Eck Roast — “Not Your Grandma’s Pot Roast” as featured in KANSAS! magazine

 An article about Eck Agriculture appears in the lastest (2024, vol. 80, issue 3) of KANSAS! magazine — A Reimagined Roast, Straight from the Ranch (pp. 26-29).

This assemble-and-forget recipe, an Eck family favorite, goes in the slow cooker early in the morning and is ready to eat in the evening. Instead of serving pot roast with potatoes and carrots, the way Grandma used to do it, they use it for roast beef sandwiches, burritos, quesadillas, Shepard's Pie and beef and noodles. 

Many of the flavor additions help tenderize the roast that is considered a less-tender cut of beef. Slow cooking also helps in the tenderization process, helping to create flavor-packed morsels of beef. 

Darrin thinks the only thing that would make this roast any better is if they could package the rub and bottle the sauce so he could quickly throw the recipe together early in the morning. 

Barry and I first tasted this roast at a farm expo where Darrin and Beth offered samples. It was a great marketing technique as we bought a roast and have been making Beth Covington’s recipe every since.

Enjoying an Eco roast beef dinner with the Brown family. 

Eck Roast — “Not Your Grandma’s Pot Roast”    Yield:  Bone-in beef chuck pot roasts will yield 2 to 2-1/2 three-ounce servings of cooked, trimmed beef per pound

 

INGREDIENTS
3 to 3 ½  pounds Eck Beef Roast (Pike’s Peak or heel of the round, chuck, rump, etc.)

2 teaspoons kosher salt (approx..)

1 teaspoon (approx.) black pepper

2 tablespoons (approx..) seasoning of choice as needed to liberally rub roast (Trager’s Beef Rub, Kinder’s Steak Blend, or Daddy Hinkle’s)

2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil, or enough to coat the bottom of pan

1 medium sweet onion, sliced into wedges

1 tablespoon minced garlic 

1 1/2 cups boiling water 

1 tablespoon Better Than Bouillon’s Roasted Beef Bouillon

1/4 cup soy sauce (low sodium)

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup Hoisin sauce

1 tablespoon cornstarch + 1 tablespoon cold water

DIRECTIONS

1.   Liberally cover both sides of roast with salt, pepper, and your favorite seasonings.

2.   Heat olive oil in a skillet on medium high heat. Add roast and sear until browned on all sides, approximately 2 to 3 minutes per side. This adds a nice bark to your roast and really imparts a rich flavor into the meat.

3.   Place roast in slow cooker. Add one medium sweet onion, sliced into wedges, and 1 tablespoon of minced garlic.

4.   Mix boiling water, beef base, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, hoisin sauce. Pour over the roast. 

5.   Cook on low for 6- 8 hours.

6.   Remove meat from crockpot, trim fat, and shred. Reserve cooking liquid. 

7.   Make thickening sauce: Combine 1 T cornstarch into 1 T cold water. Mix into 1 cup of reserved cooking liquid (For thicker sauce, use 2 tablespoon corn starch) Add any desired additional seasonings.

8.   Return shredded meat and sauce to crockpot. Let sauce thicken (use low or warm setting) for 30 to 45 minutes.

 Article appears in the 2024, vol. 80, issue 3 of KANSAS! magazine — A Reimagined Roast, Straight from the Ranch (pp. 26-29)

Original Eck recipe provided at the Farm Expo.

Recipe without photos . . . Eck Roast — “Not Your Grandma’s Pot Roast”    Yield:  Bone-in beef chuck pot roasts will yield 2 to 2-1/2 three-ounce servings of cooked, trimmed beef per pound

INGREDIENTS
3 to 3 ½  pounds Eck Beef Roast (Pike’s Peak or heel of the round, chuck, rump, etc.)

2 teaspoons kosher salt (approx..)

1 teaspoon (approx.) black pepper

2 tablespoons (approx..) seasoning of choice as needed to liberally rub roast (Trager’s Beef Rub, Kinder’s Steak Blend, or Daddy Hinkle’s)

2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil, or enough to coat the bottom of pan

1 medium sweet onion, sliced into wedges

1 tablespoon minced garlic 

1 1/2 cups boiling water 

1 tablespoon Better Than Bouillon’s Roasted Beef Bouillon

1/4 cup soy sauce (low sodium)

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup Hoisin sauce

1 tabespoon cornstarch + 1 tablespoon cold water

 

DIRECTIONS

1.   Liberally cover both sides of roast with salt, pepper, and your favorite seasonings.

2.   Heat olive oil in a skillet on medium high heat. Add roast and sear until browned on all sides, approximately 2 to 3 minutes per side. This adds a nice bark to your roast and really imparts a rich flavor into the meat.

3.   Place roast in slow cooker. Add one medium sweet onion, sliced into wedges, and 1 tablespoon of minced garlic.

4.   Mix boiling water, beef base, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, hoisin sauce. Pour over the roast. 

5.   Cook on low for 6- 8 hours.

6.   Remove meat from crockpot, trim fat, and shred. Reserve cooking liquid. 

7.   Make thickening sauce: Combine 1 T cornstarch into 1 T cold water. Mix into 1 cup of reserved cooking liquid (For thicker sauce, use 2 tablespoon corn starch) Add any desired additional seasonings.

8.   Return shredded meat and sauce to crockpot. Let sauce thicken (use low or warm setting) for 30 to 45 minutes.

Electric Pressure Cooker Recipe: Korean Pulled Pork Bowls

Chef Alli is the authority on electric pressure cookers. Her website, Chef Alli - Let's Get Cooking'! includes info about her speaking engagements and farm fresh recipes in addition to pressure cooking info and tips. Be sure to sign up for for her Electric Pressure Cooking Tips.
This is a yummy recipe she shared at the Cows, Cooks and Conversations cooking session she did at Hildebrand Dairy.
This recipe uses what Chef Alli calls "Asian ketchup" - gochujan. She believes it is an up and coming ingredient and will soon become mainstream. I found it in Dillions in Junction City. 
I did add rice to the mix and made just a few minor adjustment to Chef Alli's recipe. We've already made it three times and it is now a favorite one-meal dish!

Koren Pulled Pork Bowls (recipe posted with permission from Chef Alli)
3 to 4 lb. pork butt, cut into chunks
Olive oil for sautéing
Sauce:
1/2 cup sodum reduced soy sauce
2/3 cup hoisin sauce
3 tablespoons ketchup
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
1to 2 tablespoons honey
2 wolves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons grated ginger
2 tablespoons sesame oil
3 tablespoons gochujang (more or less, to your taste -- it's spicy!)
3 star anise
-----
Cornstarch to thicken sauce as needed -- after EPC has been opened
Prepared coleslaw (I dressed ours with Mom's Celery Seed Coleslaw Dressing mixed with just a little gochujang)
Cooked rice
Cilantro for garnishing

1. Set electric pressure cooker (EPC) to sauté setting and add a good drizzle of olive oil to the pot; when oil is hot, add pork butt chunks, working in batches to brown pork on all sized, removing them to a plate as you go, repeating with remaining pork until all of the pork is nicely browned.
   
   
   
   
2. Measure ingredients for the sauce directly into EPC pot; stir, adding water if sauce is too thick.
   A tip from Chef Alli about liquid: Remember – pressure is made from steam; if there’s not enough liquid in the bottom of the pressure cooker pot to circulate and create steam, it absolutely cannot pressurize. Always be sure there’s a minimum 1/2 cup – 1 cup of liquid in the pressure cooker pot before you lock the lid into place to begin pressurizing. If, after lid is closed, the pot fails to go into pressure mode, open the pot and add more liquid.
   
3. Add browned pot, then lock EPC lid into place. Choose High Pressure setting for 45 minutes; when timer sounds, use a natural release to allow all pressure to remove itself from the EPC. According to Chef Alli: When cooking meat and vegetable proteins (such as beans), pressure must come down on it's own in order to insure food is tender.
   
4. Remove pork from sauce to a large bowl or work surface; use two forks to shred pork.
   
5. Pour sauce from EPC pot into a fat separator to remove fat from sauce. Once fat is gone, pour sauce back into EPC pots wet on sauté setting and simmer sauce until it cooks down and thickens --  remove a little sauce with a little cornstarch; add back to pot to speed up the thickening process .
   
6. Serving suggestions: Place cooked rice in bowl, top with warm pork and some sauce, add coleslaw and garnish with cilantro.
   
   
   
   

Recipe without photos . . . 

Koren Pulled Pork Bowls (recipe posted with permission from Chef Alli)
3 to 4 lb. pork butt, cut into chunks
Olive oil for sautéing
Sauce:
1/2 cup sodum reduced soy sauce
2/3 cup hoisin sauce
3 tablespoons ketchup
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
1to 2 tablespoons honey
2 wolves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons grated ginger
2 tablespoons sesame oil
3 tablespoons gochujang (more or less, to your taste -- it's spicy!)
3 star anise
-----
Cornstarch to thicken sauce as needed -- after EPC has been opened
Prepared coleslaw (I dressed ours with Mom's Celery Seed Coleslaw Dressing mixed with just a little gochujang)
Cooked rice
Cilantro for garnishing

1. Set electric pressure cooker (EPC) to sauté setting and add a good drizzle of olive oil to the pot; when oil is hot, add pork butt chunks, working in batches to brown pork on all sized, removing them to a plate as you go, repeating with remaining pork until all of the pork is nicely browned.
2. Measure ingredients for the sauce directly into EPC pot; stir, adding water if sauce is too thick. A tip from Chef Alli about liquid: Remember – pressure is made from steam; if there’s not enough liquid in the bottom of the pressure cooker pot to circulate and create steam, it absolutely cannot pressurize. Always be sure there’s a minimum 1/2 cup – 1 cup of liquid in the pressure cooker pot before you lock the lid into place to begin pressurizing. If, after lid is closed, the pot fails to go into pressure mode, open the pot and add more liquid.
3. Add browned pot, then lock EPC lid into place. Choose High Pressure setting for 45 minutes; when timer sounds, use a natural release to allow all pressure to remove itself from the EPC. According to Chef Alli: When cooking meat and vegetable proteins (such as beans), pressure must come down on it's own in order to insure food is tender.
4. Remove pork from sauce to a large bowl or work surface; use two forks to shred pork.
5. Pour sauce from EPC pot into a fat separator to remove fat from sauce. Once fat is gone, pour sauce back into EPC pots wet on sauté setting and simmer sauce until it cooks down and thickens --  remove a little sauce with a little cornstarch; add back to pot to speed up the thickening process .
6. Serving suggestions: Place cooked rice in bowl, top with warm pork and some sauce, add coleslaw and garnish with cilantro.