Flank Steak with Soy Sauce and Garlic

Once, a long time ago, I lived in a basement apartment (that's "English basement" to those of us who want to feel better about living underground) in Washington DC right after college with three wonderful ladies, where I made little money and paid what now seems like a blissfully tiny amount in rent.  I hardly went out for dinner in order to save money...not to mention general laziness, but we won't talk about that.  Scrimping money turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though, in that it pushed me to learn how to cook, and to cook often.

Although the meat at our nearby Safeway ("Soviet Safeway" for any of those familiar with DuPont Circle in Washington, DC) was of a quality that I would question using at this point in my life, I didn't know any better at the time and went on my merry way, using the flank steak for a recipe I found on Epicurious.  It has turned out to be one of my favorite recipes, one that I often use when having people over for dinner because it is delicious and so simple (if you've been to my place and eaten this, rest assured the flank steak was of the utmost quality).  The soy sauce in this recipe makes the dish.

Feast your eyes on this incredibly complicated and long list of ingredients:

1/4 cup soy sauce
2 TBS olive oil
5 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp black pepper
1.5 to 2 lbs flank steak

Get your marinade ingredients together (which is basically everything except the flank steak)

Kevin gave me that olive oil dispenser as a gift--isn't it pretty? I loves it.

Pour the marinade over the flank steak.  For marinating, I like to use the resealable bag method, but use whatever works for you.  I put the flank steak in a gallon size resealable plastic bag, put the bag in a dish/bowl (just in case there's some pesky hole or leak in the bag), and pour in the marinade.

Make sure steak is well covered in the marinade, and refrigerate for 3 to 6 hours (leave the bag in the bowl just to be safe). Turn every hour or so to get even marination.

Preheat your broiler, grill, or grill pan.  Remove the steak from the marinade, and shake off excess. Discard the garlic.  You don't have to do this next step, but I used a paper towel to blot the flank steak to make sure that it browned instead of steamed--I did this after one time where I cooked the steak on an indoor grill pan and the apartment filled with smokey steamy marinade-y fumes. At least my guests had a je ne sas quoi scent lingering on their person to help remember the dinner.

I used the broiler method last time which made me happy.  I broiled the steak for 4 to 5 minutes on each side (about 9 minutes total), and it turned out to be a beautiful medium rare.

Slice across the grain at an angle to get your perfect pink rosy slices of hedonistic, savory meat.

Love this dish.  Ta-da!

Texas Chili and Strange Bedfellows

To slow cook or not to slow cook? That is the question.


Do you ever come across a recipe that sounds delicious, but then you realize that you are missing an important piece of equipment to make it? You know, like an immersion blender, food mill, mandoline, etc? That's how it was with me and slow cookers.  I had long heard people extolling the ease of use of slow cookers, and I felt like I was missing out on "something big".


So I did what any good bride-to-be does, and registered for a slow cooker months before my wedding.  Someone generously gifted us said slow cooker. Then same said slow cooker sat at my parents' house due to space restrictions.  Finally, after a year, same said sitting slow cooker came with me to our new, slightly more spacious digs.


And then, but only then, did I start to think about and ponder mighty hard about the virtue of a slow cooker. Did I really need one? What could a slow cooker do that a french oven/casserole couldn't? This pondering was somewhat moot at the time because the return date had long passed.


So, by default, I kept same said slow cooker that had sat until space had sprung. Do I love it? Well, I like it a lot  but wouldn't say love.  Can you do with a good ol' casserole pot what you do with a slow cooker? Well, yes, with adjustment in cooking method and time. 


Well GD-it then what's the point? 


The point is that, to blatantly rip off a certain infomercial that we all know, you can set it and forget it. You prep the ingredients (the prep can either be very simple such as throwing frozen food and broth in there, to doing something more complicated like browning meat beforehand), put them in the slow cooker, turn it on, and just leave it. You don't have to worry about an open flame, you don't have to constantly stir...you just let it be. 


I haven't quite worked up the courage to leave the slow cooker on while I'm at work because I don't want the apartment to burn down (I go apoplectic just thinking about the pugs by themselves), but that probably would be a great advantage of the slow cooker.  For now, I turn it on during the weekends and go about my business (where I'm in and out of the apartment) or leave it on overnight.  


Because, you know, it's one thing for my apartment to burn down while I'm not there, but I'm *totally* okay with it burning down while I'm still in the apartment.  My sense of logic could use some help.


But! That is for another day.


My slow cooker did, however, give me the happy excuse to buy Slow Cooker Revolution from Cook's Illustrated, a book that I am enjoying very much.


I recently made Texas Chili, apparently because Texas is known to have big hunks of beef in its chili.  This recipe uses soy sauce to help enhance flavor and tapioca to help enhance texture.  Who woulda thunk?


Adapted from America's Test Kitchen

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Oh crap--one more thing (sorry for the long intro). The original recipe is for 8 to 10 servings. I made approximately a 2/3 recipe.  I'll give the original ingredient amounts, because some of them are not easily 2/3-able and I kinda estimated.

• 3 onions, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1/4 cup tomato pasate
• 3 TBS vegetable oil
• 8 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 TBS ground cumin
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 2 15oz cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 28-oz can tomato puree (or tomato sauce)
• 2 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1/4 tapioca or tapioca flour
• 3 TBS soy sauce
• 2 TBS minced canned chipotle in adobo sauce
• 2 TBS brown sugar
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 5-lb boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks (as God is my witness I will buy the beef pre-cubed from now on because I can't exactly call the 30+ minutes I spent struggling to trim the chuck roast as enjoyable) 
• 3 scallions, sliced thinly

In a large bowl, combine the onion, chili powder, tomato paste, garlic, cumin and oregano.

Microwave (this helps soften the onion and blend the flavors) the mixture for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Transfer mixture to slow cooker.

Here's my big tip of the day regarding the next step, which involves the chipotle peppers in adobe sauce.  Most of them are vacuum-packed. Please be careful when you open it. I don't want to go into detail about the time that I started to open one and the very SPICY and BURNING contents SPRAYED up in to my FACE including MY EYES and ALL OVER the WALLS and even the CEILING.

So, I open the can facing away from me, very slowly, and I wear latex gloves. I know. Paranoid. 

You bitch.

Stir the chipotle, beans, tomato puree, broth, tapioca, soy sauce, sugar and bay leaves into the slow cooker along with the onion mixture. 

I know, whoever thought you'd be using the following ingredients in the same recipe.

It happens.

Season beef with salt and pepper, and add it to the slow cooker. Everybody in the pool!

Cover and cook for 9 to 11 hours on low or 5 to 7 hours on high.

Let chili settle for 5 minutes and skim off any fat with a large spoon.  Discard bay leaves.  Season with salt and pepper if necessary, sprinkle with scallions, and serve.

Ta-da!


What's your opinion of/experience with slow cookers?

Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf

There are a few cooking posts that have been languishing in my drafts that are just dying to debut themselves.

Anyway, I thought I'd fit in my long, slow-cooking dishes before it actually gets warm (winter has been dragging its feet a bit). So I pulled out my favorite recipe for meatloaf from Cook's Illustrated. 

I know, meatloaf gets a bad rap. People have icky thoughts about it. But this stuff is good. Really really good. It's a combo of beef and pork for balance (all beef can be too strong, all pork can be too sweet and soft), *gently* mixed with various aromatics (gentle mixing is the key, otherwise you end up with concrete), wrapped in BACON (I mean, come on), and drenched in a sweet sour sauce.  Enough talk, let's move onto the action.

Adapted from Cook's Illustrated

Brown Sugar - Ketchup Glaze

• 1/2 cup ketchup or chili sauce
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons cider vinegar or white vinegar

Meat Loaf

• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped medium
• 2 medium cloves garlic, minced
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 1/2 cup whole milk or plain yogurt
• 1 pound ground beef chuck
• 1 pound ground pork (the original recipe calls for 1/2 lb ground pork and 1/2 lb ground veal, but I had a 1 lb package of ground pork so there you go--I've made it with the veal combo before and that is delicious as well)
• 2/3 cup Saltine crackers , crushed (about 16), or quick oatmeal, or 1 1/3 cups fresh bread crumbs (I used the quick oatmeal)
• 1/3 cup minced fresh parsley leaves
• 6 - 8 ounces bacon , thin sliced (8 to 12 slices, depending on loaf shape) (I used pancetta for various reasons not worth going into, but actually I prefer the bacon--I missed the smokiness)

 First, make the glaze.  It's extremely complicated.

Mix all the glaze ingredients into a small saucepan; set aside.  See? I told you it was going to be rough.  (You'll heat the glaze later, if you're wondering why you need the saucepan.)

Now, ze meatloaf.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prep your onion and garlic.

Heat the oil in a medium skillet and put the garlic/onion in there.  Cook until soft, about 5 minutes.  Take off heat and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together the eggs, salt, pepper, thyme, milk or yogurt, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and hot pepper sauce.  You will get this lovely mixture:

I know, pretty. Makes you want to suck it down with a straw, eh?

In a large bowl, crumble up your meat.  

Add the cooked onion/garlic mixture, egg mixture, oatmeal and parsley to the meat.  Mix to combine, but be as gentle as possible and stop once as things are fairly uniformly incorporated.  A light hand leaves enough air pockets so that your meatloaf will turn out light, instead of like a super dense brick.

Line a baking pan with sides with aluminum foil (I have this baking sheet but turned up the sides a lot on the foil--the meatloaf lets off a good amount of fat).  Dump the meatloaf mixture onto the sheet and shape into a 9 x 5 inch loaf. If it's not perfect, toss in the trash. I'm kidding.

Brush half off glaze mixture over the meatloaf.  Lay the strips of bacon crosswise on loaf, with each slice slightly overlapping.  Tuck in the end of the bacon under the meatloaf.

I stuck it in the oven first before remembering that I needed to take a picture.  So here is a 2-minute baked meatloaf. So appetizing.

Bake for about 1 hour.  Remove meatloaf from oven, cool at least 20 minutes.

Simmer the remaining glaze and then brush that lusciousness over your big, bad, naughty meatloaf.

So I don't have the greatest pictures of it sliced up, because it is quite tender, but here it is with polenta and broccoli rabe.

Ta-da!

Short Ribs

I've had a hard time writing this post, because if writing down the process was going to be anything like what it took to make the short ribs, I just wasn't up to the effort.  This is absolutely a weekend dish, unless you like eating dinner at 4am.  But the results are lovely.

Anyway, 'tis the season for braising and short ribs (Life After Lobster is on the same wavelength).

Enough delay.

Okay I'll start writing the recipe.

Now.

Adapted from Epicurious/Daniel Boulud

Note 1: The quantities of liquid used in this recipe are astounding.  As-TOUN-ding.  I found it to be a bit much, which I've noted below.

 Note 2: I used grass-fed beef, which is much leaner than corn-fed beef.  According to the guy at the farmers' market, grass-fed beef needs to be cooked at a lower temperature for a longer period of time.  I've noted in the instructions the temp/time for grass-fed as well as corn-fed beef. 

• 3 bottles dry red wine (next time, I'll just use 2) (if I ever make this again)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 8 short ribs, trimmed of excess fat
• Salt and crushed black peppercorns (I just used ground pepper)
• Flour, for dredging (about 3/4 cup)
• 8 large shallots, peeled, trimmed, split, rinsed and dried
• 2 medium-sized carrots, peeled, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths
• 2 ribs of celery, peeled, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths
• 1 medium-sized leek (white and light-green parts), coarsely chopped, washed and dried
• 10 cloves of garlic, peeled
• 6 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 thyme sprigs
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 3 quarts unsalted beef broth (this, at least for my 5 1/2 quart dutch oven, was WAY too much--I only needed 1 quart, at most)  

Welp, if you're gonna make a Daniel Boulud recipe, might as well go balls-out.  Get yourself three bottles of dry red wine, preferably around $10 but still drinkable.

I can't believe I cooked with these instead of drinking them. It hurts a bit. Still.

Pour the wine into a large saucepan set over medium heat.  When hot, light with a match and let the flames die out.

Yeah, wanna see how that whole "light on fire" thing went? Prepare yourself.

Now light the match (or flame stick thingy). Careful now.

Ta-DAAAA!!! 

 

Yup, nothing.  Stil nothing.

Anyway, bring the sucker up to a boil, and let it boil until reduced by half.  This probably took at least 20 minutes. I'm sorry I didn't time it. I had no idea what "half" was.

 

Set the reduction aside.

Heat the oven to 275 degrees (for corn-fed beef, heat to 350 degrees).

Then, heat oil over medium high heat in large ovenproof pot (if my experience is any indication, you don't want anything less than a 5-quart pot).

Pat your short ribs dry with a paper towel.  Season well with salt and pepper on all sides.

  

Did someone hear an angel sing.

Dredge each short rib in flour and shake off the excess.

Working in batches if necessary (which it probably will be), brown short ribs on all sides, about 3-4 minutes on each side.  That is not an absolute rule. It was very touch and go for me.

 

Get all sculptural to make sure all sides can be browned.  The things I do.

Remove browned short ribs and set aside.

 

Cue second angel joining the chorus.

Prep your aromatics/veggies.

 

If you have a lot of fat in the pot (heehee that sounds funny), drain all but 1 TBS.  With the leaner grass fed short ribs, I didn't need to drain.  Lower the heat to medium.

Add the veggies/aromatics and tomato paste to the pot and stir until browned, about 5-7 minutes.

 

Still needs some browning. Can't say that it really happened DANIEL I FAILED YOU.

Add the wine reduction, short ribs, and enough broth to the pot to just cover short ribs.

 

Cover tightly with lid and place in oven for...5 hours. Yes, I said 5 hours.  Dude, that's what the farmers market guy told me.  If you're using corn-fed beef, 2 1/2 hours will do.

Check every once in a while to see if you need to add more liquid (I didn't need to--I mean, the thing is covered, how much liquid is actually going to evaporate?).

This is what mine looked like after ffiiiiivveeee hoooouurrrsss...

 

At this point, if you want to, let the pot cool down and refrigerate overnight (or, as apropos for cold weather, stick it outside in the freezing weather).  If you do this, you will be easily able to remove a huge hunka fat from the liquid.  If you don't do this, just skim off as much fat as you can, and skip to the step after the next two pictures.

This is what the mixture looks like after a night of chilling:

 

It's like a creme brulee (but not), where you can crack through the surface and remove a good part of the fat in chunks.

 

See?

After you've gotten rid of some of the fat (whether by chilling or just skimming), carefully remove the short ribs.  They should be falling apart at this point, so handle gently.

 

Um, I think there's a third angel.

Bring the liquid to a boil until it has reduced to about 1 quart.  So, I don't know about you, but I don't know what a "quart" is on sight, so I just kinda winged it.  Took at least 15 minutes.

Strain the liquid and discard the solids.  Season liquid with salt and pepper.  I put the liquid back in the pot, but it's ready to serve at this point so do what you will.

Because my short ribs were kind of cool from the overnight chilling, I gently nestled them back in the liquid and warmed them over a gentle simmer.

  

Looks like Willy Wonka's river of chocolate.  Or a swamp of chocolate.

Serve each short rib with some of that precious liquid. Serve with whatever. I couldn't have cared less at this point. Just gimme the damn short ribs already.

This was a labor of love, although most of the time is waiting time.  In any case, it was worth it. 

Ta-da!

Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry

I bought beef.  Woohoo!  I don't buy beef that much anymore because responsibly raised beef is pretty expensive.  But I miss it. Nothing can replace its savoriness. I do love beef.

Feeling a little fatigued from racking my brain for vegetarian recipes and a few unhappy results in the last few weeks, I developed a hankering for beef stir-fry.  Relatively quick and oh so delicious.  Soy sauce and beef? The umami abounds.

I am boring myself.  Let's move onto the recipe. 

Adapted from Epicurious

For the sauce:

• 1 TBS cornstarch
• 1 1/2 TBS soy sauce
• 1 TBS black bean paste (optional)
• 1 TBS medium-dry Sherry or rice wine
• 1/4 cup chicken or beef stock or water
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp sesame oil

For the beef:

• 3/4 pound sirloin, cut against grain into 1/4" strips
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp sesame oil 

For the other shtuff:

• 4 TBS vegetable, safflower or peanut oil (something that can handle high heat) 
• 1 TBS minced garlic
• 1 TBS minced ginger
• 1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes
• 1 lb broccoli, head cut into florets; stems peeled and cut into 1/2" chunks
• 1 medium onion, halved and sliced into 1/4" half-moons

Mix together sauce ingredients in small bowl and set aside.

Mix beef with soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil.  Let marinate for 20 minutes at room temperature, or up to about 45 minutes in the fridge.

Heat 2 TBS oil in large skillet or wok over high heat.  Add marinated beef with juices and cook, stirring, just until no longer pink, about 1-2 minutes (you can do this in batches, which I didn't).  Remove beef with slotted spoon to a bowl or plate.  Or in my case, a pig bowl.

A pig bowl with a missing ear, that is.

Sad.

Heat 1 TBS oil in pan.  Add in sliced onion, and cook until crisp tender, about 4 minutes.

Remove onion with tongs or slotted spoon to a bowl and set aside.

No pig bowl for you.

Heat remaining 1 TBS oil in pan.  Add ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes.

These are going to cook very quickly--better to err on the lesser side, about 30 seconds.

Add in the broccoli, stir to coat.

Pour in about 1/3 cup water and lower heat.  Cover pan and let broccoli cook until just crisp tender, about 2 minutes.  I don't have a cover for my skillet, so I improvised.

Stir sauce mixture that had been set aside to incorporate the cornstarch again, which will have settled by now.  Pour into pan.  Let sauce come to a gentle boil to cook the cornstarch.

Toss in beef with any juices, and onion.  Serve over rice.

Here again I go with my lovely Tupperware presentation. 

Ta-da!