Dutch Oven Pot Roast. #recipe #goodfood

This is a very simple way to make a traditional dinner. Although I did it at home, it’s fully suitable for camping and within the skill levels of young scouts.

Pot roast is a gristly, fatty, and usually inexpensive cut of meat. It needs to be slow cooked to become tender. Then it’s excellent. The grease at the bottom of the oven in the featured image has almost all cooked off the meat. The meat has lost about 1/2 its volume and is extremely tender.

Cut up and saute two large onions.

It is important to at least sweat the onions to remove some of the more volatile compounds. I used a small amount of olive oil, but anything will do. Were I camping, I’d do this in the bottom of the dutch oven itself and remove once done.  (It will sit nicely on a butane/propane camp stove.)

Add about 1 cup beef stock/bullion. I used a teaspoon of condensed stock and added a cup of water. Reduce the volume by about 1/2.

While the volume is being reduced do two things.

1. start the coals
2. wash and cut in half or quarter 1-2 pounds of potatoes.

Put a nice (about 1mm thick) layer of oil on the bottom of the dutch oven. Then place the potatoes in it. Put the meat on top of the potatoes. This will raise it out of the drippings and help it to cook cleanly. Place the cooked onions and remaining broth on top of the meat. Add one cup of water to the oven, cover and place on the coals. A dutch oven used over charcoal tends to dry the contents so it is important to start with extra water inside.

1 and 1/2 to 2 hours later, the meal should be done. I rotated the oven and counter-rotated the lid once or twice during this time.

Author: rharrisonauthor

International man of mystery. Well not really, although I can mangle several languages and even read the occasional hieroglyphic. A computer scientist, an author and one of the very few people who has both an NIH grant and had a book contract. An ex- booktrope author and a photographer. View all posts by rharrisonauthor