Best Beef Stew, ala Cook's magazine, part deux!

Ok, ok, so the first one was really about how I got a new camera. And how it takes good pictures. You got me.

But this one will be about beef stew AND pictures. It'll be great.
So, the article in Cook's Illustrated begins with the premise that after simmering for hours, beef stew smells amazing- complex and rich and beefy- but doesn't really live up to it on the spoon. I could recall times when I felt the very same, but until I read the article, I hadn't paid much attention. So I can't say that in my heart of hearts was the longing for beefier beef stew...but I had run out of interesting meal ideas, and beef stew is always a nice winter option.

Apparently, after trying many many recipes, the article's author experienced beef stew nirvana with Thomas Keller's recipe, which as she put it "took four days, a dozen dirty pots and pans, and nearly fifty ingredients to make. Sure, it was fit for royalty..." (page 8 of the #102 issue of Cook's Illustrated.)

So what we end up with is a brilliant breakdown of why certain ingredients work well, and the best ways to adapt such a gorgeous professional recipe into something that can be done in four hours as opposed to four days.

My personal favorite was the addition of anchovies to the stew. Why? Well, Glutamate ( G in MSG) occurs naturally in certain foods. These foods serve to boost the beefiness of your beefy flavors, thereby deepening your stew's flavors. One of these is anchovies, but they have even more going for them than glutamate- they have the compound inosinate, which apparently is to glutamate what gas is to an open flame.

The other wacky ingredient is gelatin. Unflavored gelatin. Why? Well, Keller (the amazing) starts his stew out with homemade veal stock, which is rich in collagen that breaks down as the stew cooks, "giving the final stew a luxurious, mouth-coating texture." Something that flour or corn starch just ain't gonna give you. So the author rightly surmised that by adding unflavored gelatin, you could get the right texture without the labor intensive veal stock. ( I have a feeling that the biggest part of the four days is the making of the stock.)

Depending on the pot you have, the beef will take a bunch of batches. I did four batches? Five? I dunno, but my stove got DIIIIIRRRTY.
Begin with 4-5 pounds of chuck steak. It's cheap, it's beefy. What more could you want?
Cut this up into 1.5 inch cubes. I eyeball it, and sometimes I make rhombuses. I am not, nor have I ever been this guy.

RECIPE

2 teaspoons minced garlic
4 anchovy fillets, finely minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 boneless chuck-eye roast, trimmed of fat and cubed. squared? no, cubed. ( about 4 lbs)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, sliced.
4 medium carrots, sliced as well.
1/4 cup flour
2 cups red wine
2 cups chicken broth
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs fresh thyme
4 ounces salt pork, rinsed.
1 lb Yukon Gold potatoes cut into 1 inch pieces (I used Russet, and they were fine)
1.5 cups frozen pearl onions
2 teaspoons (1 packet) unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup water
1 cup frozen peas.




These are the ingredients in the paste that is going to punch up your beef stew so it will no longer be a girly-man stew. And if you are somehow self-identifying as a girly-man and reading this, that's fine, but you don't want your stew to be wimpy, do you? Do you?






After chopping and mincing and mashing, I realized I probably could have used my food processor ( my little one) for this, but it was kind of fun to mince garlic mired in fish mash. And then pound it all into tomato paste.

My fingers smelled funny, though.
But my apartment smelled AMAZINGLY delicious, and all I did was make that paste!

Like I said before, it took a couple of batches, but eventually all my beef went from this,


to this:



From here it gets a bit more complex. After the beef is browned, the sliced onions and carrots hit the pot, and once the onions are softened, you're supposed to throw the rest of the beef in with it, but my Dutch oven wasn't that big.

Then, you're supposed to stir the flavorful paste in, and then the flour, and stir like mad. If you have a small pot like me, this will be alot of work.

And THEN you add the wine, and scrape at the browned bits on the bottom of the pan. I've always done the de-glazing right after the meat, but whatever.

After the wine has settled down, you add the bay leaves, thyme, broth and salt pork.

This is the stuff that Ma and Pa in the Little House on the Prairie Series always cooked stuff up in. Seriously, like thick slabs of pig fat.


I sliced it like thick bacon, trimmed off most of the fat, and then sliced that into bits.


After you add the ssalt pork, you stir it all in, and put your pot into the oven, at 300 degrees for and hour and a half.

After that, you add the potatoes ( my pot wasn't big enough to hold the whole pound, so I just added what would fit.)

Another 45 minutes, and you take it out, remove the thyme and bay. The directions told me to remove the salt pork, but I didn't. I left those porky bits in there, and enjoyed the textures present.

THEN, you soften the gelatin in a half a cup of water, and when that's ready, keep the stew simmering on the stove top and add the gelatin. Simmer for another three minutes while stirring, and what you end up with is this:It's thick and smooth, and sooo beefy. Almost too beefy, to be honest. In my opinion, the texture is the very best thing I got from this whole experiment. That, and the time in the oven. The oven cooking was wonderful, because of the well distributed heat.

We ate this with a slice of crusty white bread each. Ok, like four slices of bread. It was utterly delicious on the first night, and I think I haven't quite got the hang of reheating. The microwave just wasn't the way to do it. The sweet meaty complexity became garish upon reheating, and I just don't want to eat it anymore. But Kevin is satisfied, so hey.

Maybe scale it down, or maybe reheat it in the oven. Either way, the thing I'm going to definitely do from here on out is use fresh thyme, add mushrooms, bake it in the oven, and add gelatin.

And you know what? That makes this experiment a success.

Life, or something like it.

I could talk about the beautiful eggplant Parmesan I made tonight- the custardy slabs of eggplant, the salty acidity of the fresh tomato sauce, the meaty hot mozzarella, and sopping up its juices with crusty Italian bread.

I could tell you about the sexiest jelly I've ever eaten in my life, the Concord Grape and Walnut Conserve that I made myself and canned myself, or the thick buttery lemon curd I made.

I could tell you about all the lovely foods I've made, lingered over, planned, crafted and devoured. The pear jelly that burbles even now on the stove.

Or the way Tristan is growing, the physical and emotional and psychological leaps and bounds. How he is emerging from those chubby little baby parts into a sweet, giving little toddler who likes to help mommy clean up ( ha ha!) and who LOVES throwing everything into the garbage pail or the toilet bowl. Somewhere in my tiny apartment is a toilet lock that I desperately need.

Tristan is teething, so gobs of pale green snot are flubbering out of his cute nose. He blows his nose, now, too, which is pretty funny. Today, while cooking, he asked to be picked up, watched me and then swooped low to kiss me on the mouth! Whoa! talk about a sweet little surprise!

A woman from Persia once said, in an exquisite voice, "His skin is like milk." and she is very right. I like to think that she meant more than it's color or creaminess. I like to think that if milk could become flesh, Tristan is what it would be like. Sigh.

lentil stew, an outline

So two days ago I ran out of grocery funds and found myself face to face with my pantry, no clear idea of what to make in my head.

I had a bucket full of lentils, though, and my fridge was thankfully stocked with aromatics for the base of a soup( onions, carrots, celery two random red peppers). I had some frozen sausage, tucked away in my freezer, and since my husband was running errands, I asked him to pick up some greens for two dollars a bunch.

I love peasant food. I absolutely love the ingenuity, the creativity and the pride with which the Old World poor made their food. Give me a whole chicken, some vegetables, any dairy product, and a crusty bread, and I promise you a hearty feast. Every culture has that ingredient that they worked with the most.

I found a recipe for lentils sausage and greens stew, and improvised. It helps that I own several cookbooks, as well as an internet connection.

Here's some basics I figured out: Any grain paired with some kind of animal fat equals filling goodness. The fat pairs with the texture of the fiber provided by the grain, flavors it, and sort of lubricates it. The stew recipe called for bacon and sausage, a double dose of pork flavor.

The second lesson? Hot and sweet works well in this. I had leftover baked sweet potato pieces, red peppers, and jalapeno peppers. Along with the carrots from the maripois and the onions, this created a sweet and spicy partner for the pork fat.

The layers of flavor I found in this impromptu dish blew me away.

To make:

• 1 lb of lentils, pre-soaked ( at least two hours, four is best)
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, chopped
• 2 stalks celery ( I substituted 1 red bell pepper)
• 1 package of Baby Bella mushrooms, sliced thick
• 1 large sweet potato, baked and chopped (optional)
• 1 Tbsp Cumin
• 1 Tbsp Paprika
• enough salt to cause a heart attack.
• 4 cups of water ( I only had one can of broth, so I added water.)
  
• 1 15oz can chicken broth
• 1 cup white wine (cooking wine)
• 2 cups rice, pre-cooked.
• 1 lb of sausage (Italian, mild)
• 5 pieces of smoked bacon
• 1 bunch Swiss Chard
  
• olive oil

Broil sausages to desired doneness.
Meanwhile, slowly cook the bacon to render the fat, remove from pan, add onions, carrots, celery/ red pepper, and mushrooms. Add at least two teaspoons of salt. ( This helps them let go of their liquids and break down. Saute till tender. Add water, white wine and broth, bring to a boil. Add lentils, sweet potato, bacon, and half the sausages, cut into slices. ( I add only half now so that the soup will absorb the flavor, but these pieces of sausage lose some of their texture, so I save the other half for the meaty texture and brighter flavor) Cook for 10-20 minutes, depending on preferred texture of lentils. I like them soft, but still discernible, so I cooked for 20 minutes.
Once 20 minutes have passed, add cleaned Swiss Chard and the rest of the sausage. Cook until Chard is wilted, about ten minutes more.

Can be served with crusty bread, or rice, or alone. In these economic times (when both rice and bread ar emore expensive due to poor prioritizing...nevermind. The rice or bread helps spread the wealth, so to speak.)

This makes enough to feed a small army for a few days. In my house, that means the leftovers feed us for three or four dinners.

And If We've No Place to Go-

While it was snowing furiously a few years ago, I was riding the bus from South Campus to North Campus, and was discussing the snowstorm going on with a few friendly patrons of the bus. One of them was an older woman who talked about the blizzard of '77. She smiled and said that she had been planning a dinner party for a large group, and therefore had a ton of food and good wine in her home. She invited some neighbors and they ate and drank good food and sat by the fireplace for three days while the world went white beyond their windows. She said " I loved it. A big blizzard is nothing when you have good food and good company."

Well, you see, there it is. And if we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

This is my idea for the best Christmas I will never have.

A select group of close friends, coming together in a lovely wintry locale- since I'm dreaming let's say a big ski lodge with cabins for privacy for each couple/person. The lodge itself has a big beautifully stocked kitchen, and we cook together, enjoy the fire and each other's company.

Lights and trees and all sorts of lovely decorations grace the log walls. We cook whatever kind of meal we want- a classic British Christmas, a hodge podge of our very favorite dishes and cookies, whatever we choose.

For a few days, we make our own traditions and make our own Christmas, making and remaking for each other and for ourselves.

I grow weary of the "supposed-to's" I learned a long time ago that my family can never deliver the Christmas I hoped for. The togetherness and the love and peace and joy?

Try emotional and verbal abuse at it's extreme, an overall feeling of rejection and loneliness at it's best. I never fit in, not to one side or the other (of my family). The more people there were, the greater the feeling of being a misfit, and being lonely. At least on my father's side, I knew everyone else felt that way, too.

So when I made good friends in college, when I fell in love with my Dear Fuzzy, I found home and I found the exact scene I wanted to enact around my Christmas tree.

I realized that not everyone's family make them feel like this. So, to all my friends (and my husband) who love their families, love what you have, and value it. And think about one year, maybe, having a dinner party with your friends. A close pleasant gathering where we have a chance to remake our favorite traditions for each other.