How long has it been since you’ve had pot roast? It’s been a while for me, and I don’t think I’ve ever blogged one. Eek! My mom used to make one almost every Sunday. It was a simple meal she would make in the slow cooker, sometimes with potatoes and carrots, sometimes without. Either way, it never disappointed. Well, today I’m going to blog a slightly more complicated version. This is Boliche, a Cuban pot roast that’s stuffed with chorizo and olives, then slowly cooked in a tomato and onion sauce. It sounds absolutely incredible, and I can’t wait to try it!
Cuban boliche is a tender slow cooked beef roast stuffed with chorizo and olives. The citrus marinade brings out some wonderful flavors.
The Ingredients
This recipe has been only radar for a long time, but I could never find a top round roast that was big enough. The ones I found were about 2 pounds and cut like a steak, which is way too flat to stuff. Folks, I started getting desperate. I even thought about buying two of the top round steaks and tying them together.
That just didn’t sound like it would be true to the recipe, so I started looking for another boliche recipe and they all used eye round roasts. Aha! And when I went back to the blog post with this recipe, I noticed the photos of the roast looked like and eye round, not a top round. It made sense since top round is more heavily marbled and likely to fall apart as it’s cooked.
Eye round was easy to find, and I got a 3-pound roast for $18.27. The recipe calls for a 4-pound roast, but I have to work with what I can find, you know?
Everything else was easy to find, and the store even had a good selection of chorizo. Boar’s Head makes an 8-ounce package that was exactly the size needed for this recipe. Perfect!
The Process
I have to be honest and tell y’all that I was a little intimidated by this recipe. The roast didn’t seem nearly big enough to accommodate all the chorizo plus the olives, and I was resigned to having some leftover. Not that it would go to waste, mind you!
This recipe was very thorough, and it started with marinating the meat. A juicer comes in handy here, but it’s not a requirement. A gallon-size ziplock bag is a requirement. I had the roast marinating in just 3 minutes, and I left it in the refrigerator overnight.
The real work started the next day, and this recipe does require a lot of time and attention. I started my boliche around noon so I could have it ready for an early dinner.
First up was the prep work. I often prep as I cook, but I wanted to have everything ready to go when I needed it. That meant dicing the onions, garlic, and tomatoes, measuring out the spices, and tying the cilantro sprigs together with a bit of kitchen string.
Before I go any further, here is how my time was spent:
- 3 minutes to prep the marinade
- 20 minutes to stuff the boliche
- 5 minute to brown and add the remaining ingredients
- 3 hours to cook
- 3 hours 28 minutes total (not including time to marinate overnight)
Stuffing the Boliche
I did have to make some adjustments since I couldn’t find a 4-pound roast. Nothing major, just a reduction in cooking time and the opening in the meat. This recipe and the accompanying blog photos show a horizontal slit. I decided to use a cross pattern to allow for more stuffing in my smaller roast. It worked, and I managed to fit in all the chorizo and olives.
Another thing I noticed in the blog post photos that the author cut the chorizo into long, thin strips. Cutting it into eighths and stuffing in the pointy end in first worked a treat. I started with half the chorizo, then the olives, then the rest of the sausage.
Once the stuffing was taken care of, I grabbed a package of bamboo skewers and used them to secure everything. This roast has to be rotated as it cooks, so I used a pair of kitchen shears to cut the skewers down. I actually cut them down a little more after I took this photo.
Cooking the Boliche
Now it was time to start cooking! This part was easy, just brown the boliche on all four sides, then add the remaining ingredients and cook for a few hours. A 5-quart cast-iron Dutch oven was the perfect size for this recipe.
I made several dishes to accompany the boliche, so I was in the kitchen most of the time it was cooking. It wasn’t too much of a pain to turn it every 15 minutes for the next 3 hours, but I can see how it could get annoying.
Serving
What did I make with the boliche? I’m so glad you asked! The recipe suggests serving with plantains, but I can’t cook plantains worth a darn. Instead, I made my favorite black beans and rice recipes plus some yuca con mojo.
