Post by: grislyatoms on March 01, 2008, 07:51:23 AM
I bought four, @2.5 lbs each. 3 are in the freezer.
Wednesday after lunch, I put one roast in the crockpot with a bottle of BBQ sauce, onion chunks, and quartered potatoes. Let the crockpot do it's thing.
Made a little bed of egg noodles, added on a chunk o' meat and some potatoes, then ladled a little bbq sauce/gravy over the whole works.
Kiddo rated it 4 stars, and I still have a couple chunks left, though not for long...
Chuck roast - $2.50
BBQ sauce - $2.50
Potatoes - $1.50?
Onion - $1.00
$7.50 and there's still some left.
Post by: Devonai on March 02, 2008, 05:29:33 AM
Sounds good. I need to get a crock pot.
Post by: grislyatoms on March 02, 2008, 05:54:03 AM
One dollar a pound? Is the grocery store across the street from the slaughterhouse?
Sounds good. I need to get a crock pot.
You would think so, for that price, but no it was a loss-leader sale. That particular grocery store hates me because I buy only the loss-leaders, nothing else. I don't believe I have ever paid full price for anything in that store. Sounds good. I need to get a crock pot.
It was definitely good stuff, I'm going to try it again. Maybe I'll cut back to 1/2-3/4 of a bottle of BBQ sauce, it was just on the verge of being too BBQish.
My ex bought my crockpot for me for Christmas a couple years ago. I had asked that if she saw one at a garage sale (one of her hobbies) if she would pick it up for me. She bought me a brand new one. She's sweet.
I use mine frequently.
Post by: K Frame on March 02, 2008, 05:58:21 AM
Post by: grislyatoms on March 02, 2008, 06:24:01 AM
My local safeway has chuck roast on sale right now. I'm thinking of picking one up and trying a pressure cooker pot roast.
Hmm, would you get the same slow-cooker tenderizing effect with a pressure cooker, I wonder? If so, that's a great idea. The roast I made took 9 hours.
Grandma used to cook with a pressure cooker, but wouldn't let anyone in the kitchen when she used it. As such, I have no experience with them.
Seems one of my uncles removed the "wobble valve" on top of the cooker one night and burned himself pretty badly.
Post by: Sergeant Bob on March 02, 2008, 06:42:32 AM
My local safeway has chuck roast on sale right now. I'm thinking of picking one up and trying a pressure cooker pot roast.
Hmm, would you get the same slow-cooker tenderizing effect with a pressure cooker, I wonder? If so, that's a great idea. The roast I made took 9 hours.
Grandma used to cook with a pressure cooker, but wouldn't let anyone in the kitchen when she used it. As such, I have no experience with them.
Seems one of my uncles removed the "wobble valve" on top of the cooker one night and burned himself pretty badly.
Oh, you can get it tender alright. I once had barbecued chicken made in a pressure cooker. You could literally eat the bones, and I did.
Post by: lupinus on March 02, 2008, 07:49:13 AM
Done right you want the meat to just pretty much shred/easily be pulled apart.
MMMMMM
Post by: Dannyboy on March 02, 2008, 07:53:25 AM
I usually cook mine in beef stock then drain it and pull it apart and then put it back in the crock pot with the BBQ sauce.
Post by: K Frame on March 02, 2008, 09:53:48 AM
In a word, yes.
The tenderization effect comes from the break down of connective tissue, collagen, into gelatin. When that begins to happen, things start to get real tender real fast -- fork tender, in fact, where you can pull the meat apart with out having to cut it with a knife.
The true key to that isn't dry roasting, it's braising. Liquid in this case isn't a lubricant, it's a medium through which heat transfers far more effectively than air.
A slow cooker is a low heat source. You're lucky if you can get one up to more than 200 deg. F., even on high. I can BARELY get my slow cooker up to a boil along the edges, the center is usually 10-20 degrees cooler.
And, even if you do get it to the boil, you're only going to get it up to 212 or so deg.
A pressure cooker, on the other hand, raises the cooking temperature to around 250 deg. F. At that temperature collagen in the connective tissue starts to break down rather quickly and you can cook a pot roast a lot faster.
Grisly is also quite correct about chicken (or even beef) bones. Bones are held together mainly by collage. Dissolve that out, and the bones will get really soft and crumble.
I frequently make my own chicken stock. The old way was to cook it in a stock pot for upwards 8 hours to make sure that all of the collagen dissolved and you had lots of gelatin in the stock.
I've started using my pressure cooker to make stocks, though.
I can do in roughly half an hour with the pressure cooker what it takes all day with an open stock pot.
Post by: mfree on March 03, 2008, 08:01:58 PM
Afterwards I stripped the bones and threw that all in the smaller cooker and ran it for a while with an onion and some other spices... made stock that set like gelatin in the fridge, it's what I used to make the kickin' soup I'm eating this paycheck in the "cheap eats" thread...
Pressure cookers rock
Your grandmother probably wouldn't let anyone in the kitchen because the old ones sometimes were at risk of explosion, new pressure cookers have nice big locking lugs and a safety interlock so you can't turn the lid to unlock it if there's *any* pressure in it. And don't screw around with the wobbler, that's a pressure regulator...
Post by: K Frame on March 03, 2008, 08:21:13 PM
Absolutely incredible.
Post by: grampster on March 03, 2008, 09:03:47 PM
Post by: RadioFreeSeaLab on March 04, 2008, 04:30:32 AM