Pot Roast with Asian Black Bean Sauce

Late February. Dustin’s HVAC apprenticeship is in its final stretch — the journeyman license he has been working toward since 2018 is scheduled for the August 2021 state exam. The shop has been ramping up his independent-job assignments across the past three months as part of the journeyman-preparation. He has been on solo small-residential-repair calls four days a week.

Sunday I made pot roast with Asian black bean sauce because the apartment had a chuck roast Mama had given me when I had driven over Wednesday with her Tuesday-leftover casserole, and Dustin had asked for a fusion-leaning Sunday dinner that used the cast-iron Dutch oven the Le Creuset Mama had gifted me in December.

The procedure: pat dry a three-pound chuck roast, salt and pepper. Sear in the Dutch oven over medium-high for four minutes per side. Remove. Saute one diced yellow onion, four sliced garlic cloves, a thumb of grated ginger, three sliced scallions for five minutes. Add a quarter-cup of fermented black beans (the kind from the 23rd Street Asian grocery, rinsed and chopped). Deglaze with a half-cup of rice wine. Build the braising liquid with soy sauce, brown sugar, a star anise pod, beef broth. Return the roast. Three and a half hours in a three-twenty-five oven. The dish has the deep umami-fermented-bean flavor of Cantonese restaurant special with the tender shred of a traditional American pot roast.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 3 hrs 30 min | Total Time: 3 hrs 50 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

3 to 4 lbs boneless beef chuck roast
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium yellow onion, sliced into half-moons
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated
3 tbsp Asian black bean sauce (jarred)
2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tsp sesame oil
1 cup low-sodium beef broth
3 medium carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, quartered
2 green onions, thinly sliced (for garnish)
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds (for garnish)

Instructions

Preheat and season. Preheat oven to 325°F. Pat the chuck roast dry with paper towels and season all over with salt and pepper.
Sear the roast. Heat vegetable oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Sear the roast 3–4 minutes per side until a deep brown crust forms. Transfer roast to a plate and set aside.
Build the aromatics. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion to the same pot and cook 3–4 minutes until softened. Add garlic and ginger and stir for 1 minute until fragrant.
Make the sauce base. Stir in the black bean sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sesame oil. Cook for 1 minute, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.
Add broth and roast. Pour in the beef broth and stir to combine. Return the seared roast to the pot, nestling it into the liquid. Bring to a gentle simmer.
Roast low and slow. Cover the Dutch oven and transfer to the oven. Cook for 2 hours.
Add vegetables. Remove the pot from the oven. Tuck carrots and potatoes around the roast. Cover and return to the oven for an additional 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes, until the beef is fork-tender and vegetables are cooked through.
Rest and serve. Remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes. Slice or pull apart the roast and spoon the pan sauce generously over everything. Garnish with sliced green onions and toasted sesame seeds.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pot Roast with Asian Black Bean Sauce — A Sunday Fusion Experiment