Sauerbraten

Alton Brown is kind of annoying. I'm not sure why I feel that way, something about his presentation, at least on the show Good Eats, just rubs me the wrong way. But I was home alone a few weeks ago and flipping channels, and I caught a few minutes of his show on vinegar. I really wasn't planning on watching, but he intrigued me with a salad recipe that involved grilling lettuce with parmesan cheese. I'll definitely be trying that sometime this summer. Since that recipe caught my eye, I decided to keep watching the rest of the show. When he stuck a roast in a marinade for 3 days, and then used one of my favorite cookies ever to make the sauce, I knew we had to try the recipe. So, now I present to you:  Sauerbraten!

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 medium onion
• 1 large carrot
• Salt
• 2 bay leaves
• 6 whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 3-4 pound roast (bottom round)
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 18 gingersnaps (or about 5 oz)

Directions

Chop the onion and the carrot into medium pieces. In a large saucepan, combine the water, vinegars, onion, carrot, salt, bay leaves, cloves, and mustard seeds. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes and remove from heat.

Next take your roast and pat it dry. Rub it with the oil and salt and pepper it on all sides.

In a skillet (preferably cast iron), cook the roast until browned on all sides.

Here's a little food porn for you.

Isn't that a beautiful roast?

Put the roast in a non-reactive bowl (non-metal).

Now comes the... interesting part of the recipe. It actually says something like "when the marinade has cooled enough not to burn a finger stuck in it..."

Yeah. I'm not sticking my finger in hot liquid to see IF it burns me. So I waited about 20 minutes after removing the marinade from the heat.

Pour the marinade over the roast, cover, and refrigerate for three days. (If the roast isn't totally submerged in the liquid, turn once a day)

...

Wow. Look at that. In the space of an ellipsis and one line feed we've fast forwarded 3 days.

Preheat the oven to 325 and put the roast and all of the marinade in a Dutch oven.

Bake for 4 hours.

Crush the gingersnaps.

Remove the Dutch oven from the... well, from the oven. Keep the roast warm. Strain the marinade and add it to a saucepan. Cook over  medium-high heat and mix in the gingersnaps. Cook until thick, stirring frequently.

Slice (or shred) the roast and top with sauce. Enjoy.