Simon and Alison Holst's latest little Everyday Easy book is Slow Food Fast (Hyndman Publishing).
Their recipes are quick to prepare - no browning - and slow to cook.
Many take about eight hours, making them ideal to put on in the morning before work so you can come home to the wonderful smells of dinner.
This recipe is from Slow Food Fast.
Easy beef pot roast
Serves 6
Ingredients
1 piece chuck steak, tied, about 12cm across by 18cm long
1-2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tsp garlic salt
½ tsp oregano
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp paprika, smoked if you have it
4-8 medium white washed potatoes
2 stalks celery, cut into 5cm lengths
3 fairly large carrots, each cut into 3 chunks
2 large onions, quartered
400g can tomatoes in juice
salt and pepper
½ tsp sugar
Method
Cook on low for eight hours then high for about 15 minutesThis excellent pot roast is very easy to make because nothing is browned. We recommend using a piece of chuck steak, weighing 1kg-2kg (allow 150g-200g of raw meat per serving), tied by the butcher into a neat roll. Ask your butcher to prepare one for you.
Coat the inside of the bowl of a medium-to-large slow cooker with non-stick spray and turn to low.
Pat the pot roast dry with a paper towel and rub it all over with the soy sauce. In a bowl thoroughly mix together all the other flavourings. Sprinkle them over the top half of the meat and then place it in the slow cooker.
Arrange the prepared vegetables round the meat. Add the tomatoes and juice and cook on low for eight hours.
At the end of this time, turn the cooker to high. Lift out the cooked meat and vegetables and set aside to keep warm while you thicken the liquid in the cooker with arrowroot or potato starch mixed to a paste with a little cold water. Alternatively, tip the liquid into a frypan, boil it rapidly for a few minutes to evaporate some of the liquid, then thicken as above. Season to taste, adding the sugar as well as salt and pepper.
Slice the meat and serve with the slow-cooked vegetables, the thickened gravy and perhaps a briefly cooked green vegetable. Leftover meat and vegetables may be refrigerated for up to three days, then reheated in the slow cooker turned on low for about 1 hours. They can also be sliced while cold, then microwaved in a covered container.
Note: The size and weight of a rolled chuck roast should not make a difference to its cooking time.
Freebie
The Otago Daily Times has five copies of Slow Food Fast to give away. To enter the draw for one, write your name, address and daytime phone number on the back of an envelope and send it to Slow Food Fast, ODT Editorial Features, PO Box 181, Dunedin, or email playtime@odt.co.nz with slow food fast in the subject line, to arrive before Tuesday, August 19.
