Dinka's Cookbook

This pot roast freezes very well – sauce and meat separate, but only add the sour cream/yoghurt to the sauce when reheating. Slice the meat and reheat it, sliced in the completed sauce.

Ingredients: Meat:

• about 2kg topside/H-bone in one piece
• salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 2 medium onions, sliced
• 4 tomatoes, skinned, seeded, chopped
• beef stock or dissolved stock cube
• 1 large clove garlic, finely sliced
• butter/oil
• 1 carrot, finely diced
• about 2 tsp sugar
• 1/3 cup sour cream/stabilised yoghurt

Ingredients: Marinade:

• 1 litre water
• 10 peppercorns
• 3 whole cloves
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 375 ml grape vinegar
• 1 – 2 bay leaves
• 2 thick slices lemon
• 1 tbl brown sugar

Preparation:

• Pierce meat at intervals with the tip of a sharp knife and insert slivers of garlic – quantity used is entirely a matter of taste.
• Tie the roast up neatly with string and place it in a large non-reactive bowl. Scatter the second quantity of sliced onions on top.
• Bring the remainder of the marinade ingredients to the boil and pour over the meat.
• Allow to marinate for a minimum of 24 hours, turning every eight hours or so. Refrigerated, this can marinate for up tp 72 hours.
• Remove meat from marinade and dab dry. Season well with salt and pepper.
• Brown the meat all over fairly quickly in hot fat, then lift out and reserve.
• Add the first quantity of sliced onions to the saucepan, and cook until starting to brown – be very careful at this stage as the pan can ‘catch’ and burn very quickly.
• Add the tomatoes, carrot and sugar and cook over a medium heat until the mixture turns mushy and is sticking to the bottom of the saucepan.
• Pour about 125 ml of the reserved, strained marinade, plus about 1 cup of stock and bring to the boil.
• Replace the meat, cover tightly and cook gently until the meat is tender, adding stock as required, and turning the meat over in the sauce regularly (the liquid must never be more than about halfway up the side of the meat).
• Check the flavour of the sauce when the meat is half-cooked as either more sugar or marinade may be need – the sauce needs to have a fairly sharp sweetish-sour flavour.
• Remove the meat when cooked through and tender, and rest, tented with foil, before carving.
• Reduce the gravy if necessary.
• Just before serving add the sour cream / yoghurt to the gravy and simmer gently for 3 to 4 minutes.

Notes:

• A mixture of butter and oil gives the best results when browning the meat.
• The whole fresh tomatoes can be replaced with an equivalent amount of Italian tinned tomatoes.
• Yoghurt that is not stabilised may separate when it boils, so, to prevent this happening, mix about 1½ tsp of cornflour (Maizena) into it before adding to the sauce.

Serves 8 generously.