Roasting the bones will give you a darker brown stock than using the raw bones. To roast the bones, just stick them in an oven on high heat, around 450 for about 45 minutes, or until they are a nice golden caramelized color. Though you will want to make sure to keep an eye on them the first time, I'd check every 5 minutes after half an hour. Roasting the veggies with the bones will also add a slightly sweeter roasted flavor. It's like the difference of putting slices of raw onions on a burger compared to caramelized onions. You get a slightly sweeter, richer roasted flavor. Though it does turn down some of the other flavor notes, it's up to you which you'd rather have. Without roasting, you'd have a clearer "white" stock.
If you are using the butter as a base to roast the bones, I would set it aside and go with a higher smoke point oil like a peanut or corn oil. The low smoke point of the butter could leave a bitter, slightly burned flavor, especially with the longer roasting times.
I would leave the seasoning for the stock. Most spices will burn at a lower temperature, and salting the bones before you make your stock, could make your stock overly salty. It's easier to add more toward the end, than try to figure out what to do with salty stock.
I hope that helps!
Given your lack of tools, we're going to have to get MacGyver on this roast.
- You'll need some sort of flavorful liquid (or a combination of them). Chicken stock or beef stock would work. I'd normally also recommend using something acidic like red wine or tomatoes, however, using this method (which is based on tinfoil), acids can react with the aluminum to produce off flavors. If you want to cook with wine or tomatoes, you can transfer the meat to your casserole after you brown it. (More on this below.)
- You'll also need some type of mild tasting oil. Vegetable, corn, canola/rapeseed, peanut, light olive oil, will all work.
- Salt.
That's it in terms of software.
Hardware:
- Paper towels.
- Tinfoil (preferably the big, wide kind, and heavy duty).
- An oven.
That's it.
Algorithm:
This is basically the same technique that Cos Callis proposed, just using different tools.
Adjust your oven's rack to about 6 inches from the broiler. Turn on your oven's broiler on its highest setting.
Lay out two layers of tinfoil on your counter. Make sure the tinfoil is big enough such that if you were to place the roast in the middle of it there would be a border of tinfoil around the roast that is at least as wide as the roast itself.
Optional: Put the tinfoil on a large sheetpan or cookie sheet. This will help you in transporting the device to/from the oven, and it will also ensure against spillage in your oven. If you do things right you won't have to wash the sheet.
Pat the meat as dry as you can get it and put it in the center of the tinfoil.
Pour a bit of oil on top of the roast and rub it all over. You only need enough to barely coat the entire roast.
Generously salt both sides of the roast. I prefer using kosher salt, because it is less saline by volume, so you can more evenly distribute it without over-salting. You'll probably use a good tablespoon or so.
Put the roast under the broiler. Wait about 5 minutes, but that number isn't exact. Use your eyes. Just wait until it looks good and brown and crusty and delicious. Just don't blacken the entire thing.
When the top side is browned, flip it over to the other side. The best tool for the job here is a pair of tongs, but a fork will do.
Brown the second side.
Remove the roast (which is hopefully on top of some type of pan for your convenience).
Turn off your broiler and reset your oven to 275 degrees F.
Fold up the sides of the tinfoil around the roast to make a sort of pan around it. Try to leave as little room around the roast as possible.
Alternatively, if you want to use acidic ingredients, you can transfer the roast to the casserole at this point. The reason why you couldn't use your casserole from scratch is that it is probably not broiler-safe.
Pour in enough of the beef/chicken stock to just barely cover the roast. It shouldn't require very much liquid.
Once the liquid is in, fold the tinfoil on itself to seal the top, such that you end up with a tinfoil package containing the browned meat and the stock. Try and make it airtight.
Stick that in the 275 F oven.
Just let it sit in there for ~3 hours. You don't need to touch it.
After ~3 hours, take it out. Hopefully the tinfoil didn't leak.
If you did this correctly, all the cleanup you need to do is crumple
up the foil and throw it out.
You can also experiment with adding other vegetables (e.g., thinly sliced onions or whole garlic cloves). You can even add them from the very beginning.
As I mentioned in a comment on Cos Callis's answer, bottom round roasts have a lot of tough connective tissue which needs to be cooked low and slow (<300F) in the oven in order to become soft and tender. However, if you were to cook the beef the entire way at that temperature the meat would end up being gray and tasteless. The reason is that the Maillard reactions (which are what turn the meat golden brown and make it taste more meaty and delicious) don't really occur below ~300F, which is the purpose of the initial sear.
Best Answer
Simply put the sides in before or after the meat for an appropriate length of time such that everything is ready at once.
For example, say my roast chicken takes 1.5 hours to cook including resting. Roast potatoes take 1 hour. Therefore I put my roast potatoes in the oven 0.5 hours after I put the chicken in, and they are both done at the same time.