This recipe for Indian Pot Roast yields a warm, filling meal that tastes like autumn itself. Serve it with crusty, white bread.
3 to 4 pound pot roast
2 cloves garlic, peeled and mashed
4 tablespoons butter
salt
flour
1 large onion, sliced thin
12 whole peppercorns
12 whole allspice
1 bay leaf, crumbled
1 tablespoon grated horseradish
1/2 cup good rum or dry red wine
1/2 cup water
If desired: 1 recipe dumplings, small whole carrots, or large carrots, quartered
Sauté garlic in butter. Rub meat with salt and flour. Brown it well on all sides in butter. Lay meat on a bed of thin-sliced onion in a large Dutch oven or any pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add butter, spices, and seasonings, and pour rum or wine over meat. (A good pot roast will supply most of its own juices, but as it cooks pour 1/2 cup water over it to make an ample supply of gravy.) Cover tightly and simmer 3 to 4 hours, until the roast is tender. This may be done either in the oven or on the back of the stove. If you want carrots with the pot roast, add them to the pot for the last 30 minutes of cooking. For the last 12 minutes of cooking, add the dumplings to steam in the flavors of the pot. When the roast is done, remove it to a hot, rounded platter and surround with dumplings and carrots. Stir gravy until smooth, correcting seasoning if necessary. Pour gravy over roast; if fresh dill is available, cut it over the dish with a lavish hand.
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 scant cup milk
Stir together dry ingredients, then add the milk gradually. Drop by the spoonful into gravy and cook with pot roast or stew during the last 12 minutes of cooking.