Tag Archives: Beef

Streaks with Citrus-Soy Pan Sauce and Slaw

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Currently cooking out of Simple Weeknight Favorites from America’s Test Kitchen

I’ve found cooking (not baking, but cooking) with oranges to be hit or miss. Sometimes the dish gets overwhelmed by an orangey-furniture polish taste and smell. Or it is simply bitter from the orange zest. That was my main concern with this dish, but fortunately, it worked.

This one is pretty simple. You make a simple dressing of soy sauce, orange zest and juice, vinegar and ginger. This dressing does double duty by being the basic dressing for some bagged broccoli slaw and then, with the addition of some butter, becoming a pan sauce for steaks.

First, the slaw. This is one of those side dishes that comes together very quickly but is really tasty. The recipe calls for adding edamame to some bagged broccoli slaw, which is convenient. Unfortunately, all of the broccoli slaw in my grocery store looked old, so I made my own by simply mixing together broccoli, cabbage and shredded carrots. The dressing has a hint of Asian flavors, especially with a bit of sesame oil added to the dressing portion. The vinegar softened up the cabbage and the broccoli, toning down their raw bite. It even held up well overnight.

The steaks are simply pan-fried, and a portion of the dressing (minus the sesame oil) is reduced in the same pan. Once the sauce is reduced, you take it off the heat and swirl in a few pats of butter. The butter enriches and thickens the sauce and makes it seem a little more luxurious.

The flavors in this dish were bright and fun. The pan sauce was easy to make, but really added a lot of flavor to the steak. For me, the slaw was the highlight of the meal and could easily stand on its own. I can see slicing the steak and adding to the slaw, or even using leftover chicken to make it a stand-alone meal. This dish was definitely a winner.

Chile-Coconut Braised Beef Short Ribs

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Currently cooking from Cook This Now by Melissa Clark

Clark has introduced me to another ingredient that I’ve never cooked with – boneless, beef short ribs. Where have they been all my life? How have I lived without them? This dish was so good and easy, don’t let the word “coconut” in the title scare you. There is enough heat in the dish to counter any coconuttyness you find. I couldn’t taste the coconut milk; Bryan said he could, but that didn’t stop him from inhaling his meal. And he doesn’t really like coconut.

The dish starts off by browning the short ribs (which you’ve cut into 2-inch chunks) in oil. Garlic, jalapenos, ginger, shallots and cumin seeds are added to the pot and allowed to cook for a minute before coconut milk (unsweetened, please), lime zest and juice, salt and pepper and water are added. The pot gets transferred to the oven where the meat braises until it is fall-apart tender. And succulent. And just plain wonderful.

As usual, I made a few minor changes. I left out the ginger (yuck) and added more garlic and shallots. I also used lemons because I forgot to buy limes (darn). We ate this over brown rice, but it would work over any grain, or potatoes or even pasta. This is definitely a dish worthy of company.

Beef Stroganoff

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Currently cooking out of Slow Cooker Revolution by America’s Test Kitchen

If I spy a beef stroganoff recipe in a slow cooker cookbook, there’s a good chance I’m going to try it. I have a thing about beef stroganoff; I love it and have been looking for The Best recipe for years. Somehow, this recipe in this cookbook slipped below my radar. Until now. And I can confidently say, that while I don’t think this is The Best recipe, it is pretty good.

I didn’t take any pictures because a. I was lazy, b. it looked pretty brown and boring and c. I was lazy.

You start off by sauteing white mushrooms until they give up all their liquid and start browning. The mushrooms get transferred to the slow cooker, and onions, tomato paste, garlic, dried porcini mushrooms and thyme take a turn in the saute pan. Once everything is soft and starting to turn brown, you whisk in some flour, then chicken broth. This mixture gets moved to the slow cooker where it and the mushrooms are joined by wine, soy sauce, bay leaves and chunks of beef. Everything cooks, on low, for 9 to 11 hours, or until the beef is tender. Right before serving, sour cream and Dijon mustard are stirred into the slow cooker (and dill, if you have it, which I didn’t).

I really liked this dish. The beef was tender and flavorful, and the addition of the sour cream and mustard gave the stroganoff a bright flavor that wasn’t dulled by hours of cooking. I served this over spaghetti (because I didn’t have egg noodles, and all I’ve heard from Bryan since then is that stroganoff has to have egg noodles. Bah!), rice and rotelli pasta. They were all good, despite Bryan’s grumblings. I especially liked the stroganoff over rice since the stroganoff is a little liquidy and the rice soaked all that up.

The only change I would make is to increase the amount of mushrooms in the recipe. It calls for 1 1/2 pounds, and I think I’d go with two pounds. The mushrooms kind of disappeared.

Sloppy Joes

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Currently cooking out of Slow Cooker Revolution by America’s Test Kitchen

You: Uh, Trista?

Me: Yes?

You: Aren’t sloppy joes supposed to be served as a sandwich?

Me: Yes, unless you live in our house where we are trying to watch our diet, and I didn’t want to buy a package of hamburger buns that we probably wouldn’t eat (or a package that we’d eat it all), and I had some potatoes languishing in the refrigerator. Then you get sloppy joe mixture over microwaved potatoes. And you know what? They were pretty good. Better than a hamburger bun that is just going to get all soggy and fall apart on you.

I had forgotten how sweet sloppy joes can be. Or how messy. Frankly, in my opinion, this dish is more for kids than it is for adults. It was sweet, sweet, sweet, thanks to a cup of ketchup and a couple of teaspoons of brown sugar. It was also a little bland.

This dish has a bit more prep work than many of the other dishes I’ve made out of this book. It starts off by having you mash together milk and two slices of sandwich bread. This gets mixed into the ground beef. Next you saute onions, garlic and chili powder until the onions have softened, and then add the ground beef and cook it until it is no longer pink. The whole lot goes into the slow cooker along with ketchup, a can of tomato sauce, brown sugar and a squirt of hot sauce. This cooks for six to eight hours on low, or until the ground beef is tender.

Like most of the other recipes out of this book, this recipe makes enough to feed a crowd and is easily doubled.

As I said above, I found this dish to be too sweet. I don’t think you need the brown sugar, and I’d even consider cutting down the amount of ketchup by a third, maybe to 2/3 of a cup or so. The mixture is pretty saucy, and the ground beef ends up in small, tender chunks. Besides using it as a sandwich filling and on baked potatoes, you could also serve the sloppy joe mixture over pasta.

Easy Pesto Meatballs

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Currently cooking out of Slow Cooker Revolution by America’s Test Kitchen

These are exactly what they sound like, little balls of meat filled with pesto. It is hard to see how or where they could go wrong, but I’m on the fence with them. I’m not sure if I like them or not.

The meatballs are made by mixing hamburger, pesto, bread crumbs, Parmesan and an egg yolk together. Once the meatballs are formed, they are microwaved for about 5 minutes so the fat renders off of them and they firm up. To make the sauce for the meatballs, jarred tomato sauce and water are stirred into the slow cooker. Once the meatballs come out of the microwave, they are nestled into the tomato sauce and left to cook, on low, for 4 to 6 hours.

The meatballs were moist and tender, but I couldn’t taste the pesto. At all. They were so tender, that they fell apart pretty easily. They also had a very strange aftertaste that I didn’t really like, and I’m not sure if it is the meatballs or the tomato sauce. One thing to note is that you should use a tomato sauce that you like, because that will be the dominate flavor of the dish.

Hearty Beef Stew

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Currently cooking out of Slow Cooker Revolution by America’s Test Kitchen

I am officially declaring this to be the best beef stew I’ve ever made. Best. Beef. Stew. Ever.

Like most of the other recipes I’ve made out of this book, this recipe is a little more complicated than simply throwing your ingredients into the slow cooker and walking away for 8 hours. You could do that, but with just a little more work, you’ll get a whole lot more flavor.

You start out by browning onions, tomato paste, garlic and thyme on the stovetop. Once the onions are softened and lightly browned, a bit of flour is stirred in, followed by chicken broth. This give the stew some body and thickens the liquid up just enough that it clings to the meat and veggies. That mixture goes into the slow cooker followed by soy sauce, beef broth, bay leaves, chunks of beef chuck roast and salt and pepper. Then, you take carrots and potatoes, toss them with oil, salt and pepper and wrap them up in tinfoil. That tinfoil packet is placed on top of the other things in the slow cooker, and the whole shebang is cooked until the beef is tender. At the end of the cooking, the now perfectly tender steamed carrots and potatoes are removed from the tinfoil packet and stirred into the stew along with some frozen peas.

Holy crap, you should have smelled my house while this was cooking.

The little Cooks Illustrated tips, like precooking the onions, adding soy sauce and steaming the veggies separately, are genius. You get a stew that is deeply flavored with meat so tender it falls apart with the littlest prodding of a fork. The vegetables, instead of being mushy and bland, are tender without being overcooked (this is especially important when you are reheating the stew for subsequent meals).

Like I said. Best. Beef. Stew. Ever.

Classic Meatloaf

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Currently cooking out of Slow Cooker Revolution by America’s Test Kitchen

It’s been a long time since I’ve made meatloaf, but on a recent trip to Portland, Ore., Bryan had a meatloaf sandwich that was fantastic. It got me thinking about my lack of meatloafness. I don’t have a favorite recipe; no recipe that has been passed down through generations of my family. The meatloafs I remember eating as a kid were unremarkable, mostly soggy, mealy things. But if anybody could steer me towards a good meatloaf, I figured it would be Cooks Illustrated. And in a slow cooker, no less.

This recipe starts out by having you microwave aromatics (onion, garlic thyme) in a bit of oil. This softens the onions and makes the flavors bloom. Then you mix the aromatics (which are now very hot, duh) with a panade of bread and milk, ground beef, eggs and seasonings. This mixture is pressed into the slow cooker in an even layer, and cooked on low for about 4 hours. To finish off the meatloaf, a mixture of ketchup, sugar and vinegar is brushed over the top and the meatloaf is put under the broiler until the top is caramelized and bubbly.

If you are wondering how to fit the slow cooker under the broiler, well, here’s one of Cooks Illustrated’s little tricks. Before putting the raw meatloaf into the slow cooker, you create a “sling” of tinfoil in the bottom of the slow cooker. Then you spread the meatloaf mix on top of the tinfoil. When the meatloaf is done, you simply lift it out of the slow cooker using the sling and transfer the meat to a rimmed baking sheet. Besides making the meatloaf very easy to remove from the slow cooker, the sling also allows all the grease to remain in the slow cooker. So although the meatloaf is very moist, it isn’t at all greasy.

I really liked this meatloaf. It had great flavor and was extremely moist and tender. The broiled topping was a little on the sweet side, but it went well with the meat. The recipe makes enough for 6 to 8 people. Bryan and I ate leftovers for lunches for several days, and the meatloaf reheated well.

Swiss Steaks with Onions and Mushrooms

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Currently cooking out of Slow Cooker Revolution by America’s Test Kitchen

At first there were just rumors that Cooks Illustrated was putting out a slow cooker cookbook. I looked at their website, searched Amazon. Nothing. Then one day, while reading my latest copy of Cooks Illustrated Magazine, I saw it on the wrapper. It did exist! Then came a few weeks of debating whether or not I really needed another cookbook. I actually held out for a while (okay, my local bookstore didn’t have the book in stock, and I didn’t want to order it). Then it showed up at Costco, and I bought it.

Starting a slow cooker cookbook right before summer may seem a little odd, but I tend to use my slow cooker all year long. I like making a big batch of something so that we have leftovers for lunches, and the slow cooker doesn’t heat up the house like the stove or oven would.

I have high hopes for this cookbook. The recipes are a little more involved than you’d usually find with a slow cooker recipe. Most of the time, you don’t just dump, stir and cover. Sometimes the recipes have you brown the onions or microwave the aromatics in some oil. The guys at Cooks Illustrated claim this helps develop a deep flavor in the dishes and is worth the extra work. We’ll see.

I picked this first recipe because of the mushrooms. I might have mentioned it before, but Bryan LOVES, LOVES, LOVES mushrooms. I think he was having a bad day, and I wanted him to feel better. Yes, I am the perfect wife.

The recipe starts out by browning the mushrooms, onions, thyme and paprika in a skillet. Once the veggies are softened and browned, a bit of flour is stirred in, followed by chicken broth and sherry to make a gravy. Once the mixture is thickened, it is transfered to the slow cooker, and beef blade steaks are nestled into the liquid. Everything cooks until the meat is falling-apart tender. Mine took about 6 hours. I started my slow cooker on high, then once everything was bubbling and hot, I turned it down to low.

We served the meat and gravy over rice for the first meal, then over pasta for the next two meals. The meat is so tender, that it fell apart the first time I tried to pick it up. It made a wonderful pasta sauce. I can’t find a fault with this recipe.

Note: No picture. It looked brown, like lumpy gravy.

The New “New Joe’s Special”

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Currently cooking out of The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman

According to Bittman, “Joe’s Special” is a ground beef and spinach hash commonly found in San Francisco restaurants that have the word “Joe” in their name. Bittman’s twist is to focus more on the veggies than on the beef.

The dish starts out by browning ground beef, onions, minced garlic and mushrooms (big chunks of mushrooms, in my case). Once browned, everything is transferred to a bowl and a big bunch of spinach is wilted in the pan. To finish the dish, the beef and mushroom mixture is added back to the pan, and an egg and some parmesan cheese is stirred into the mixture and cooked just until set. We ate the hash over some leftover brown rice.

Never having had the original “Joe’s Special,” I can’t compare the two, but I found this dish to be filling and hearty. I wish I would have browned the mushrooms a little more, and maybe added some soy sauce or hot sauce. It was just a bit bland.

Spaghetti with Seared Radicchio, Steak and Balsamic Sauce

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Currently cooking out of The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman

This recipe packs a punch, both from the radicchio and the balsamic vinegar. It comes together very quickly and has a bunch of different textures. However, I didn’t love this dish. I thought the radicchio was too bitter, and I just didn’t like the balsamic vinegar in there.

Once again, I didn’t get pictures. It was very brown.

The dish starts out by searing a steak (I used flank steak). You want the steak to be very rare, so the juices add flavor to the sauce. Once the steak is done, it gets set aside to rest. The radicchio, an onion and some garlic gets sliced and added to the pan and cooked until they are soft. The steak is sliced, and the meat and all the juices are added to the pan, along with the vinegar, cooked spaghetti and enough pasta water to form a sauce.

I’m not sure what I could change about this dish to make it more appealing to me. Maybe use cabbage instead of the radicchio and leave out the vinegar?