Friday Night Roast
This week I felt like making something a little more traditional, a little more home-y, and something I haven’t cooked with yet for this video series: Pot Roast. And what pot roast is complete without a vegetable and mash? So, I decided peas, because they are tasty, and my dad wanted me to try mixing up the potatoes a bit and making something slightly healthier. Enter mashed cauliflower! Now I’ve never actually had this myself, but after looking into some recipes it seems that garlic, parmesan, and some kind of milk (heavy cream, half and half, regular milk) if best so I decided to go with shredded parmesan, heavy cream, and a little bit of butter, and it was pretty great!
Now, I will be honest, it is definitely not mashed potatoes. That said, I think it’s important in cooking alternatives to recognize what it is you are making. Yes, it’s a mash, but I think it’s disingenuous to mash cauliflower and say it’s as good as mashed potatoes. Cauliflower will never be a potato. A potato is usually pretty subtle in it’s own natural flavor and the texture is completely different from cauliflower both before *and* after cooking, not to mention cauliflower is quite… pungent. Plus, cauliflower has a very strong flavor of it’s own, so unlike potatoes which we usually season with salt, pepper, butter, and maybe cream cheese or other flavors, we want to choose flavors that will compliment the natural flavor of the cauliflower. So, anything you would normally pair cauliflower I think would work in this case, hence the parmesan. I would definitely make this again for the health benefits, but I would try adding a little bit of crushed garlic while processing.
As for the pot roast: it’s pot roast. It’s always delicious, but recently I’ve found the secret ingredient to making beef go from good to great is Worcestershire sauce. All things considered this pot roast recipe is pretty simple, but adding that Worcestershire sauce really enhances the natural flavor of the beef. That, and every time I cook beef with Worcestershire sauce everyone in the office tells me it’s some of the best beef they’ve had, and I tend to agree!
Ingredients:
For the roast:
1 small bag of whole Carrots, peeled
1 Yellow Onion, sliced
1 box of Beef Broth
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 Tbsp Canola Oil
For the Mashed Cauliflower:
1 head of Cauliflower, florets removed and boiled
1 cup shredded Parmesan
½ cup Heavy Cream
1 Tbsp Butter
Pepper to taste
Chives (optional)
Serve with Sno Pac Organic Peas
For gravy (optional):
1 Tbsp cornstarch
2 Tbsp cold water
Instructions:
1) In a dutch oven, brown beef in canola oil. Brown on each side and remove to plate.
2) Brown onions in remaining oil and deglaze with a about ½ cup of beef broth. Add chuck roast, carrots, and remaining beef broth.
3) Cover and bake at 350° for 4 hours
4) in the meantime, boil cauliflower florets until a fork can pass through easily, about 10 minutes.
5) Drain, add parmesan, cream, and pepper, and mash lightly. Add cauliflower mixture to a food processor and process in batches until smooth.
6) Heat Sno Pac Peas according to package instructions.
7) (optional) combine cold water with cornstarch and stir until mixed. Slowly add cornstarch mix until juices reach desired thickness.
8) Serve with pot roast with peas and mashed cauliflower, and enjoy!
That’s it for me this week, check us out on Facebook and let us know if you made this and how you made it your own! Be sure to check us out on Youtube and follow us on Instagram as well to keep up on all of our delicious Halal recipes. Thank you from all of us Midamar!