Disaster strikes!

I took off the lid, and saw total blackness. An utter pot roast disaster.

A few weeks back, I blogged about braising meats, which prompted my dear Uncle Blake to e-mail me from New York with his version of pot roast. “It’s even simpler than yours,” he suggested, “and really only requires three things: the roast (any cut will do), ketchup and onions (lots of ’em). Magic will happen.”

I had a roast thawed and ready to go when this e-mail came in, so I figured why not. Uncle Blake is true gourmand and masterful in the kitchen, and for him to suggest using nothing more than ketchup and onions legitimized this Better Homes-ish recipe. I threw everything into my roaster, forgoing even browning, and cooked it at 350, for several hours, as he suggested.

Meanwhile, we were having folks over for Louisiana seafood. Shrimp cocktail, oysters on the half-shell and corn and crab bisque. The chow was chosen because one of the guests is a vegetarian and all of them are from outside Louisiana. I felt sort of weird with that pot roast steeping away in the oven with a non-meat-eater around, but you should have heard the oohs and ahhs about the great kitchen smells. I wonder if the pot roast, which did smell indeed magical, made everything taste better? I never told.

Later that night, when everyone had left, I opened the lid to complete disaster. It never smelled like it was burning, but it certainly looked it. God bless my poor, overpriced Le Creuset roaster, which now looked liked a vessel for used charcoal briquettes. (Thankfully it recovered.) The sugars from the ketchup and onions did meld together – but they must have hung out too long at too high a temperature. Magic did not happen, a holy mess did.

Still, I’d give this old-timey recipe a try again if I had the right formula. If it rings a bell, please assist.