thanks for the tips, too. I literally have a grassfed roast defrosting in the fridge now, waiting to be done up cholent-style per your suggestions! Did the exact family recipe go out with the carbs? Cheers, Colleen