Slow Roasted Beef With Pomegranate Molasses Sauce

This is another accidental recipe that turned out to be quite delicious. I don’t know how it is that I’m so lucky all the time with my experiments – as far as I remember, I’ve only had four experiments go utterly awry in the last seven years. 

This recipe came together out of a random set of circumstances. As I mentioned before, the Safeway near my old place had fantastic sales on roasts, and I wanted to play with one. I’d recently been to the Middle Eastern grocery store to get some bulk spices, and I had been thinking about how pomegranate molasses would serve as the basis for an Indian-ish barbecue sauce.

I adapted some of this from a bouef bourguignonne recipe, some from what my parents used to prepare for cookouts and some from what I know of Texas barbecue techniques. I would love to see some feedback on this recipe.

Once again, I didn’t take any pictures. Sue me.

Ingredients

1 4-5 lbs London  Broil

2 serrano chillies

5 medium yellow onions

5 Tbsp minced garlic

5 Tbsp minced ginger

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar vinegar

1 cup lemon juice

1 1/2 cup pomegranate molasses

2 tsp brown sugar

4 potatoes, peeled and chopped

6 rashers of bacon

1/2 cup finely chopped basil

6 Tbsp garam masala

1 Tbsp Freshly ground cinnamon (Do not use the powdered stuff – do it yourself)

3 Tbs Indian dried red chillies

Salt and Pepper to taste

Preparation

The first thing to do is boil the bacon a bit to get rid of the excess salt. So, take a large Dutch oven and fill it with water, bring to boil, and then stick your bacon strips in for about four minutes.  While this is going, dice one onion and your chillies as finely as you can, and slowly sautee in 1 tsp vegetable oil. When that’s done, drain the water and carefully pat down your bacon strips.  Cut the bacon into small strips, probably the size of a normal lardon, and add to the onions and chillies.  Let this go for a bit, till the lardons start to stiffen up a bit.

At this point, add the vinegar and the pomegranate molasses, and keep cooking on medium heat, stirring occasionally. While this is happening, finely dice two more onions and add them in.

Set your oven to preheat to 325.

Searing Your London Broil

Sear it as you would any other meat that you’re going to stick in the oven, and set aside.

Back to The Sauce

You should be getting quite a pungent smell by now, and it’s only going to get stronger.  Mix in the garam masala, ginger and garlic. You want this to form a somewhat thick paste for now. (Don’t worry, you’re going to add water into the mix later.) Keep cooking. If it looks like the paste is getting too think for your comfort, add just enough of the lemon juice to dilute it, but hold off on adding all of it for now.

Once you get a good paste, mix in the brown sugar, cinnamon, basil and remaining spices and the lemon juice.  Put in the chopped potatoes, and add your beef to the Dutch Oven.  If you’re like me, your Dutch oven isn’t big enough to handle a gigantic London Broil, and you’ll have to cut it into pieces to get it in there. That’s fine – don’t sweat it.

After you’ve tossed in the beef, add the final two onions, finely diced. Now, for the final step, add enough water to make sure that the beef is well covered, and stick it in the oven.

Checking On It

Normally, roasts like this will take hours to cook, but the pomegranate and balsamic vinegar will tear that beef to shreds. It’s probably good to go after two hours in the oven, but I let mine go to three because I love how soft it can get.

Serving

The Houston in me compels me to eat slow cooked meats with tortillas, at the very least, but I’d imagine that this would go well with a strong bread, maybe a sourdough.

Suggested Modifications

I think that this has the potential to turn out very sour, depending on your taste, so you may want to add more sugar to take some of the edge off.

You may also want to add more chillies. I like serranos, but that’s just me.