dinner with Julie

167: Slow Roast Beef on a bun, after Puffed Apple Pancake

Again, today I am playing the brunch card, because it was far more interesting (from a recipe perspective, anyway) than dinner.

Let me take that back. Dinner was great, but my sister made it and I can’t take credit. Besides, I think everyone who eats should be able to make a puffed apple pancake; one of the simplest things you can make and also the most impressive if that’s your goal. People rave about these. Restaurants become famous for them. They take about 3 minutes to stir together and 15 to bake. Besides apples, you could fill the hollow with sautéed pears or bananas, or roasted plums, or fresh berries and whipped cream; absolutely anything you can dream up.

I made this, of course, because Father’s Day had to be recognized in some way beyond my getting up early to go wait in the extra-long Father’s Day Line at Tim Horton’s. Puffed apple pancake was Mike’s favorite eons ago, back when I figured out I could wow him with food, but I haven’t made it in years. I think we had puffed apple pancake overkill, but we’re over it now.

A puffed pancake is really just a popover or giant Yorkshire pudding (I just realized the irony in posting a recipe for essentially a large Yorkshire pudding alongside a roast beef, when the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other), which is made from a mixture of egg, flour and milk. It’s leavened by eggs without having to beat the whites, and bakes up all light and crunchy in a hot oven. Seriously easy peasy, as a certain UK chef might say.

Puffed Apple Pancake

Sturdier fruits can be sautéed first and baked right into the pancake or set aside to be served on top. Fragile fruits like berries or bananas are better served in the hollow of the finished pancake, which rises even more dramatically when the batter is baked alone.

2 apples or pears (my current favorites are Jonagold and Cripps Pink)
1-2 Tbsp. canola oil
1-2 Tbsp. butter
1-2 Tbsp. sugar or honey
Pinch cinnamon
3 large eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup milk
Maple syrup or vanilla yogurt for serving (optional)

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Peel (if you want), core and slice the apples. In a large skillet (if you have an ovenproof one, use it), sauté the apples in the oil and butter over medium heat for a minute or two. Sprinkle them with the sugar and cinnamon and cook until they start to turn golden. Remove them from the heat.

Whisk together the eggs, flour, and milk. Don’t worry about getting all the lumps out. Now you can proceed one of two ways:
1) Pour the batter over the apples in the skillet and put it in the oven. (If you don’t have an ovenproof skillet, pour the sautéed apples into a pie plate and pour the batter over them.) The apples will bake straight into the pancake, but it won’t rise quite as high with the fruit inside; or
2) Remove the apples and set them aside to serve on top, then pour the batter into the hot pan. This way the pancake will rise even higher and look more dramatic.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the pancake is puffed and golden. Cut it into wedges and serve warm with the fruit and a drizzle of maple syrup or dollop of vanilla yogurt. Serves 4.

Puffed Berry Pancake: Omit the apples altogether. Drizzle the ovenproof skillet with a little oil or spray it with nonstick spray, and pop it in the oven for a few minutes to heat up. Pour the batter into the hot skillet and bake as directed. Fill the puffed pancake with fresh berries or other sliced fruit, and serve with syrup or vanilla yogurt for breakfast or for dessert with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

OK, I’ll post a roast beef recipe too, since technically that was dinner. I very rarely make roast beef, and it may not happen again this year. The problem with most roast recipes is that the roasting time is based on weight, when shape usually has more to do with it. A very thick roast will take longer to cook than a thin one, since the distance from the outside to the interior is further. So a basic rule of thumb is: the greater the surface area, the faster the cooking time. It makes sense that a round roast will take longer to cook than a long thin one, even if they weigh the same. Oven thermometers have made our lives easier when it comes to roasting meat, but if you don’t have one you can still get by just fine.

There are two methods of roasting: fast or slow, and the method you choose depends on the type and cut of beef you have and how you want it to turn out. When roasting is done quickly at a higher heat – 450°F or so – it caramelizes the exterior of foods while slowly cooking the interior. The outside, having been exposed to high heat for a much longer time, will be considerably more well-done than the inside. On the other hand, slow roasting won’t produce a crusty exterior, but the roast will be more evenly cooked throughout. Slow roasts are also very tender, since the longer cooking time enables any tough connective tissues break down. The good news is, you can have the best of both worlds: start the roast at a high heat to produce a flavorful crust, and then drop the temperature down and cook it until it’s done to your liking, or do it the other way around. (Contrary to popular belief, searing the exterior of the meat at high heat does not “seal” the juices in, but rather creates flavor by caramelizing the exterior.) If you have an oven thermometer, stick it in at a 45° angle so that the end is right in the middle of the roast.

To do a slow roast beef, start with an 8-14 lb. boneless rolled roast. When it’s time to turn the oven down, turn it to the lowest possible setting and leave it for 8 hours. Make sure you don’t open the oven door during those 8 hours. (Tape it closed to so you don’t forget.) After 8 hours have passed, turn the oven up to 350°F for 20 minutes to heat the roast through. Pull it apart with two forks, and if you like, douse it in barbecue sauce and serve on soft buns.

Roast Beef

3-4 lb. (1.5-2 kg) boneless sirloin or eye of round roast (top and bottom round are good choices too)
Salt and pepper

Let the meat stand at room temperature for half an hour before you cook it. Preheat the oven to 450°F, making sure the rack is in the lower-middle position.

Put the roast on a rack in a roasting pan – leave the string on and put the fat side up, if there is a fattier side. Pat the meat dry with a paper towel and season well with salt and pepper. Add about 1/4-inch of water to the bottom of the pan, put it in the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 350°F.

Cook the roast until a meat thermometer inserted in the center registers 120°F for rare, 125°F for medium-rare or 130°F for medium. The cooking time will vary from 10 to 20 minutes per pound, depending on the size and shape of your roast.

Remove the roast from the oven and transfer it to a chopping board or serving platter. Tent it with foil and let it rest for 15-20 minutes before slicing. The resting period is important – it allows the meat to relax (it tenses up as it cooks) and the juices to redistribute throughout the meat. (If you were to cut into the roast right away, a lot of the juices would still be moving around and would pour out onto the plate, leaving your roast dry.)  Serves 6-8.

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June 15 2008 | beef and breakfast | 4 Comments »

Day 123: Fusilli with (Spinach) Meatballs

My niece, Emily, spent the day here today, and we plotted to invent something completely (but probably not really) new for dinner: meatball pizza. I started to thaw a chunk of lean ground beef (wish I had bison) and a block of frozen spinach (to hide inside) when my sister remembered that E had soccer practice and they had to leave right away.

So it’s meatballs for two. Mike left for Tofino this morning, so I had half anticipated a weekend of grilled cheese and eggs on toast. But this works - a stash of meatballs in the freezer is a good thing when you’re only cooking for one or two, especially if one of the two has small hands and is a ravenous carnivore.

Meatballs also make a good vehicle for healthy stuff; the aforementioned spinach, the heel slice of a loaf of whole wheat bread, whizzed to crumbs, an egg, the merest sprinkle of ground flax seed (I have to step carefully here, lest I scar W the way my Dad did me by making sawdust burgers out of half extra-lean ground beef and half oat bran), and some grated Parmesan cheese. I rolled the mixture into balls and froze most of them on a cookie sheet, saving a few to brown in my skillet. I had half a can of diced tomatoes in the fridge and so poured that overtop once the meat had a crunchy exterior, thinking I’d do my sauce in the proper Italian way, using just tomatoes, and finish cooking the meatballs at the same time. But it seemed to me it wouldn’t taste like much, so I panicked a little and stirred in a spoonful of pesto.

I chose fusilli only because it’s driving me crazy that I at any given time have about 8 kinds of dried pasta in various shapes on my shelf, each bag or box about 1/4 full.

Here’s a rough spinach meatball formula; adjust ratios as you see fit:

1 lb. lean ground beef or bison
1 pkg. chopped frozen spinach, thawed with all the moisture squeezed out as you add it
1-2 slices whole wheat bread, whizzed to crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1 egg (or just the white)
1 Tbsp. ground flax seed
Salt & pepper

Mix it all by hand, making sure not to overwork it. Roll into balls and cook on a rimmed cookie sheet or in a hot skillet; brown on all sides, shaking the pan as they cook, to create a flavorful, crunchy exterior, then pour sauce overtop and simmer until they are cooked through. Frozen raw meatballs can be plopped into a hot pan and cooked in this way straight from frozen.

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May 02 2008 | beef and pasta | 3 Comments »

Day 59: Sloppy Joes

When I was a kid, it was a bad day when my mom made fish for dinner, which was generally accompanied by canned stewed tomatoes (the ones with the little green bits), warmed just enough to accentuate the flavors and served in little glass dishes.

It was a great night when we had sloppy Joes. I’ve been thinking about that cheddar beer bread, and how great a slab of it would be topped with sloppy Joe stuff. I had some extra-lean ground beef in the freezer, and a couple of kaiser buns taking up space, but next time I’m going to use ground bison and make a cheddar-beer loaf. (I should add that we always have a tub of spring green mix in the fridge to dip into whenever dinner is lacking in the greens department. They don’t always make it into the photos!)

Of course, any ground meat would work; if you go the ground chicken/turkey route, keep in mind that supermarkets generally don’t trim the fat from poultry before they grind it, so it’s best to trim the skin and fat from turkey or chicken breasts or thighs yourself, then pulse it in your food processor until it’s as coarsely or finely ground as you like. Dark thigh meat is much more flavorful than white meat because of its slightly higher fat content, but it still contains far less fat than even lean ground beef does.

Sloppy Joes
 
olive or canola oil, for cooking
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped (optional)
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 1/2 lb. lean ground beef, bison, turkey or chicken, or a combination
1 28 oz. (796 mL) can diced, whole, or stewed tomatoes
1/2 cup ketchup or half ketchup, half barbecue sauce
2 Tbsp. cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
A few shots of Tabasco (optional)
Salt and pepper
6 plain soft buns, cheese buns, or biscuits

Heat a drizzle of oil in a large pot set over medium-high heat and sauté the onion, celery, red pepper and garlic for about 10 minutes, until the onions are starting to turn golden. Add the meat and cook for about 5 minutes, breaking it up as you cook, until the meat is no longer pink.
 
Add the tomatoes, ketchup, vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, and salt and pepper to taste and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the sauce has thickened. Split the buns or biscuits in half and ladle the sloppy Joe mixture on top. Serves 4-6.

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February 28 2008 | beef | 2 Comments »