Iraqi Pot Roast (Daube)

It’s January, the REAL time for hygge and comfort food. Try out our Daube (Iraqi pot roast) recipe for your weekend meal!

Pot Roast is a great dish to make for your family and an easy starter dish for beginner cooks. It doesn’t take too much preparation, and all you need is a bit of patience while the roast cooks during the day.

The first time I made this dish was for a dinner party with my parents and my boyfriend’s parents. It was the first time our parents were meeting each other. My boyfriend thought it would be a great idea for us to make dinner instead of going out to eat, but I was left trying to figure out the best meal to cook for the event…I never really hosted a dinner party before! As always, Mom came to the rescue and suggested that I make daube, as it is a flavorful main dish not requiring too much work. It gave me the opportunity to prepare sides and appetizers while the roast cooked in the slow cooker.

Besides waiting for this dish to cook, the most time consuming part is gathering the spices; all certainly necessary to give this roast the Iraqi twist. The collection of spices equates to the smell of all I know to be Middle Eastern cooking and always reminds me of the smell of my Tata’s (Dad’s mom) condo’s hallway leading up to her front door.

This roast can be cooked using a Dutch oven or slow cooker. I just got a Sous Vide for Christmas, so I am tempted to try it with that as well. I’ll provide instructions once I get the opportunity to try that. But for now the slow cooker or Dutch oven work perfectly!