Oven-Braised Beef with Tomato Sauce and Garlic

Wonderfully simple, blessedly inexpensive (chuck roast), totally scrumptious—an absolute keeper if you're an omnivore. And perfect for a chilly evening. On the side we had sauteed kale dressed with olive oil and lemon juice, and a bottle of Valpolicella!

Oven-Braised Beef with Tomato Sauce and Garlic
From The Gourmet Cookbook, edited by Ruth Reichl

From the headnote to the recipe: "When you serve the beef, you can either squeeze the garlic pulp out of the skins beforehand or let your guests do it themselves."

1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes in juice
1 (3- to 3 1/2-pound) boneless beef chuck roast, rolled and tied
1 head garlic, separated into cloves but left unpeeled
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Accompaniment: cooked orzo (We had gnocchi instead; see my notes below.)

Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 300 °F.

Coarsely chop tomatoes, with their juice, in a food processor. Put roast in an ovenproof 4- to 5-quart heavy pot or a casserole dish with a lid, pour tomatoes over it, and scatter garlic around it. Season with salt and pepper.

Cover and braise in oven until very tender, 3 to 4 hours.

Remove string and discard. Cut roast into 1/4-inch-thick slices and serve with sauce, orzo, and garlic.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I used one of our Le Creuset French ovens for this dish; can't get much heavier than that, and of course the whole thing can go into the oven.

Also, I had some very late tomatoes from farmer's market hanging around, so I cut about 5 of those up by hand (they were good-sized tomatoes) and cooked them down a bit in a medium saucepan instead of using canned. Nothing against canned tomatoes; I just needed to use the fresh ones before they went bad.

Our chuck roast was around 2 1/4 pounds, and I cooked the roast about 2 1/2 hours. When it was done and on the cutting board, I squeezed the garlic out of the cloves and mashed it into the tomato sauce.

And instead of serving the roast with orzo, I boiled up a package of ready-made potato gnocchi I'd gotten at the Art Mart in Urbana (the brand is Cucina Viva). They took just a few minutes to boil, and they were quite light and pillowy—not gummy or heavy. Terrific with the sauce.

Lastly: After I took the photo I said to myself, this dish would be even more wonderful with fresh lemon and garlic. So I whipped out the Microplane and the Zyliss, zested some lemon peel and pressed some garlic, and sprinkled both over the top of the beef and gnocchi (almost a gremolata, but without parsley). Mamma mia! The topping took the dish to new heights.