Help what is a clove?

[shouldbeironing]

Sorry am world's worst cook - have one cookbook. Am trying to cook something called pot roast as have been given (freebie which came with meat order) a big roll of meat, helpfully labelled "pot roast".
My one and only cookbook says to marinade the thing (done - used red ine ) and put in oven for hours and hours with various vegetables including small onions, and "cloves". Elsewhere this book refers to cloves of garlic so I am assuming that "cloves" on its own does not refer to garlic.
So at the risk of sounding completely stupid WTF are they?
Also do you think shallots are the same or equivalent of "small onions".
Does it matter if I cook this thing without cloves since I clearly dont have any.
I do have mushrooms in fride - cold they go in with it or would they turn to mush or something?
Thanks for helping a non-foodie.

Shallots are veg in their own right but you could use reg onions.

A clove is like a spice I think. I wouldn't bother with it to be honest. Same with bay leaves.

clove is spice easily found at supermarket theya re very fragrant

cloves

put the mushrooms in for the last hour of cooking

cloves are small hard brown things about the size of a pea - you (well not you obv!) use them in mulled wine and various puddings and the more adventurous use them in savoury dishes. Agree with Nab, don't bother - won't make a huge difference in a roast.

Yes, you could put muchrooms in, they'd be fine.

Ditto small onions instead of shallots.

Yep they're a smelly spice...they smell like the dentist lol

I wouldn't bother with the cloves either. But do put some herbs in - anything that you have to hand, but especially oregano or thyme.

You can add mushrooms, but would suggest that you add them for the last half an hour of cooking.

Sounds nice - can I come?!

cloves are spices, little woody things with stalk and head, and an old fashioned toothache remedy!
dont fancy them myself so would omit anyhow
shallots are smaller, stronger flavoured member of onion family

shouldbeironing..i use recipes as a guide and constantly add and omit things, its more fun
dh slaves religiously to recipe though!

my mum always puts cloves in her apple pies, instead of cinnamon - you have to count them and count them out, to avoid surprises

Yes agree with everyone else - don't bother with the cloves, am sure they would stay "hard" even after cooking - not exactly a tasty thought?? We use them in a nigella pilau rice recipe and it's a devil to pick 'em out afterwards before eating it (not even sure if they make any difference to the taste).

beware of putting too many cloves in - faintly medicinal

oh we use cloves in pilau rice as well and have to pick tehm out along with cinnamon sticks, bay leaves etc

Thank you everyone - I have learned something today - should try new things more (well actually will reserve judgment on that till I eat said pot roast).Shallots are in as have no other onions, mushrooms will go in half hour before ETA. Bay leaf already in as we did have those and I will now seek out oregano as recall might have this too (jar rather dusty I think).

DH was encouraging me to add ten cloves of garlic! I told him that even though I am someone who usually sticks to roast chicken and spag bol and sausages, I was pretty sure that ten cloves of garlic might not be right! (Would have had to buy in anyway).

I did use recipe as a guide in one other respect and added a bit more red wine - the only ingredient I am very familiar with other than carrots!
Now have a lot of "beef stock" left over from this venture - what to do with this? Would it freeze?

oh look here a pot roast recipe that uses 20 cloves of garlic

perhaps your dh was right

Found dusty jar of mixed herbs (oregano and thyme and some other things) so just added some .
Iota21again you have got me wondering about the garlic - wow 20 cloves makes this one look tame. But where's the wine? I think I will stick without any cloves - seems safer all round.

Ready made beef stock packet fine print (after all the stuff about no added this or that) says I can freeze it - so who knows what I might make next.

hairyirene is right in her description, but I do disagree with the idea that they are medicinal in flavour! They freshen up the taste of a dish, and are great when used properly. You can easily omit it though. If you have something like allspice, that can work as a good alternative.

shallots are very different in taste to onions, far less overpowering. I'd submit with red onions sooner than white onions. If you do use white onions, you want to use very little.

oh and sparingly means no more than 2/3 cloves generally. 1 or 2 to heighten the flavour, 3 if you actually want to taste cloves, such as in biriyani.

Please dont tell me anything bad about shallots at this late stage - they are well and truly cooking and set to eat in 2 hours.
They were less overpowering though in the sense that I didnt have the stinging eyes when peeling them.

don't worry shallots are lovely. Very mellow once cooked.

how was it?

Since you asked - we ate it last night. I would say it was perfectly fine/nice but I wouldnt rave over it or go out of my way to make it again - if I was given another meat freebie I would happily redo it though.
I am not generally someone who loves casseroles or "hearty stews" and it definitely fell into that category.

The shallots, after 3 hours, were kind of fallen apart and soggy but maybe that's normal - should they just end up in the gravy?

The sauce/gravy was very flavoursome - who knows those herbs might have helped and maybe fresher ones next time! The meat was very tender sort of big flakes of it so I can see why you might cook it like that. Mushrooms were great actually - very glad I added those. And my mashed potato was yummy too

The only other freebie I was given with this order was a big pink chunk of meat labelled "gammon shank" (I'm guessing no one really wants these cuts of meat so they give them away?). For any enthusiast who would like to offer suggestions I need something really easy to do - will probably leave till next week though.

no idea of the gammon shank, boil it I guess. Or maybe drizzle it in honey and foil wrap it and roast it.

The shallots would go soft, didn't you slice them?

Keep practicing and it will get better!

Its me again - changed my name as someone else on here with almost identical name who must also spend too much time here instead of ironing and general drudgery. Actually had to try loads of names too - mustnt have an original thought in my head .

Did not slice shallots - oops.

The meat reminded me of this thing which MIL used to boil for ages and then serve cold slices. Never did like the idea of boiling meat though but maybe it is necessary.We do have honey - will look into this next week.