Archive for the 'beef' Category
I made this! Myself! From scratch! For real!
I’m sad to say it doesn’t look anywhere near as good as the first batch – this one is a bit paler and pouffier (like its creator) due to my excitement-triggered belief I could improve upon it, and make it even crispier. Next time I’ll go back to the version below. I still had to photograph it, as the light died and we had ten minutes to finish eating and get to gymnastics. Mike said it was better than take-out.
In the past I’ve been inclined to leave this sort of thing to the experts, but gave it a shot earlier this week for CBC in anticipation of the Chinese new year. If I can make ginger beef from scratch at 6:30 in the morning, you can do it too. (Preferably at 6:30 pm.)
Ginger Beef
If you can find thinly sliced beef for rouladen or bolgogi beef, it’s an easy start. Adapted from the Best of Bridge.
1 lb. sirloin steak or any other cut you like (I used eye of round)
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 Tbsp. rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. wine (red or white – optional)
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
pinch red chili flakes
1/4 cup grated fresh ginger
4-5 garlic cloves, crushed
canola oil, for cooking
1 small red pepper, sliced
1 large carrot, coarsely grated
2 green onions, chopped
Thinly slice the beef into strips a few inches long and about 1/4-inch wide. Toss with egg in a medium bowl. Stir together the cornstarch and water and add to the beef; toss to blend well.
In a small bowl or measuring cup, stir together the sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, wine, sesame oil and chili flakes. Stir in half the ginger and garlic.
In a wok or heavy pot, heat about an inch of oil over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Drop the strips of beef into the oil using a fork, chopsticks or tongs, keeping them from clumping together and cooking in batches so the beef doesn’t crowd the pot. Once golden and crisp, transfer to a paper towel-lined plate or sheet. Pour the oil out into a jar (or start with a fresh pan or wok with a new drizzle of oil) and add the pepper, carrots, green onion and remaining ginger and garlic to the pan. Cook for a minute or two, then pour the sauce overtop and heat through. Put the beef in a shallow bowl, pour the sauce over top and serve immediately. Serves 6.
February 03 2011 | appetizers and beef | 31 Comments »
Like so many, I went to bed last night watching crews rescue trapped miners in Chile. This morning when my alarm clicked on, the first sound that came over the radio was news that half of the men had been successfully extracted. I was inspired to dig up a Chilean recipe – relating in the best way I know by making a stew similar to what those men may be going home to eat with their families, and sitting down to eat it with my own.
Also – I’d like to introduce a new family member, a 4.7 L red braiser I brought home from the Le Creuset store last week. (No, they didn’t give it to me – I wish – I didn’t get a deal nor was I coerced into reporting back here. I just decided that I deserved a Le Creuset, dammit, and I went and bought myself one, right after purchasing the fanciest and most expensive coffee I could find at Phil & Sebastien. I needed a little retail therapy.) If you haven’t heard the news, we now have the only stand-alone Le Creuset store in Canada, in the new part of Chinook mall. It will allow you the experience of being a kid in a candy store all over again. A kid who doesn’t get nearly enough allowance to buy all the mojos she wants.
This stew was a great way to break it in. (I must say though, I’m surprised that the handle can only tolerate temperatures up to 375F. I really don’t want to have to go and replace the handle when I just bought the thing. Staub cookware, also made in France, has handles made of nickled steel or brass that can take temps up to 500F.)
This has slow-cooker potential, but I wanted to do it in a pot, like they would in Chile. I braised the meat in the oven rather than simmer on the stovetop for an hour, as instructed (I’m a bit of a culinary rebel) and used a small roast I had in the freezer from Buffalo Horn Ranch, which I diced and browned and which tasted surprisingly like flank steak, I think. Or perhaps I’m just having flashbacks of the flank steak stew of my childhood.
After braising the meat with the onions and carrots, you add the potatoes and green beans and peas, which you don’t want to cook to death, and finish them off. And top off the lot with a poached egg. Once the egg parts of our dinners were gone, my sister went and got the sour cream and lobbed on some of that, and was it ever a Good Idea. Chilean Hangover Stew, meet Beef Stroganoff.
This is called Hangover Stew because it’s often served on Mondays as a means of using up the leftovers from the Sunday barbecue – it’s a dish served all over Chile. This version is adapted from Saveur, issue #14 – of their adaptation of the version at Raquel Orellana’s Restaurante En Familia in San Fernando, Chile.
Hangover Stew
canola or olive oil, for cooking
2 lb. flank steak, cut across the grain into 2″ strips, or a small beef or bison roast
4-5 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 medium onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
2 cups chicken, beef or vegetable stock
2 thin-skinned potatoes, cut into thick sticks
1/4 lb. string beans, trimmed and cut in 2″ pieces
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
1 Tbsp. coarsely chopped fresh parsley
1 Tbsp. coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
one egg per person (optional)
In a large heavy pot or skillet, heat a drizzle of oil over medium-high heat and brown the meat, in batches if you need to so that it doesn’t crowd the pan, seasoning with salt and pepper as it cooks. Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two, then add the cumin and oregano. Set it aside or transfer to a pot (if you’re braising in a different pot than you’re browning in).
Add the onions and carrot to the pot and cook for about 5 minutes, until starting to turn golden. Return the meat to the pot or transfer the onions and carrots to the pot the meat is in, and add the stock and 2-3 cups water. Cover and bake at 300F for 4 hours.
Add potatoes, beans, peas, parsley and cilantro; cover and return to the oven for another half hour, or until the potatoes are tender.
Meanwhile, poach your eggs in simmering water as if you were going to serve them on toast; ladle the stew into wide bowls and top each with an egg. Serves 6ish.
October 13 2010 | beef and one dish | 14 Comments »
I think I may have just blown my mind a little bit. What’s left of it, anyway. I’m pretty sure there’s still a scrap in there somewhere.
I spent the day with Eric Akis today, a writer for the Victoria Times-Colonist for the past 14 years, who was in town promoting the 6th in his cookbook series, Everyone Can Cook Slow Cooker Meals. This involved me prepping the food last night for his appearance on BT this morning, and reassembling it for an interview with Gwendolyn this afternoon, which meant making a couple batches of his slow cooker pulled beef and onions. Easy. And it’s no secret that I’m a die-hard fan of the slow cooker. I don’t have to tell you they’re great, right?
But.
There was the extra batch he assembled on air. (This is how it happens on TV – all the ingredients are ready to go, the cook shows the audience how to do it, and voila – the precooked dish is whisked out. Typically there’s then the uncooked but assembled ingredients left to clean up and take home or toss out. Guess which I lean towards?) But they needed to recruit every spare slow cooker I had (turns out I have 3) for the class he was teaching this evening, and they had to get them going this morning so that the food would be ready by dinnertime. Which meant I had this raw sauced roast and onions and no slow cooker to toss it into. No matter – I pulled out my Le Creuset knockoff (have I mentioned I forgot to marry rich?), dumped it in and slid it into the oven set at 280F and left it there from late morning to late afternoon.
Again, this is something I already know. You can braise (cook for a long time over low heat with some liquid) on the stovetop or in the oven or in a slow cooker. I suspected it would come out a little thicker than the slow cooker versions, having a lid but not as tight a seal – a slow cooker really traps all the moisture in a dish-in fact you generally wind up with more liquid than you started with.
But look. Do you see? The dark stickiness? The meat joy? Have I captured it?
It was wonderfully thick and intense. The boys ate it scooped into buns straight after school, as did the 12 year old next door who forgot his house key, and his friend, and they all oohed and aahed and told me how rad it was, and I’m sure I ruined their dinners. But it was pretty rad.
And easy. You couldn’t get much lower maintenance. I didn’t even time the thing.
Eric’s book is somewhere downstairs, and so I’m going to try to summon the recipe by memory, as my legs have ceased to work and are lying there thumping like a cartoon thumb that has just been whacked by a hammer. I’ve finally crawled into bed, having started the day at 5:30 and finished with a 4-hour schmoozy sneak peek at the new Chinook Centre expansion, at which it must be said there’s a (first? only?) stand-alone Le Creuset store, right around the corner from Phil & Sebastien. Now that I’ve rekindled the flame, I may just be able to justify dropping some dineros on the Real Thing. Some girls buy shoes and sunglasses – I’d rather buy a pot. I can better justify spending money on food than fashion. (As anyone who saw me at the event tonight can attest…)
And hey, I might as well have the most fashionable beef on the block.
Eric’s Slow-Cooker (or Oven-Braised) Pulled Beef
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1 eye of round or top round beef roast
2 onions, halved and thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups beef stock
1 1/2 cups barbecue sauce
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp. grainy mustard
a few cloves of garlic, crushed
In a heavy skillet, heat a drizzle of oil over medium-high heat and brown the roast on all sides. Meanwhile, toss everything else together in a slow cooker or ovenproof casserole; top with the browned meat. Cover and cook on low (in the slow cooker) for 6-8 hours, or cover and bake at 275F-300F for 6ish hours. Using two forks, pull the meat apart in the sauce and serve on soft buns. Serves about 10 (depending on the size of your roast).
September 28 2010 | beef | 40 Comments »
Oy.
Are we really being sucked back into the cold reality that is January 4th tomorrow morning? Although the holidays have been wonderful and busy, I feel like I haven’t spent quite enough horizontal time on the couch in my flannel PJ pants surfing food blogs and watching The Office and Flight of the Conchords on DVD. What I love best about this time of year is that no one expects anything of you – to answer your emails, even – for the week between Christmas and New Years’ Eve. Of course I was back at work last week anyway, covering traffic for the provincial shows on Tuesday and Wednesday – but any work done during the last week of December seems extra-productive somehow, sort of like working on a Sunday.
I also feel like I haven’t quite kept up with my end of the bargain here – over the past few weeks I let a good half the festivities slip through the cracks without keeping you abreast of what was being consumed, where and why; my synapses dulled by butter, cream, wine and Robaxacet. And now it’s not timely anymore. Spinning the tale of my gingerbread trifle the week we all get back to work is about as appealing as spinning some Bing and Bowie on Easter weekend. I do have paragraphs written (that truthfully sound more like an uninspired letter home from summer camp) – I do believe I’ll just go ahead and hit delete and get on with it. Out with the old and all that.
continue reading »
January 03 2010 | beef and bison | 34 Comments »
Sorry for the late post – we were making rather merry last night. It could have been the copious amounts of French food and wine that knocked me out mid-post, laptop on my stomach like a heating pad. I woke up at 5am with butter sweats and my contacts fused to my eyeballs. This morning my jaw is sore – almost like it had been overused – got a boot-camp workout with me eating enough for a week in a couple hours.
So this is where, last night, I began:
Friends, behold something you’ll not see again for a very long time: my dining room table, set.
(As in, my dining room table is SET, not my dining room table set. It’s a Christmas miracle!)
All I can say is it’s a good thing I went to my Mom’s for brunch this morning, because when it comes to table dressing I am a total idiot. None of her finesse in this arena seems to have worn off on me at all. If I manage to pick up a few flowers and think to stick them in a clear vase full of cranberries, I consider myself extremely Martha. She sent me home with a basket of chargers, linens, matching plates and a vase full of dried flowers.
Although it did look lovely, and having W spend the afternoon at my sister’s may have been a contributing factor to my success, I’m not sure I could keep it up: this setting the table thing is kinda for the birds. Kudos to those of you who can muster linens, chargers and such every night of the week: it does add to the dining experience. (It also unfortunately adds to the cleaning-up experience.)
But let’s get to the point, shall we? The whole reason I put shimmery red stuff on my table in the first place? Our Julie & Julia-themed dinner party! Attended by some of my favourite writer-eaters: Pierre, Gail, Gwendolyn and Cheryl and their significant others. It was a potluck – which are making a comeback, have you heard? I heartily recommend them – people love to bring food, and if not, they can always buy stuff. It takes the pressure off you, and minimizes dishes.
continue reading »
December 07 2009 | beef | 20 Comments »
« Prev - Next »
