Yankee Pot Roast

What makes a pot roast a Yankee Pot Roast? I don't have a clue.

I read somewhere that when you add vegetables to a pot roast that makes it Yankee. But I've always added vegetables.

And I just called it Pot Roast!

Could I have been making Yankee Pot Roast all this time?

This recipe is from Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury Maine. I'm from the southern U.S. and Maine is about as far north as you can get in the U.S.

So that makes it Yankee to me!

Yankee Pot Roast Recipe

1/4 lb. diced pork or 2 to 3 Tbsp. of bacon fat
4 to 6 lb. bottom round roast
2 medium celery stalks
2 carrots
1 small onion, sliced
1 c. tomatoes
2 tsp. Salt
6 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
3 c. water
1/4 c. flour
1/2 c. each cooked peas, cubed carrots and cut string beans
1/2 c. cooked chopped celery

In a Dutch oven, brown the roast in salt pork or bacon fat.

Put the celery stalks, whole carrots, onion and undrained tomatoes around the beef. Sprinkle the beef with salt, peppercorns and bay leaf. Add the water and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer over low heat or in an oven at 350 degrees for 2 1/2 hours or until tender.

Lift out the roast and keep it warm. Strain the cooking stock and discard the vegetables. Skim off the fat from the stock, returning 1/4 cup of the fat to the Dutch oven.

Stir the flour into the fat. Add 4 cups of the cooking stock. Cook and stir until thickened. Season to taste.

Add the vegetables, which have been cooked separately. Heat through. Slice the Yankee Pot Roast and serve with the vegetables and the gravy.

Buy Beef Online

Now why would anyone want to buy beef online? Beef is readily available at the supermarket. There’s only one answer: Quality! In order to compete with the supermarkets mail order beef has to be the best.

(Don’t buy beef online for Yankee Pot Roast. Or for that matter any old fashioned pot roast dinner. Supermarket beef is fine.)

In fact there are some types of gourmet beef that you can’t get except online. Kobe beef, grass fed beef, dry aged beef? I’ll bet you’ve never seen those in the supermarket. The only way to get them is to buy beef online.

Kobe Beef

Kobe beef is from the Japanese Waygu cattle. The marbling, flavor and tenderness of Kobe beef puts it grades above USDA prime beef. But you can only get Kobe beef when you buy beef online.

Grass Fed Beef

Grass is the natural food of the beef animal. And some people feel the flavor of grass fed beef is far superior to feed lot beef. This is gourmet beef at it’s best. And once again you can only get grass fed beef when you buy beef online.

Dry Aged Beef

Dry aged beef is how beef was done in the good old days. The beef is hung in a controlled temperature and humidity environment and allowed to age for almost a month.

Why can’t you get dry aged beef at the super market? Expense! Dry aged beef loses approximately 1/3 of its weight during the drying process. Today’s wet aged beef brings more profit to the processor.

Guess what? You can only get dry aged beef when you buy beef online! Dry aged beef is truly gourmet beef.

Old Fashioned Pot Roast

Certainly you wouldn’t want to buy beef online for old fashioned pot roast. Mail order beef is for special occasions. Your Sunday pot roast dinner is fine with a chuck roast from the supermarket.

Yankee Pot Roast is fine with supermarket beef also. As any old fashioned pot roast dinner would be.

On that special occasion, such as boss for dinner night, is when this beef will make an impression. My thoughts would be running along the line of a Prime rib dinner with sure enough USDA prime beef. You can only get USDA prime beef when you buy beef online. USDA choice is the best you can get at the supermarket.

Enjoy Yankee Pot Roast with your family with beef from the grocery. But when you really want to impress buy beef online.