Veal, Mushroom, and Red Pepper Goulash
I've been home for a couple of days with another cold. Ugh. While it doesn't seem to be as nasty as the last one, it's just good manners to not go to work and spread it amongst the co-workers.
I've been a good boy and have been drinking my liquids and eating lots of homemade chicken soup. LOTS of homemade chicken soup. Feed a cold, feed a fever, I always say.
Tonight, I needed something other than chicken soup.
I had some veal stew meat so I went looking for something a bit different. I stopped by the Epicurious web site and found a recipe for a veal, mushroom, and red pepper goulash. I had the ingredients, so I thought I'd give it a try.
For those of you who have never been to Epicurious, the comments on the recipes are worth the visit, alone. Some of the most obnoxious and pretentious "cooks" in the world feel it their duty to let the rest of the world know just how wonderful they are. I especially like people who go on about how they made a dish completely different that the recipe - used different ingredients, cooking methods, you name it - and then state that the recipe sucked and they will never make it again. HELLO?!? You didn't make it in the first place! Or rate a recipe with one fork - their equivalent of "star" - without ever making the recipe at all, because real Hungarian Goulash would never have a tablespoon of tomato paste in it! Really. (The recipe never stated it was "Hungarian.")
And, of course the "...Since my boyfriend is a chef, he suggested that I use boudon blanc sausage ..." or in a classic Beef Wellington recipe "If you wish to lighten it up a bit, use phyllo dough instead of puff pastry ..." Uh... if you're worried about those four calories in your slice of Beef Wellington, perhaps you should make something else?!? In my not so humble opinion, classic recipes should be made as intended.
This particular recipe had its share of detractors, but it looked good and I had the ingredients on hand. I wasn't leaving the house.
One of the things that really caught me was the introduction where the author said they always served it with egg noodles mixed with sour cream and dill! I was fairly enthralled with that idea. In all my years of cooking, I don't think I ever tossed egg noodles with sour cream before topping it with something.
And after doing it tonight, I see many more dishes where I will use the idea! It was really yummy!
Veal, Mushroom, and Red Pepper Goulash
We like this stew with egg noodles (12 ounces of dried pasta), cooked and tossed with two tablespoons of reduced-fat sour cream and a quarter cup of chopped fresh dill.
Yield: Makes 6 servings
Active Time: 1 hr
Total Time: 2 1/4 hringredients
- 1/2 oz dried mushrooms
- 2 1/2 cups hot water
- 1 1/4 lb boneless veal shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes
- 3 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 large onion, halved and sliced lengthwise 1/4 inch thick
- 2 large garlic cloves, minced
- 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon sweet Hungarian paprika
- 1 teaspoon tomato paste
- 2 red bell peppers
- 1 lb fresh cremini mushrooms, trimmed and halved (quartered if large)
preparation
Soak dried mushrooms in hot water until softened, about 30 minutes.
Remove mushrooms from liquid, reserving it, and rinse mushrooms. Squeeze out excess moisture and coarsely chop. Pour reserved liquid through a paper towel–lined sieve into a bowl to remove grit. Return mushrooms to liquid.
Pat veal dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a 4- to 5-quart heavy pot over moderate heat until hot but not smoking, then brown veal in batches. Transfer as browned to a bowl.
Add 1 teaspoon oil and onion to pot and cook over moderately low heat, stirring frequently, until softened. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in flour and paprika and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Whisk in soaked mushrooms with liquid, scraping up any brown bits, and tomato paste, then bring to a simmer, whisking. Add veal with any juices.
Cover and simmer over low heat until veal is tender, about 1 1/4 hours.
While meat is simmering, lay peppers on their sides on racks of gas burners and turn flames on high. Roast peppers, turning with tongs, until skins are blistered and blackened in spots, 4 to 5 minutes. (Or cut sides from peppers, discarding seeds and stems, and broil, skin sides up, on rack of a broiler pan about 2 inches from heat.)
Transfer peppers to a bowl, cover, and cool. Peel and seed peppers and cut into 1-inch pieces.
Heat remaining teaspoon oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then sauté mushrooms with salt and pepper to taste, stirring occasionally, until browned and tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir into stew with bell peppers and salt and pepper to taste and gently simmer goulash 10 minutes to blend flavors.
Serve over noodles.
Cooks' note:
•Goulash, like all stews, will taste even better if made 1 day ahead. Cool uncovered, then chill, covered. Reheat gently before serving.
My change to the above recipe was to use a jar of roasted red peppers instead of roasting my own. I know, I know... but it's what I had. I'm sick, remember?!?
It came out great even with my substitution and the noodles with sour cream and dill?!? Yumlicious!
Super Bowl Chili
I would love to know how many vats of chili are being made today. Chili and Super Bowl just seem to go together - even if you're not feeding a crowd.
And we're definitely not feeding a crowd today. The game just starts too damned late on the east coast for me to even think about a party. By 7:00pm on a Sunday night, I want everyone going home. I probably would be feeling a bit differently if San Francisco had made it, but a 7:00pm kick-off is still too late even for a game I'd be excited about.
My vote is for a 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern start. But that ain't happening this year.
And while I'm totally ho-hum on the two teams playing, I'm even more down on Indianapolis. I can't stand the place. I opened the Westin Hotel there circa 1989 and I tell ya, the city was one of the most racist, bigoted, and intolerant places I have ever lived. It just sucked. It's the kind of place that promotes "Family Values" while having skanky strip clubs on every other corner. Not to mention the anti-gay married politicians getting caught in their pay-for-gay trysts... (ooops!)
But I digress...
Chili. I love it. I even like canned chili. I tend to live on chili dogs and chili burgers when Victor has to travel for business. (My otherwise relatively-good eating habits go straight down the tube when I'm left on my own...) I figured if I made a huge vat o'chili today, I could freeze some and live off it when he travels to Dallas in a couple of weeks.
I don't use a recipe when making chili - I just make chili. This batch started off with a pound of small red beans that I soaked overnight and cooked this morning.
Into another pot went 2 chopped onions, 1 yellow bell pepper, 3 chopped jalapeño peppers, and 2 cloves of minced garlic. Then went in cumin and chili powder. Cumin and chili powder both really need to be cooked to get rid of the otherwise "raw" flavor they can impart.
Next went in the ground beef. When it was cooked, I added 1 jar of Sofrito sauce, 2 large cans of tomato sauce, 1 can of diced tomatoes with green chilis and a small can of green chilis. I added some chipotle powder, salt and pepper, and Mexican oregano and let it all simmer. When the beans were cooked, I added them to the pot and let everything simmer for about an hour.
Heaping bowls were topped with shredded cheddar and dollops of sour cream.
We have chips and dips and other junky foods for later today.
Not to mention more chili, of course!
And, if the game is boring, there's always 31 Days of Oscar on TCM...
Gay Coffee
Gay Coffee... Who Knew?!?
Certainly not moi - until just a couple of days ago. A dear friend of ours found out about it and posted a link on her Facebook page. I followed the link, loved what I saw, and decided I just had to give it a try.
It just arrived and Oh Boy! It's just what I wanted!
I know most of you will find this difficult to believe, but I can be a bit of a food snob now and again. Well... maybe not really a snob - just slightly opinionated about certain things. Okay... REALLY opinionated about certain things. Kinda.
But I digress...
I like good coffee.
My very first memory of coffee goes back to when we lived on Potrero Hill in San Francisco - circa 1953... The Hills Brothers Coffee plant was at the bottom of the hill and the scent of roasting coffee was everywhere. I didn't know what it was, then, I just knew that I liked it. We didn't live there that long, but every time we were anywhere South of Market or along The Embarcadero, that familiar friendly smell was there.
The folks didn't buy Hills Brothers. I grew up with Lady Lee coffee made by a fireman. (Lady Lee is the Lucky Market store brand. Pop had the ability to make bad coffee taste good.) Or Farmer Brothers - the restaurant brand at the Donut Center and most of the early restaurants where I worked.
Really good coffee wasn't an expectation back then. Adequate was adequate. And for me, all coffee pretty much tasted the same.
But somewhere along the line, coffee changed. Expectations changed. People started drinking more coffee. Better coffee. No longer was coffee relegated to the back burner, so to speak. Coffee came out of the closet and started getting respect. Single origin beans, quality blends, roasts that actually enhanced beans instead of destroying them.
It was a good thing.
And then Gay Coffee came out and it was even better.
When I first visited the Gay Coffee website, I was enthralled. How can you not love a coffee named Good Morning Mary or Second Date? And the fact that all of their beans are organic and fair trade only added to my delight.
I started shopping.
I'm a dark roast coffee-lover. I like coffee brought right to the edge. Juuuuuust to the edge. Coffee roasting is an art and not all coffee roasters are artists. Into my burr coffee grinder the beans went.
**Okay, a bit of snobbery here, but a burr grinder makes for a much better cup of coffee than a blade chopper. The blade chops the beans and the end result is an uneven grind of big pieces and little pieces. A burr grinder grinds all of the beans to the same uniform size resulting in a superior brew.
After sampling my first cup of Red Hanky Roast, the Gay Coffee Roasters are artists!
The coffee beans are just the right shade of dark and glisten with their natural oils. The scent is wonderfully rich. And the brewed cup is nothing short of steaming sensuality.
I'm in love.
Gay love.
And a bit of coffee-overload at the house right now. We have bags of Peet's French Roast and Kimberton Roasters Black Lab in the cabinet along with our three new Gay Coffees.
Did I mention I'm in love?!?
Sausage, Peppers, and Raclette
I first had Raclette cheese when I lived at Lake Tahoe in the '70s.
There was a bar in Incline Village called the Gasthaus zum Jägermeister that was a bit of an employee hangout after work. It was where I first had raclette - and the infamous Jägermeister. I may have had more than that, but to be perfectly honest, my memory is shaky about the place. I don't even remember exactly where it was. But I do remember ooey, gooey cheese atop potatoes and more ooey, gooey cheese and french bread. It's surprising I remember anything, considering the copious amounts of Jägermeister and the German beers that were consumed.
I have a hangover just thinking about it.
But massive quantities of alcohol aside, the Raclette was really good. I think.
Raclette is an alpine cheese made from cows milk that hails from Switzerland and is also made in France. Raclette, itself, is a French word that means "to scrape" because the traditional serving of raclette is to have it sitting by a fire and scraping off the cheese from the wheel as it melts. Raclette is also a dish of boiled potatoes, pickled onions, vegetables, and the like that is topped with the melted cheese. One of the Hyatt's I worked in served a raclette in one of the bars... I don't remember which one - I worked in too many of them - but they had a gizmo that held a quarter-wheel of raclette and an electric heating element that could quickly melt the ooey goodness.
An interesting note about raclette cheese is that it really is only good melted. It is not the type of cheese one would put on a cheese tray. It wants to be melted.
So I melted it.
Tonight I cooked up a batch of Italian sausage, peppers, onions, garlic, and potatoes. When everything was properly browned and cooked through, I placed it all in a casserole dish and topped it with slices of raclette. Into the oven it went until the cheese melted.
It was good enough to bring forward a lot of (vague) memories from 35 or so years ago, so I think I will call dinner a success!
Canned Cream of Chicken Soup
My mom used to make a dish she called her "Chinese Casserole." It was a chicken and rice casserole with Wild Rice Rice-A-Roni, green onions, mushrooms, chow mein noodles... It was about as authentically-Chinese as I am, but damn! It was good. It made a lot, so she only made it on those occasions where massive quantities of food were needed - and in our family, that could be fairly often!
Back in October when we were approaching the 10th Anniversary of her passing, I was playing with several of her recipes and thought I might make the Chinese Casserole as a bit of a tribute to her. During one of my weekly shopping treks, I picked up two main ingredients - Campbell's Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup and Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup. Neither item is on my weekly shopping list. In fact, I really don't know the last time I bought any condensed soups. Only because I can be such an idiot sometimes, I actually toyed at one point with the idea of making my own soups, but quickly realized that even I couldn't be that stupid. Besides, this was supposed to be about Mom's Chinese Casserole, not some Cooking Light Makeover. I bought the soups.
And then they sat on the shelf because, after looking at the recipe, I just didn't have an occasion coming up where I needed a casserole for 16 people. There's really not an easy way to make it smaller (although, I suppose I could freeze it....) But I digress...
I didn't make it and those two cans of soup have been sitting in the cupboard mocking me since October.
Tonight I decided to take control!
I sauteed a bit of onion and celery, added a bit of minced garlic, and then added sliced chicken breasts. And then I pulled the pop-top off the can of Cream of Chicken Soup. A pop-top! How convenient! Staring back at me was a mass of silk-smooth pudding-like substance. It looked like banana pudding. Really.
I broke out a bottle of sherry...
I added about a quarter-cup of sherry and let it cook down a bit before adding the gelatinous mass from the can. Into the pan and then - because it seriously needed something - I added about a cup of homemade chicken stock from the other day. I let it simmer away a bit and then added fresh asparagus. When the asparagus was juuuuust about done, I pulled it from the heat, added a bit of salt and pepper -yes, it needed salt! - and over rice, it went.
All-in-all, it wasn't bad. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad.
Spicy Thai Coconut Chicken Soup
While perusing the latest issue of Cooking Light magazine, I came upon a section entitled "International Soups." I'm a soup-lover from way back, and when I saw the recipe for Spicy Thai Coconut Chicken Soup, I knew I had to make it. And am I ever glad I did!
Everything about this soup is great. It is totally restaurant-quality in minutes and it is definitely going into the repertoire. There's nothing to change, nothing to add.
It was 20 minutes start-to-finish, because I had boiled a chicken yesterday and already had fresh stock and shredded chicken in the 'fridge. It was just what I needed on this rather chilly day.
Spicy Thai Coconut Chicken Soup
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons canola oil
- 1 cup sliced mushrooms
- 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
- 4 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 (3-inch) stalk lemongrass, halved lengthwise
- 2 teaspoons sambal oelek (ground fresh chile paste)
- 3 cups Chicken Stock or fat-free, lower-sodium chicken broth
- 1 1/4 cups light coconut milk
- 4 teaspoons fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast (about 8 ounces)
- 1/2 cup green onion strips
- 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Preparation
1. Heat a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add mushrooms and the next 4 ingredients (through lemongrass); cook 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chile paste; cook 1 minute. Add Chicken Stock, coconut milk, fish sauce, and sugar; bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low; simmer for 10 minutes. Add chicken to pan; cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated. Discard lemongrass. Top with onions, cilantro, and juice.
Seriously good.
Mushroom Risotto and Stuffed Artichokes
Another of the goodies Victor brought back from London was a kilo of Vialone Nano rice. Vialone Nano is a short-grained rice from the Veneto region of Italy. Nano means dwarf - and it is able to absorb twice its weight in liquid. It makes for an incredibly rich risotto.
I picked up an assortment of mushrooms at the grocery store today, boiled a chicken just to get fresh stock, and went to work.
I hate to say how easy risotto is to make, because I really do want people to think I slaved over this meal. But... I didn't. It was done in less than 30 minutes.
Mushroom Risotto
- 1/2 onion, chopped fine
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- 1 pound assorted mushrooms (chantrelles, crimini, oyster, porcini, etc...)
- 1 cup risotto rice (vialone nano, carnaroli, arborio...)
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 3 cups hot chicken stock
- 3 oz pecorino romano, shredded
- 1/4 cup parsley, minced
Wilt onion and garlic in a mixture of butter and olive oil. Add 2/3 of mushrooms, and saute until browned. Add rice and saute until translucent.
Add 1/2 cup white wine and stir into mixture until almost fully evaporated. Add broth 1 ladle at a time - about 4oz - stirring until broth is almost fully incorporated before adding next. after 2 cups have been added, add remaining mushrooms. You may use 2 1/2 to 3 cups of broth, total.
When rice is almost fully cooked - al dente - remove from heat. Stir in cheese and parsley. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper, as desired.
Drizzle with white truffle oil, if available.
I do have to admit this came out good.
And to make it even better, Victor made stuffed artichokes to go along with it!
Victor’s Stuffed Artichokes
- bread crumbs
- grated parmesan cheese (Maybe 3 bread crumbs to 1 cheese. Don’t be cheap with the cheese.)
- Italian seasoning
- red pepper flakes
- salt and pepper
Trim outer leaves. Mix all ingredients.
Liberally stuff the breadcrumbs into the artichokes. Pull the leaves out a bit and really go for it.
Drizzle with olive oil and steam for 35 to 45 minutes.
Drizzle with olive oil again just before serving.
It really was the perfect meal - and there's leftovers for lunch!
Pork Tenderloin with Spicy Orange Sauce
I love sauces. I've always thought them to be easy to make and a sauce really can make the every-day into extraordinary with very little effort.
Sauces and gravies have a lot in common, but they are different. A gravy is made with pan drippings. A sauce is made from anything else. Sauces range from milk-based béchamel to emulsified sauces like hollandaise and Béarnaise, and brown sauces, tomato sauces, or juice reductions like the spicy orange sauce I made tonight. We won't even start with the dessert sauces...
Tonight's sauce came about because I still had a few oranges that needed using. I squeezed a cup and a half of juice and went to work. This is really nothing more than boiling down liquids to concentrated their flavor and then thickening it a bit at the end.
Spicy Orange Sauce
- 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp whole peppercorns
- 1 1/2 cup orange juice
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 tsp sambal oelek (chili paste)
- 1 tsp orange zest
- 1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 1 tbsp water
Combine red wine vinegar, sugar, and peppercorns in small saucepan. Boil until thick and reduced by half.
Add orange juice and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and continue to boil and reduce by half. Strain.
Return to clean saucepan and add sambal oelek and orange zest. Continue to boil and reduce by about half. Lower heat and add cornstarch to thicken to desired consistency.
The sauce could easily be made vegetarian by substituting a good vegetable broth.
I cut a small pork tenderloin into six pieces, flattened them a bit with my hand and put them into a hot skillet. I browned one side, flipped them over, and then covered the pan and continued to cook them for about 5 minutes. They came out perfectly cooked.
The potatoes were cut into thick rings, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with a mixture of salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and Guamanian boonie pepper. (I'm getting low...) I placed them on a sheet pan and baked them at 350° for about 35 minutes.
We both cleaned our plates...
新年好 - Gung Hay Fat Choy - Happy New Year
It is the Year of the Dragon. An auspicious year, indeed, for those of us born in the year of the Dragon. The Dragon is the only mythical animal in the Chinese zodiac. People born in the Year of the Dragon are healthy, energetic, excitable, short-tempered, and stubborn. They are also honest, sensitive, brave, and they inspire confidence and trust in others. They are the most eccentric of any in the eastern zodiac. They never borrow money, are very straight forwarded and tend to be soft hearted which sometimes gives others an advantage over them.
Stubborn?!? Eccentric?!? MOI?!?
39 years ago I was in Hong Kong celebrating the Year of the Ox. It was February, 1973. You want to experience Chinese New Year?!? Go to China! I've seen many a Chinese New Year in San Francisco, but they pale in comparison. It was one of the most fun 2 weeks I have ever had. I think. We stayed at The Excelsior Hotel, I had a set of gabardine Navy Blues handmade for me, perfectly fitting my 155 pound 19-year old body, we traveled by train and local bus to the Red China border just to say we were there. I bought a dozen of Mao's Little Red Books and the best harmonica I have ever played. And ate and drank and took copious amounts of illicit substances.
What a fabulous time.
Right now, this very minute, my brother and niece are in Viet Nam, celebrating Tết Nguyên Đán - the Vietnamese Lunar New Year. Katie is studying in Viet Nam for a while and Mike went over with her for a couple of weeks to travel the country. I hate them both.
But 39 years after that Hong Kong New Year, here I sit after cooking up a pretty good Chinese dinner to mark the occasion. I've said many time before that Chinese cooking has never been a strong point for me. I grew up with Chinese restaurants on every other corner. Even bad restaurants were good. Why cook when I could pick up the phone and have fabulous and ridiculously inexpensive Chinese Food Delivered?
But fabulous (and ridiculously inexpensive) Chinese restaurants are in short supply in our present neighborhood.
Victor had mentioned earlier that he wouldn't mind having fish for dinner so I thought a simple steamed fish would be good. We had Shu Mai in the freezer. All I needed was a noodle dish.
I found a recipe for a fried noodle pancake. I didn't have all of the ingredients listed, but I liked the concept. I decided to see if I could wing it.
The one thing I did have were actual Chinese noodles. Far too many times I've tried to use spaghetti in place of Asian noodles. They don't work. These worked!
It did not easily slip out of the pan so I could easily flip it over. Oh well. It tasted good.
Crispy Noodle Pancake
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tbsp cold water
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tablespoon oriental sesame oil
- 1 16 oz can bean sprouts, rinsed and drained
- 8 ounces Asian noodles
- 4 tbsp neutral oil, divided
- 2 tbsp minced peeled fresh ginger
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 leek, sliced
- 1 carrot, cut into matchstick-sized strips
- 1 stalk celery, sliced thin
- 8 oz ground pork
- 4 oz bottled Szechuan sauce
Mix cornstarch,m water, soy sauce, sugar, and sesame oil. Set aside.
Cook noodles according to package instructions. Drain, rinse in cold water, and set aside.
Heat 1 tbsp oil in large skillet. Add pork and cook until no longer pink. Add leeks, carrots, garlic, ginger, and celery and cook a few minutes. Add noodles and bean sprouts and heat through. Add soy sauce mixture and Sezchuan sauce and heat through.
Cool.
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a heavy skillet. Add noodle mixture and cook, pressing down on noodles to compress, until bottom is browned - about 5 minutes. Flip out of pan, browned side up, add 2 tbsp oil to pan, and slide back into pan, Continue cooking another 5 minutes.
Slide onto platter, cut, and serve.
For the fish, I marinated cod fillets in rice wine for about 5 minutes and then layered it in a steamer basket. Meanwhile, I sauteed carrot matchsticks, julienne ginger, leeks, and black sesame seeds. When it was all barely-wilted, I added Sambal Oelek - chili paste. I steamed the fish and the thawed Shu Mai for about 6 minutes.
It may not have quite equaled one of those legendary meals in Hong Kong (and there were some legendary meals in Hong Kong!) but it served its purpose well - and there's enough for a good lunch tomorrow!
Beefy Onion Soup
I love onion soup.
I almost don't even mind the amount of time it takes to make. Almost.
The key to making a good batch of onion soup is caramelizing the onions - and that takes time. There are no short-cuts. It's just a long, drawn-out cook-and-stir-and-watch-and-stir.
Another key factor is, of course, the onions. I usually use a combination of sweet and yellow onions. I like the balance the two types give the soup. All sweet is - too sweet. All yellow means I need to add a few tablespoons of sugar. 50-50 is how I like it.
Another consideration is how the onions are sliced. Slicing the onions in half-moons may look pretty, but they disintegrate. Slicing the onions pole-to-pole gives the best result.
I'm also a beef-and-onion soup person. Using beef broth is very traditional. Putting in cubes of beef is not. But... I'm not exactly traditional. I don't always go with the crouton and cheese, either. Last night I just made a loaf of beer bread to go along with it.
Beef and Onion Soup
- 1/2 lb butter
- 4 lbs yellow onions
- 4 lbs sweet onions
- 2 lbs beef cubes
- 4 qts beef broth
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp thyme
- salt and pepper, to taste
Slowly melt butter in large pan. Add sliced onions and slowly cook until golden brown and caramelized. This is a process and can easily take an hour or more.
Meanwhile, brown beef cubes in another pan.
When onions are caramelized and looking beautiful, add beef cubes, broth, bay leaves, thyme, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer until beef is tender and broth has reduced by about 25%.
Check again for seasoning and add salt and pepper, as desired.
If you like, you may serve it with croutons and gruyère melted on top.
As I mentioned, I made a quick beer bread to go along with the soup. Fresh bread in an hour. Gotta love it.
George's Beer Bread
- 3 cups self-rising flour
- 2 tbsp sugar (raw sugar works best)
- 12 oz beer
Use a 4″ x 8″ bread pan. Mix and bake at 350° about 1 hour. Top with melted butter before baking.
Simple Beef Stroganoff
Beef Stroganoff may be one of the easiest dishes to make. Really.
It's a toss-together-in-a-skillet dinner that can be on the table in 10 minutes. I really love it - and don't make it nearly as often as I should.
It's a cold-weather dish, for sure, which makes sense since it originally hails from Russia. The original 1800's recipe called for beef cubes in a mustard and beef bouillon sauce with sour cream. The 1938 Larousse Gastronomique (I had a 1961 English edition. No idea what ever happened to it...) listed it as being made with beef strips and either mustard or tomato paste. It was wildly popular in the 1950's and 1960's and least one restaurant I worked in (Red Chimney? Val's? Too long ago to really remember) made it with tomato paste. Served over rice. I've always preferred it with mustard over noodles.
Simple Beef Stroganoff
- 1 small onion, large-dice
- 8 oz mushrooms, sliced
- 12 oz beef, sliced thin
- 1/4 cup marsala or other wine
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp mustard
- pinch sage
- salt and pepper, to taste
Saute onions and mushrooms in a bit of olive oil and butter. Add beef strips and cook. Add marsala and bring to a boil.
Lower heat and stir in sour cream, mustard, and sage. Taste and add salt and pepper, as desired.
Serve over buttered noodles, rice, mashed potatoes...
I made a slight variation tonight. I had some whole red potatoes that were left over from Monday's pork roast, so I sliced them and added them to the sauce.
Fast food done right.
Pork Loin Leftovers
The pork roast from last night was re-purposed tonight. When I was cooking it yesterday, I was trying to figure out a meal for today. We're a waste-not-want-not kinda place here. No-regrets shopping. We buy it - we eat it. It makes for some interesting meals now and again.
Winter is good because a pot of soup or a casserole can hide a multitude of sins. Spring and summer salads hide the fresh bounty.
It works for us.
So tonight, the leftover pork simmered in a bottle of store-bought BBQ sauce and served on little rolls was the perfect leftover meal. Store-bought frozen french fries completed the plate.
Yes, even moi takes shortcuts now and again. I don't always have to grow and mill the wheat and bake the bread in order to make a sandwich. Not every time, anyway.
I have to get lots of good eating in this week because Victor is heading to London on Sunday for 5 days. My otherwise stellar eating habits go straight to hell when he takes off for a business trip. Cybil and I live on chili dogs and corned beef hash with fried eggs for days on end.
The other part of his going away for a few days is coming up with a secret household project while he's gone.
I have a couple in mind right now...
Stay tuned.....