A browned beef pot roast, partly sliced, on an oval white platter with a blue rim, with soft carrot pieces and a small jug of brown gravy beside it. — Sliced pot roast of beef with carrots and a jug of gravy.

Fireless Cooker Pot Roast (1909)

Name: Fireless Cooker Pot Roast
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 8 h 55 min
Total time: 9 h 15 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 3 lb boneless beef rump roast, tied; 1½ tsp salt; ½ tsp ground black pepper; 3 tbsp all-purpose flour, for dredging; 2 tbsp beef drippings or vegetable oil; 3 cups boiling water; 1 bay leaf; 1 small onion, sliced; 2 small carrots, cut in chunks; 2 sprigs parsley; ½ tsp celery seed; 3 tbsp all-purpose flour, for the gravy; ⅓ cup cold water, for the gravy; ½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

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A fireless cooker pot roast from The Fireless Cook Book, 1909: beef rump dredged in flour, browned, simmered with onion, carrot, bay and parsley, then cooked for hours on retained heat.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 28, 2026

Recipe makes: About 2½ lb cooked beef, 10 servings
Prep: 20 min
Cook: 8 hr 55 min
Total: 9 hr 15 min

Mitchell left it nine hours or more in the fireless cooker. Here it browns and simmers for 45 minutes on the stove, cooks about 8 hours in a slow cooker on low, and the gravy takes 10 minutes at the end.

Jump to recipe Read the story

Sliced pot roast of beef with carrots and a jug of gravy.

The story behind the recipe

Pot roast was the kind of dish the fireless cooker was built for. In Margaret J. Mitchell’s 1909 Fireless Cook Book, a boned and rolled beef rump is browned in a frying pan, simmered for thirty minutes with onion, carrots, bay and parsley, and then shut in the cooker “for nine hours or more,” set inside a larger pail of boiling water. At the end she brings it back to the boil and thickens the liquor for gravy.

Why did the fireless cooker suit beef?

Long, gentle heat is what a tough, lean cut wants, and the box gave hours of it with the stove turned off. The University of Wisconsin’s 1908 bulletin found that soup stock and meat stews cooked well in the box and that “the flavor seemed better than when cooked on the stove.” Its conclusion put meats among the foods the cooker suited best, as Why Did Kitchens of the 1910s Cook Dinner in a Box? explains.

Mitchell knew the limits too. Her next recipe, a larded beef à la mode, warns against leaving meat in the cooker more than twelve hours “or it may ferment.” Her rump of four or five pounds came down to three once the butcher boned it, and she told the cook to have the bone sent home for soup stock.

Making it today

The recipe follows Mitchell’s steps with one change: the hours in the box become hours in a slow cooker on low. A home-made box lets the meat cool slowly into the range below 140°F (60°C) where bacteria grow, while a slow cooker keeps it hot from start to finish. Ask for a boneless rump roast, often labeled bottom round rump roast. Mitchell allowed round of beef too, though she found it “drier than the rump, which has some fat on it.” Mitchell’s Fireless Cooker Suet Pudding (1909) makes the dessert.

Have the butcher bone and roll the meat, dredge it well with salt, pepper, and flour, and brown it on all sides in a frying-pan with a little of the fat from the meat, or one or two tablespoons of beef drippings or pork fat. ...

Margaret J. MitchellThe Fireless Cook Book (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1909), Pot Roast, pp. 94–95

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Ingredients

For about 2½ lb cooked beef, 10 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for about 2½ lb cooked beef, 10 servings.

Boneless beef rump roast, tied3 lb
Salt1 1/2 tsp
Ground black pepper1/2 tsp
All-purpose flour, for dredging3 tbsp
Beef drippings or vegetable oil2 tbsp
Boiling water3 cups
Bay leaf1
Small onion, sliced1
Small carrots, cut in chunks2
Parsley2 sprigs
Celery seed1/2 tsp
All-purpose flour, for the gravy3 tbsp
Cold water, for the gravy1/3 cup
Worcestershire sauce1/2 tsp

Ingredients as written here

3 lb boneless beef rump roast, tied
1½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
3 tbsp all-purpose flour, for dredging
2 tbsp beef drippings or vegetable oil
3 cups boiling water
1 bay leaf
1 small onion, sliced
2 small carrots, cut in chunks
2 sprigs parsley
½ tsp celery seed
3 tbsp all-purpose flour, for the gravy
⅓ cup cold water, for the gravy
½ tsp Worcestershire sauce

Equipment

Heavy pot or Dutch oven, about 5 quarts, with a lid
Slow cooker, 5 to 6 quarts
Instant-read thermometer
Fine sieve
Saucepan and whisk

Instructions

Pat the beef rump roast dry. Mix the salt, black pepper and flour for dredging on a plate and roll the meat in it until it is coated all over.
Heat the beef drippings in the heavy pot over medium-high heat. Brown the meat well on all sides, about 12 minutes in all.
Pour in the boiling water and add the bay leaf, onion, carrots, parsley and celery seed. Bring it to a boil, turn the heat down, cover and simmer for 30 minutes, turning the meat once.
While it simmers, set the slow cooker on low with its lid on to warm.
Move the meat, vegetables and all the simmering liquid into the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for about 8 hours, until a fork slides easily into the meat and the thickest part reads at least 190°F (88°C), well above the 145°F (63°C) safe minimum for beef.
Lift the meat onto a warm platter, cover it loosely with foil and let it rest while you make the gravy. Keep the carrots warm with it if you like.
Strain the cooking liquid into the saucepan, discard the bay leaf, parsley and onion, and skim off most of the fat. Bring it to a boil.
Whisk the flour for the gravy into the cold water until smooth, then whisk it into the boiling liquid. Simmer for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring, until the gravy is smooth and thick enough to coat a spoon. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce and taste for salt.
Remove the string, slice the meat across the grain and serve it with the gravy.

Nutrition

290calories per serving

Recipe makes: About 2½ lb cooked beef, 10 servings
Servings: 10

Estimated per serving (10) from USDA FoodData Central values for beef bottom round (rump) roast, beef drippings, flour, onion and carrot.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Mitchell’s quantities, for 10 to 12. A smaller roast cooks in about the same time on low; a larger one needs a 6-quart slow cooker and an hour or two more.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

Mitchell’s “salt and pepper” and “flour” come without amounts, so we set the salt, pepper, both portions of flour and the cold water for mixing the gravy. She gives celery seed or a quarter cup of celery cut in pieces; we use the seed. We also brown the meat in the cooking pot rather than her frying pan, give it 8 hours on low in place of her nine hours or more in the cooker, rest it under foil and check it with a thermometer. She strains the liquor and keeps the vegetables out of the gravy; we keep the carrots to serve. Don’t hold the cooked meat in an unheated box or cooler. Chill leftovers in shallow containers within 2 hours and reheat them on the stove or in the oven to 165°F (74°C); a slow cooker warms leftovers too slowly.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.