Category Archives: Beef
Return to the Kitchen
I’m back! I’ve been on hiatus since Thanksgiving. It was all good. I’ve been cooking (and eating) up a storm, but haven’t had time to sit down, never mind taking pictures or writing blog posts.
I had some serious business to attend to, that business being my 50th birthday. The way I see it, there are two approaches to the arrival of your 50th birthday. You could be depressed about it, after all, I don’t expect to live to be 100, so more than half of my life is over and less than half is left. On the other hand, you can embrace it. Over the course of half a century, I’ve had a great life filled with family and friends. I can easily look back over the past 50 years and reflect on many wonderful experiences, shared with family and friends I love. I chose the latter approach and planned myself a party to mark the occasion in style.
First, I spent the week between Thanksgiving and the party getting ready. My family and in-laws came from out-of-town to help celebrate. The party was just one evening in the weekend, so we made dinner for around 20 on the night before and brunch for the morning after. Plus, there were home-baked treats to welcome my visitors and home-baked party favors for the guests. That was my focus for a week, with no time for pictures or writing.
The party was a success. It exceeded all my expectations. I can think of only a handful of other occasions that I enjoyed as much. It was amazing.
There were so many leftovers, that last week, I just didn’t need to cook. I could make meals from leftovers from the dinner and brunch and the party appetizers.
Yesterday, Howard and I had a fun outing in the afternoon. We checked out the Holiday Local Market, organized by Maggie of Eat Boutique. The market was held in the newly-funky part of Boston near Fort Point Channel. The market offered an assortment of local, small-batch producers of delicious foods. There were plenty of samples to try and products to buy. Howard’s favorite was the oysters from Island Creek Oysters. Mine was the salted caramel brownie from Yummy Mummy. We bought some gifts.
Yesterday was also my first return to the kitchen. We were finally out of leftovers. Our freezer is still filled with beef, so something with ground beef seemed a natural choice. I was in the mood for a shepherd’s pie. The one I settled on was a French version from a classic (now out-of-print) cookbook, More 60-Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey. I was reminded that I made something similar last year for French Fridays with Dorie, but Pierre Franey’s recipe was faster.
Hachis Parmentier doesn’t typically have vegetables in the filling, so I made it my own by using a little less beef and adding corn, peas, and carrots to make up the volume. I loved the smooth mashed potato topping. An interesting creamy, tomato-mushroom sauce turned this sometimes ordinary casserole into something special. It was delicious!
I’m so glad to be back in the groove.
French Shepherd’s Pie (Hachis Parmentier)
Adapted from More 60-Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey
Serves 4-6
1¼ lbs Yukon Gold potatoes
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lb ground beef
Salt & pepper to taste
¼ cup tomato paste
½ tsp dried thyme
1 bay leaf
3 carrots, peeled, and diced
1 cup frozen petite peas
2 cups frozen corn kernels
3 Tbsp freshly chopped parsley
½ cup milk
1½ Tbsp butter
1/8 tsp nutmeg
¼ cup Parmesan cheese
Peel the potatoes and cut each potato into 4 pieces (or equally sized pieces if the potatoes aren’t all the same size). Place the potatoes into a saucepan, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat slightly, and simmer for 20 minutes, or until tender.
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large sauté pan or skillet. Add the onion and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion softens. Add the beef, and cook, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until the meat no longer looks raw. (It will continue to cooks, so it doesn’t have to be completely cooked at this point.) Season with salt & pepper to taste.
Add the tomato paste, bay leaf, thyme, and carrots to the meat. Stir to combine well. Cover, and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes. Add the peas and corn and cook for another 10 minutes. If the peas and corn aren’t warmed at this point, cook a few minutes longer. Stir in half of the chopped parsley.
Preheat the broiler.
When the potatoes are done, drain them and put them through a food mill or potato ricer. I use a potato ricer. Add the butter and stir until the butter is melted. Heat the milk (I used the microwave) and gradually stir the warm milk into the potatoes. Add salt to taste, plus the nutmeg and the remaining chopped parsley.
Transfer the meat mixture to a large baking pan, about 13×9 or a little smaller. Spoon the potatoes over the meat and smooth with a spatula. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.
Place the dish under the broiler for about 5 minutes, or just until the potatoes are nicely browned. Serve with mushroom sauce (recipe follows).
Mushroom Sauce (Sauce Aux Champignons)
¼ lb fresh crimini mushrooms, sliced thinly
2 Tbsp butter, divided
1 small onion, diced
1 small garlic clove, minced
Salt & pepper to taste
¼ cup dry white wine
1 can (14.5 oz) petite diced tomatoes, undrained
¼ cup heavy cream
Melt 1 Tbsp butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, and cook until the onion softens. Add the mushrooms and season to taste. Cook, stirring often, until the mushrooms give up their liquid and it evaporates. Add the wine. Cook until the wine evaporates. Stir in the tomatoes. Cover, and cook the sauce for 15 minutes. Stir in the remaining tablespoon of butter and the cream. Bring to a boil and serve hot.
Taking Modern Conveniences for Granted
Wow! What a weekend! Saturday night, October 29th, that’s October, not December, we had our first winter storm, a pre-Halloween storm. We had a little dusting on Thursday night, but that was nothing. We only got 4 inches, but, oh the destruction this early storm wrought.
Last night, we heard a loud crack. We looked outside to see a large branch broken off a neighbor’s tree and blocking our road, a major thoroughfare. The plows did a creative dance and pushed the limb to the sidewalk, but it’s a lot of wood for someone to clean up. Personally, we sustained minimal damage. We had some branches down in the front and back yards. Initially, I thought I lost my beloved magnolia out front, but I shook the snow weighting down the limbs, and as the sun melted the rest during the day, the tree resumed its upright stance. There is some damage, but fortunately not a total loss.
We made it through the night with power. There were a few flickers overnight. Around 6 am, the power went out for good. No power, no heat, and eventually, no phone.
At least, it was a sunny day. We went for a morning stroll to check out the surrounding neighborhoods. Lots of trees were down, blocking roads, leaning on wires. Power outages were the norm, though some streets were unaffected. Lots of people were outside, cleaning up the debris, and commiserating about the early storm.
My heart goes out to neighbors that I’d never met before who live about ten houses down from me. A 75-foot oak tree was leaning on their house, where it had broken through the roof. An amazing show followed about an hour later when the tree service showed up with a 120+ foot crane and actually lifted the tree into the air, over the power lines, to lay it on the main road to cut up and run though the chipper. I was nervous watching the tree dangle high up in the air. I can’t imagine how the homeowners were feeling.
Tree Lifted by 127 Foot Crane Extension
Per town recommendations, we were trying to “avoid unnecessary travel”. It was interesting to discover all the things you can’t do when you have an unexpected, powerless, day at home. You can’t really cook when you’re also trying not to open the refrigerator. Even so, you’re restricted to the gas cooktop, manually lit. No baking because the oven’s electric. You can’t do much in the way of housecleaning, because you can’t vacuum. You can’t do laundry. You can do self-contained work on the laptop, as long as you don’t need the internet because the wireless is out, and the battery is charged. You can’t surf the web for the same reason.
You can go for walks (avoiding streets with downed wires) and chat with neighbors. You can read, during daylight hours, and there’s never a shortage of books here. You can also work on low-tech craft projects like knitting, again never a shortage of in-progress projects either.
We were quite lucky, and our power was restored around dinnertime. Spending a single day without electricity and the other “necessities” it supplies was not a real hardship. It really made me think about how fragile our dependence on the manmade world really is.
Unfortunately, many of our neighbors had to wait longer. The neighborhood behind us didn’t get power until one night later. Other friends still don’t have power more than three days after the storm. Halloween was postponed until next weekend.
Fortunately, I made some pre-storm beef stew which was a wonderful, hearty meal. This was different from a typical beef stew. First, I made a chunky tomato sauce, then simmered browed beef in the sauce until tender. The recipe called for serving the stew over garlic toasts, which I did. I served leftovers over egg noodles, which I preferred. The recipe serves 4, but they aren’t generous portions for most eaters. If you’re making for hearty eaters, you might need to double it. A bitter salad, with a mix of chicory and romaine tossed with garlicky-anchovy dressing, was the perfect accompaniment.
Italian Beef Stew
Serves 3 or 4
Adapted from The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser
1½ lbs lean beef (I used top round, but you could also use bottom round or chuck)
2 cans (28 oz each) whole peeled tomatoes
2 stalk celery, chopped
½ cup chopped parsley
¼ tsp dried oregano
¼ tsp dried thyme
2 Tbsp olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
½ cup dry white wine
1 sprig fresh rosemary
Trim the meat of any fat and cut it into 1-inch cubes. Set aside.
Drain the tomatoes (reserve 1 cup of juice). Coarsely chop the tomatoes. Combine the chopped tomatoes, reserved juice, celery, parsley, oregano, thyme, olive oil, salt and pepper in a Dutch oven, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Put the sauce through a food mill (I used the blade with the largest holes) and set aside. Clean the pan.
Melt the butter in the Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the beef, and cook, stirring, until the meat is browned (do in batches, if needed). Lower the heat to medium, and stir in the garlic. Transfer the meat to another dish.
Add the wine to the Dutch oven, and boil over high heat until reduced by half. Add the meat, rosemary sprig, and tomato sauce back to the pan. Taste, and adjust seasonings, if needed. Cover and simmer until the meat is very tender, 1½ to 2 hours. Taste again and adjust seasonings.
Serve over cooked egg noodles.
Chicory Salad with Anchovy Dressing
Adapted from The Essential New York Times Cookbook by Amanda Hesser
3 anchovy fillets
1 clove garlic
1½ Tbsp red wine vinegar
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste
Chicory and romaine lettuce
With mortar and pestle, mash anchovies and garlic to a creamy, smooth paste. Whisk in vinegar. Then, slowly whisk in the olive oil until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Tear chicory and romaine into 1-inch pieces. Toss the greens with enough dressing to coat. You might not use it all.
A Plateful of Happiness 