Category: Beef

The first time I made this in the Dr.’s kitchen, he said after tasting it: Oooh, like bœf bourguignon. While that comment was fine and good, I didn’t spend the effort to cook a French dish; I wanted to make a Thai beef stew. This recipe has been rehashed from that first time and I adjusted the coconut milk (more) and cut down the mirepoix (less). I used more of the Thai spices I bought from Kalustyan’s and was more generous with the galangal and the curry leaves.

Ingredients:
1 pound of beef chuck, cubed
1 can of coconut milk
two handfuls of green string beans
4 ribs of celery, chopped
a handful of baby carrots
a handful of dried curry leaves
a handful of Thai basil
a small knob of dried galangal
a small knob of ginger, peeled, minced
1 tbsp powdered lemongrass
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 cup of beef broth
oil, salt

1. In a large Dutch oven, heat some oil over medium-high heat. Brown beef cubes on both sides and remove to a plate.
2. Using the leftover oil and rendered fat, sauté onions until soft. Add Thai basil, curry leaves, lemongrass, galangal and ginger and keep sautéing until everything is incorporated. Season with some salt.
3. Return the beef to the pot including its juices. Add coconut milk and simmer for 45 minutes, covered. Stir halfway through just to make sure nothing has stuck to the bottom of the pot.
4. After 45 minutes, add 1 cup of beef broth and 3/4 cup of water. Add the green beans, carrots and celery. Cover again and let simmer for another hour or until beef is soft. Stir every now and then and add a small splash of water to make sure it doesn’t dry up. Serve with rice and tell your guests to mind the spice leaves and big chunks of galangal and ginger.

Related post/s:
Beef bourguignon recipe from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food
No one appreciated my Tunisian beef stew but me

Burgers are burgers, right? It’s summer and you’ve gone to your fifth barbecue this season and yet, you really haven’t had a decent burger. There must be something you can do to make it more than just a burger. Over the weekend, the Dr. and I invited several people to upstate New York where we rented a house. We drove the night before bringing with us a cooler full of meats I ordered from my CSA share, or Community-Supported Agriculture. I ordered them ahead of time from Lewis Waite Farm in Greenwich thinking of the lamb chops, pig’s trotters and beef burgers we could grill for us and our friends.

Cameron volunteered to make patties out of the grass-fed ground beef with smoked Gouda cheese and the prerequisites: garlic, onions, parsley. Two days later, I couldn’t help but recreate them at home. I used my grill pan and turned the vent on high to absorb the smoke and the smell. Instead of smoked Gouda, I used the blue cheese I’ve kept fresh in the fridge using Press’n Seal. The flavor is more fierce than the ones Cameron made because of the cheese, but man, did I have an excellent dinner for a Monday night.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
a small chunk of blue cheese, crumbled
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
half a bunch of parsley, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 red chile, seeded, finely chopped
oil, salt, pepper

1. Combine all ingredients, except the oil, in a bowl with a dash of salt and pepper. Form extra large golf-sized balls with your hands to help them stick together and then gently flatten them out with your palms to form patties.
2. Heat some oil on a grill pan over medium-high heat. When almost smoking, add the patties to fry. I was able to fit 3 of the 5 patties I made. Using an iron grill press, put on top of the patties to weigh them down. Remove press and flip the burgers slowly using a heat-resistant spatula. Replace the press to cook the other side of the patties. Each side can be cooked medium-rare in about 3 minutes. Remove to a plate and finish cooking all the other patties.
3. Serve sandwiches in toasted buns with some hot pickles and mustard.

Related post/s:
It’s like making flat meatballs
Blue cheese with your burger? It’s all about The Spotted Pig.
Pickled scotch bonnet peppers are the perfect addition

I can’t believe 2007 passed without me cooking anything for my Global Gastronomy project. Bad, Cia! I have at least four pending recipes from acquaintances and friends, but c’est la vie, the year went by just like that. Over the weekend, it was colder in New York City than it was in Budapest, Hungary, and their city experiences what they call a Russian front. Canadian front? Meh! It gets cold over there.

I work with a few talented boys based in Budapest. We talk every morning over IM. If work doesn’t get in the way, I get a spatter of Hungarian words in exchange for some quirky American slang. They know about this blog and we are each other’s contact on Flickr, so when I asked one of them, Keki, to send me a family recipe, there were no questions asked. He said he had to use the dictionary a lot to translate his mother-in-law’s handwritten recipe, so I was very grateful when I received two: a vadas sauce to go with beef and the dumplings to complete the meal. Vadas comes from vad, which means “game”, and Hungarians make the base of the sauce using all kinds of gamey meat. I used beef to make it less difficult.

My arms got tired when I tried this at home and I understood why Hungarians don’t make it often. You need at least a day to marinate the beef and a couple of hours to get the sauce and the dumplings done. Keki said that his mother-in-law makes a wicked version, and because they’re not readily available in restaurants, he looks forward to eating it. Even the kids love it, especially before they find out that the sauce has carrots in it.

When I let Keki preview the photos I took, he gave me the biggest compliment: he said he “felt the smell of vadas” even though mine looked more orange because of the extra carrots I put and seemed a little thicker than what he was used to. I could have used a full cup of sour cream to make it less orange–apparently, a lot of sour cream is very Hungarian. I thought I did better with the dumplings because I’ve had the Czech version, knedlicky, when I visited Prague. If your vadas sauce is creamier, you can sop the dumplings while you eat the beef.

When I finally sat down to eat, a wish to visit Budapest sooner than later floated in my head. Thanks, Keki.

Ingredients:
2 pounds beef tenderloin
4 slices of bacon, chopped
3 carrots, peeled, chopped
2 onions, chopped
1 parsnip, peeled, chopped
3 bay leaves
2 tbsps of flour
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp sour cream
1 tbsp mustard
lemon juice
salt, pepper, oil

For the dumplings:
1 baguette, torn in smaller pieces, toasted
whole milk
2 eggs
2 tbsps flour
a knob of butter, melted
salt

1. In a nonreactive pot, render some bacon fat. Add the beef and brown on all sides. Move the beef to the side while you sauté the onions. Add the carrots and the parsnip and cook for about 5 minutes. Don’t forget to turn the beef to avoid burning. Add enough water to cover and toss in the bay leaves and some pepper. Cook in low fire for about 3 hours, covered. After 3 hours, let it cool and store in the fridge for up to 24 hours, turning the beef occasionally.
2. When ready to cook, remove the meat from the water and set aside. Save some of the water. Using a slotted spoon, remove the vegetables and transfer to a large bowl. Mash.
3. Make the dumplings. In a large mixing bowl, soak the toasted baguette in milk. Set aside.
4. Make the roux, or the sauce thickener. In a large skillet, heat vegetable oil in medium heat until somewhat smoking. Pour flour and mix with a whisk. Keep mixing for about 15 minutes or until flour is red-orange. If black spots start to appear in the flour, it means you’ve burnt it. You have to start over. Remove from heat and keep mixing with the whisk to help cool down the roux. When cool, add to the mashed vegetables.
5. Make caramelized sugar. Heat another skillet and cook the sugar with a whisk until it caramelizes. Remove from heat and set aside.
6. Now you have a a large bowl of mashed vegetables with roux. This is your vadas base. Use the leftover water to keep a sauce consistency. Add the sour cream and mix. Add the caramelized sugar. Season with the lemon juice and the mustard until you get a somewhat sweet and sour taste. Set aside.
7. Don’t forget the dumplings. By this time, the baguette has absorbed all the milk. Add in the eggs, flour, butter and salt. Mix until you get a soft and sticky batter.
8. Boil some water in a large pot. When boiling, spoon some batter and make a few balls. Drop them in the boiling water and cook for about 5 minutes, or until they come up to the surface. Avoid overcrowding. Using a slotted spoon, remove them to a chopping board. Slice in thick rounds when cool enough to handle.
9. To serve, slice the beef in thick slices. Arrange the beef on a plate with some dumplings. Pour in some sauce on the side.

Related post/s:
More Cooking the World recipes: Thailand
About Cooking the World: Global Gastronomy Food Project