Take one 4 to 6 pound top sirloin roast, put it into a heavy cast iron or club aluminum Dutch oven with lots of onions, mushrooms, carrots, spices, and wine, and in a about 3 hours you’ll produce one of the finest pot roasts ever to pass a mere mortal’s lips...especially if you got some French bread handy for gravy-sopping!

¼ cup peanut oil
3 large onions, sliced into rings
½ lb. carrots, peeled and quartered
10-12 fresh garlic toes, peeled
1 top sirloin roast, 5 lb. average trimmed of fat
3 tsp. steak salt
2 tsp. black pepper, coarse-ground
1/3 cup all-purpose flour for dusting
1 cup dry sherry
1/3 cup fresh parsley, minced
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
3 lbs. russet potatoes, peeled and chunked
1 can Campbell's Creamy Mushroom Soup
1 can Campbell's Chicken Broth

Step One: In a heavy 6-quart Club aluminum or cast iron Dutch oven, heat the peanut oil over a high flame, drop in the onion rings, and sauté them until they richly caramelize (which means they become a deep brown all over without burning). Then, when they’re done, remove them from the pot, place them in a colander, put the colander inside of a large bowl, and allow the excess oil to drop off. . .but immediately drop the carrots into the Dutch oven and sauté them as well for about 4 or 5 minutes, stirring constantly to toast the beta carotene and sweeten them up. Finally, in this step, remove the carrots from the pot and place them on top of the onions in the colander so that they, too, can drain. . .but right away toss in the sliced mushrooms and sauté them until they begin to caramelize. Then remove them from the Dutch oven and place them in the colander on top of the carrots.

Step Two: In the meantime, while the excess oil is leeching out of the sautéed vegetable mix, sprinkle the roast liberally with the steak salt and the cracked black pepper. Then, using a small paring knife to make slits in the meat, uniformly plug the roast with the garlic (there’s no set amount to use, so you can pack it in to your heart’s content). Finally, top off this step by giving the roast a dusting all over with the all-purpose flour.

Step Three: At this point you want to pour all the excess peanut oil which has been collecting in the bowl under the colander back into the Dutch oven and bring it to high heat. When the oil—which now carries the flavor of the onions, the mushrooms, and the carrots—is good and got, ease the roast down inside the pot and, turning it on all sides with a meat fork, brown it thoroughly all over. Then when it has become richly seared (and you do this to seal in all the natural juices), remove it from the Dutch oven and set it aside for a moment.

Step Four: If you’ve browned the roast properly, a great deal of the flour you dusted it with (along with some of the salt and pepper) will have come off of the meat and will now be stuck to the bottom of the pot. So your next step is to reduce the heat to low, pour in the chicken broth, and with a wooden spoon or egg spatula deglaze the pot, unsticking all the debris and transforming it into a rich base for a gravy. When the consistency becomes slightly thickened (and it should take you about 6 to 8 minutes to deglaze the pot), stir in the cream soup and the wine and, with a wire whisk, whip the gravy into a velvety smoothness.

Step Five: Now you’re ready to place the roast into the gravy, evenly spoon the sautéed onions, mushrooms, and carrots on top of the roast, and position the potatoes directly on top of the browned sautéed veggies. All that’s left now is to pop the lid on top of the Dutch oven (and a cast iron Dutch oven really does work best!) slide the pot into a 350° oven, and bake for about 4 to 5 hours.

Finally, when the meat has cooked for the allotted amount of time, you want to do three important sub-steps: 1) remove all the potatoes and carrots from the pot with a pair of tongs and place them on a serving platter; 2) remove the roast from the pot, set it on a carving board, and allow it to cool for about 15 minutes before thinly slicing it with an electric knife; and 3) strain the gravy by using a spoon to press it through a sieve to remove residual onions and mushrooms and other debris.

All that’s left is to serve the slices of roast with the potatoes and carrots, liberally ladles with the velvety gravy, along with a cold crispy green salad on the side and a large piece of hoe French bread for soppin’.

I’m telling ya, MawMaw had a winner here!

2. Try to resist opening and closing the oven to peek at the roast as it cooks. Take my word for it, it’s not going to burn! I wouldn’t look in the pot until four hours have passed!

3. This roast is best appreciated if cut into thin slices. The tenderness is such that it appears to melt in your mouth. I find that while a good sharp slicer knife will do the job, an electric knife has no equal.

4. If the gravy turns our to be a little too thick to your liking, simply add to it a little more sherry or chicken broth. If you decide on the sherry (my preference) I’d recommend that you cook it in for about five minutes to evaporate the alcohol and leave only the essence of the vintage.