Pot roasting Beef

all_smilz

Ok- so my Nan used to make THE best roast beef dinners ever- I come from a LONG line of people who like well done steaks and we used to fight over the crispy almost black delicious outer slices of her roast beef dinners. I watched her make it many times but lately I have totally lost the knack of getting it right and while it is moist its just not as tasty.
She had a range (nothing fancy- def not an aga) and used the most ordinary saucepan ever (one of the old nesting ones from Super Valu I recall)... She browned it all over really well and def used salted butter as all good grannies do. I haven't a clue if she turned down the heat and slow cooked it after or what but she definitely sealed the Sh1t out of it.
I have a slow cooker but I recently bought the Tesco pyrex slow cooker thingy and think I may have a chance of recreating her delicious masterpiece ( once the beef was done she would roast the potatoes in in the juices and they came out fluffy on the inside and gloriously brown from the aforementioned juices....
Does anyone else use a similar technique and can they give me their exact steps?
Would the slow cooker pyrex pot be good for this?
Also the meat was the average rib wrapped in string with the divine fat on the outside and a tiny bit of marbling but not a long ( bf hates fat and I hate watching him cut it out meticulously -BTW does this drive anyone else NUTS?)



*thinks to self I am beginning to sound like Nigella Lawson but this was seriously an amazing dinner!
Would really appreciate any help here!

Dizzyblonde

Did your granny put her beef into a covered dish in the oven? I'm thinking maybe she didn't but she cooked it for a long time at a low heat, maybe covered with tinfoil until the last half hour or so. This would be the way to go if you want the juices for your roasties. I've cooked rib roast like that and it's really tender and has the lovely crusty surface. If you brown it first then put it into a slow cooker or your pyrex dish, the steam will make the outside soft and moist and you won't get the desired effect.
What I often do is cook the roast almost completely in the slow cooker, then put it into the oven for 30 minutes or so at the end. I did this with neck of pork last Sunday and it was delicious - soft and moist inside but nice and brown on the outside. Before I got the slow cooker I'd boil my rib roast for an hour, then roast it for 2 hours.