French Roast, Slow Cooked with Red Onion Confit

Several weeks ago I purchased some beautiful, recently harvested red onions at the farm market.  For last Friday night’s dinner I decided to do a red onion confit with reduced balsamic vinegar poured over a French Roast or a fancy pot roast if you will.   Confit is just a matter of peeling the onions and after slicing them thin, sautéing them down to their sweet caramel goodness.   I blended in some other complimentary ingredients and poured them over the roast.  It was a lovely dinner for Shabbat, just different enough from regular brisket or roast chicken.

3 medium large red onions

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

6 slivered cloves garlic

sea salt

freshly ground pepper

1/ 2 cup aged balsamic vinegar

1/ 3 cup reduced pomegranate juice

1/ 2 cup boiling water

1/ 2 cup dried sliced premium quality shitake mushrooms

1 cup prunes, still moist, sliced

4 to 5 pound French roast or Brick roast

Servings: 4 to 8

1.  Peel and Slice onions, very thin in half circles

2. Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat, add oil, and sauté stirring occasionally until onions are turning light brown.  Add sliced garlic and continue to sauté.  Season with  salt and pepper.

3. Add balsamic vinegar  to onions in sauté pan.  Reduce vinegar down until smell is less pungent.  Add pomegranate juice and reduce heat to low.  Continue to cook.

4.  In the meantime add boiling water to dried shitake slices to reconstitute.  Let sit 5 minutes.

5.  Heat oven to 350° F. Take out a large baking dish.

6.  Add mushrooms and sliced prunes to onion mixture and cook for two more minutes on low.  Remove onion confit with mushrooms from heat.  Allow to cool a bit.

7. Place roast in large baking dish.  Season meat with salt and pepper.  Less salt if using kosher meat.  Pour cooled onion confit over roast and spread it around.  Cover baking dish tightly with aluminum foil.  Place baking dish in oven.  Bake one hour and then, turn heat down to 325° F. and bake for another hour and one half.  Make sure the cover is tight, no steam escaping.

8.  Slice cooled meat across the grain in thin slices to serve.  This keeps for several days and can be reheated or eaten cold.  French roast makes great sandwiches.

9.  To make reduced pomegranate juice, boil fresh pomegranate juice in a small saucepan until reduced to half of the volume and becoming syrupy.

10.  Kosher balsamic now comes in regular or aged or white.

11.  My taste tester husband loved this meat dish, with a naturally sweet and sour taste with no sugar added.