Potroast au vin

Weekends in Fresno are always invariably filled with visits to Hometown Buffet…the heart and soul of american-style pig-outs. I'm invariably addicted to their potroast...every sunday I will pile my plate mile high with rice pilaf and potroast...ignoring everything else.

This soon became a hassle as they only serve potroast for dinner..so I collected all the recipies that I could find of american potroast and fiddled around. Conclusion? My signature dish of Potroast Au Vin.

I know I've promised loads of people that I'd make it for them one fine day when I have full reign of my kitchen...somehow, we never had time. So, in my housewife-ness frenzy...I tried impressing the Bacon with my signature dish.

Inggredients:
1 full bottle of red wine
Onion soup mix
OXO beef cube
One huge chunk of beef
Garlic
bouquet garni
Stew veggies (carrots, swede,potatoes,celery,onions ect)

Here we go!

Stud the beef with peeled garlic cloves.Make indentation all over the chunk and randomly stuff the garlic in. Then heat up a pan and and sear the beef.

When it's nicely browned on both sides, transfer it into a slow cooker for it to continue cooking. Add vegetables in at this point...although I keep the swede and potatoes for later as they tend to disintergrate too quickly.

Don't have a slow cooker? Then use a huge pot...but you need to keep stirring to make sure it doesn't burn.



Saute your onions before adding them in!


Pour in enough wine to cover to veggies and beef. Sprinkle the onion soup mix on top and the beef cube is left to disintergrate on it's own in the bubbling wine.

Okay...now step away and leave it alone! Let the wine do the job...go for a fag or pop down to the pub...



The longer you cook it, the better it always is...if possible, leave it cooking in it's own juices for 5 hours at least...the melt-in-your-mouth texture of the beef is to kill for. Of course, always make sure you keep adding wine to it so it wouldn't dry up.

After the 2nd hour of slow cooker treatement, mix some cornflour/flour with water and pour it in to thicken the gravy..



Ta-da! Notice how the gravy had evaporated and thicken to almost half? You can always add more wine for a more intense flavour, or more water so you wouldnt smell like a drunk after eating it.

I know it doesn't look as pretty as my other dish...but it's absolutely delicious. Made especially for alcoholics, try replacing the wine with beer for Potroast au biere.