How to make perfect pot roast

What is the most common pot-roast mistake?

I witnessed it a few weekends ago. I stopped over at a friend's house, and she was cooking a pot roast. "What cut did you use?" I asked, fearing she had fallen prey to the second-most-common pot-roast mistake - the wrong cut of meat. "Chuck roast," she responded, naming my favorite cut of beef for braising. "You want to take a look?"

And so I went over to the stove and peeked into her Dutch oven while she lifted the lid. And there, swimming in simmering liquid, four inches from any pot-side, was her wee chuck roast.

No. 1 pot-roasting mistake: using too large a pot.

A proper braise, which is what a pot roast is, requires the meat to sit about half submerged in barely simmering liquid. When the meat fits snugly in the pot, relatively little liquid is required. The less liquid you use, the more efficiently the meat will cook and the more concentrated with flavor the liquid will be at the end of the braising process.

For example, the Boston butt (pork) roast, pictured above, weighed about 4 1/2 pounds and measured about 4 inches high, 6 inches wide, 10 inches long. When I got it home from the butcher, I looked around the kitchen for a pot just large enough to accommodate it. The winner: my 5-quart oval Le Creuset Dutch oven.

Here's what I did: I heated some olive oil in the pot, then browned the well-seasoned pork on all sides. I removed the roast from the pot and threw in some thinly sliced shallots, a small bunch of fresh thyme (still on the sprigs), about 10 unpeeled garlic cloves and some thick coins of ginger - only because I happened to have fresh ginger around. I covered the pot and cooked until the shallots were soft. When they were, I turned up the heat and poured in a little white wine to deglaze, scraping up the browned bits as it simmered. Then, I returned the pork to the pot and poured in enough wine to come halfway up. Because my pot was the right size, I used less than 2 cups of dry white wine. The pork could have simmered away on the stovetop, but, to make room for other pots, I put it into a 325-degree oven. Three-and-a-half hours later, I had a luxuriant pot roast with a rich, flavorful sauce.

What about the second-most-common pot-roast mistake?

For braising, you want a cut of meat from the parts of the animal that work - the shoulder (called the chuck when you are referring to beef; the blade, Boston butt or picnic shoulder for pork) or the leg (aka beef shank or shin, veal osso bucco). Brisket of beef is located between the chuck and the shank. These cuts are not lean and are shot through with sinew so they do not look like one uninterrupted muscle. When they are exposed to low, moist heat, the collagen in the sinew melts into gelatin, giving the liquid a rich, silken texture. Happily, these are among the least-expensive cuts of meat.

Third-most-common pot-roast mistake?

Not cooking the roast long enough. Once the braising liquid reaches a low simmer, cook slowly on the stovetop or in a 325-degree oven until the meat is really tender, which might take up to 4 hours.