Crock Pot Smoked Beef

Wednesday 18 January

We had a two-pound English shoulder roast bought for 3 bucks a pound from Kroger's.  Normally we'd have made it into Julia Child's potroast, but we were looking for a change.  Holt's dad Harold used to make a superb long-simmered pot roast with liquid smoke, so we looked around the internet and found this.

Informed by the reviews, we made several changes, as you would for any recipe that had the same amounts of ingredients for 2 pounds as for 4 pounds of meat.  Instead of the 2 Tablespoons each (!) of salt and pepper, we just sprinkled salt and pepper over the roast as looked reasonable, maybe a half teaspoonful of each.  Minced 1 large clove of garlic and rubbed in a quarter teaspoon of dried rosemary and/or thyme; that got rubbed into the meat too.  Put the meat on a large sheet of tinfoil, showered it with a teaspoon of liquid smoke (mesquite flavor) and a teaspoon of Worcestershire, and sealed it tightly.

Of course, Dora had to sit on the foil, as well as being fascinated by the slow cooker.  But finally we got her out and the meat in.

Results (of the roast, not Dora) after 9 hours on low: it leaked and burned a little, but we decanted the tinfoiled packet of roast and juices into a separate platter, shredded the meat - with a spoon! - and it was savory and succulent (especially the fat).  Served it with some batons of quick-sautéed zucchini, for our fat-conscience's sake. 

Warning, though: two pounds of meat cooks down to maybe three servings, though you could make it four if you eke one out with mashed potatoes, as we intend to.