Cookware deals
For my foodie readers:
Macy’s is having a big sale this weekend on various and sundry cooking implements. There are some impressive deals to be had. I picked up a 5 quart stainless steel saucepan for $15. I’m going back tomorrow for a set of stainless steel mixing bowls..four for $8.
The saucepan looks just about the right size for onion soup. We will find out tomorrow.
Pot Roast
This is one of my favorite dishes. It is simple to prepare, simply delicious when done, and gives the illusion that you spent the whole day in the kitchen.
Although the dish is called pot roast, we don’t do any roasting. What we are going to do is called braising. The trick here is a long, slow cooking time in a moist environment. We use it to break down tough cuts of meat that would be otherwise inedible, in this case chuck steak. The low heat and moisture help break down the connective tissue in the meat. As an aside, if you are interested in learning the science behind what you are doing, CookWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking and On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen are great places to start.
While I am plugging books, this dish is adapted from American Home Cooking, which is a very interesting book. It contains traditional American recipes and gives the history of each.
One note on ingredients. I debated back an forth on giving precise measurements versus being vague. In the end, I decided that readers would like the specificity. But understand, the kind of cooking we are doing here is not precise. There is no harm being a little over or a little under on the ingredients. If the recipe calls for thyme, and you like thyme, then by all means put in more thyme! Note that this is not true in baking. That is pretty precise. But don’t spend a lot of time on precision in these dishes. If something is important, I’ll let you know.
Ingredients:
- Chuck roast, 3-4 lbs.
- 3 tablespoons All-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1/2 cube of lard (Yes, I said lard. This is a traditional American recipe. Besides, it adds to the flavor. You can substitute vegetable oil, but I reserve the right to make fun of you.)
- 1 cup beef stock
- 1 teaspoon spicy brown mustard
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2 large onions, peeled and cut onto quarters
- 8 red waxy potatoes, peeled (Feel free to substitute, but you want waxy potatoes. Russets and other baking potatoes will break apart during cooking, making a mess.
- 4 carrots, halved. Peel if you like. I usually don’t.
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon flour
Hardware:
- Dutch oven. I use cast iron, but any kind will do.
- Whisk
- Small sauce pan
- 1 gallon ziplock bag
- Gravy separator (optional, but recommended)
Preheat your oven to 300.
The first step is to get the flour, salt, and pepper on the meat. You can sprinkle on by hand, but here is my no-mess method. Open ziplock bag. Drop in flour, salt, pepper. Close ziplock bag. Shake to mix. Re-open ziplock bag. Insert meat. Zip shut. Hand to daughter to shake, or alternatively do it yourself. Ensure good coating around on the meat.
Next heat the lard in your dutch oven. You want a nice, hot pan. We are going to sear the chuck. Contrary to popular belief, searing doesn’t “seal in the juices.” What searing does is quickly brown the outside of the meat. This gives us a yummy flavor. The lard should be hot enough that you get a nice sizzle when the meat is placed in the pan, but not so hot that it is smoking. Brown the roast on all sides…we want a nice brown color all around.
While the roast is browning, place the stock, mustard and thyme in a measuring cup and give it a good whisking. We want a nice homogeneous mixture. When done browning, pour the mixture over the roast, and cover tightly. Place in the oven. Cook for 1 hour. After one hour, remove from the oven, add the onions, potatoes, and carrots, and cook for at least 2 1/2 hours more. Your roast is done when a) the delicious smell of the roast is filling the house and b) the veggies and meat are very tender. The meat should be practically falling apart. When in doubt, give it a little more time.
Remove the meat and veggies to serving dishes and cover with foil. Now we are going to convert all of that liquid goodness in the bottom of the pan into a sauce. First step is to strain the drippings. If you don’t mind chunks, feel free to skip this step. Next, I like to pour off the excess fat. A gravy separator is invaluable here. If you don’t have one, then pour the whole works into a tall glass. The fat will settle on the top and can be skimmed off. Or, just whisk it into your sauce, if you don’t kind the fat!
Melt the tablespoon of butter and stir into the tablespoon of flour. You should have a thick paste. What you are doing is using the flour to thicken the drippings. If you just dumped flour into the drippings, it would clump up. By making the flour-butter slurry (called a roux in sauce making) you keep the four molecules from clumping before they can thicken the sauce. Pour the drippings into the saucepan, and add the flour-butter paste. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes or so. Serve along side your meat and veggies.
I also like to make up a batch of hearty pasta, linguini or fettuccine or the like, and serve the meat and veggies on top. The pasta soaks up the drippings and the sauce and is just delicious.
On cooking
I love to cook. This should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog regularly. (Hi, Mom.)
Now, here is the secret that I need to share with y’all. Cooking is easy. Martha Stewart and Williams-Sonoma have done their best to convince us that cooking is very difficult, involving elaborate gear and contraptions and recipes that take several days and require an advanced degree in chemistry. (Seriously…have you ever checked out one of her recipes? The start with instructions like: “Raise a veal calf for four weeks…” Bah!)
Cooking is really, really easy. The simple fact is that most of the food we eat is just garbage. Tasteless garbage. To paraphrase Mule Breath, the food that people eat is generally so crappy that making a fresh meal for them will knock their socks off. This includes restaurant food. Since I have been cooking regularly, the family and I rarely eat in restaurants anymore. It drives my wife nuts to pay for food that isn’t as good as we could make at home.
Don’t believe me? Let me teach you one of my favorite meals. Here is how you make a mouth-watering steak. Seriously, the steak I make at home is better than you can get in almost any steakhouse. (Except that one time I made steak for American Manifesto. I got a little too rare on that one.)
Ingredients:
- Steak (I like fillet, but a nice NY strip works, too.)
- Olive oil
- Kosher salt
- Pepper
Yep, that’s it. Now for some notes:
- Fresh ingredients are key no matter what you are cooking. It’s like a computer: garbage in, garbage out.
- I usually get choice grade steaks. Prime is nice if you can get it, but IMHO it’s not worth the price difference. Costco is my butcher…they have enough turnover that you are always getting fresh meat. If you go to your local supermarket, try to get them to cut fresh steaks for you. *UPDATE* Sailorcurt pointed this out to me. I’ll update my suggestion to the Meat House.
- Contrary to some, I’ve got no problem using frozen meat. Unless you have a family of 8, if you shop at Costco you are going to be buying more than one portion. Buy a vacuum sealer, and you will get pretty good results with frozen meat. I’ll explain why in another post. If you handle frozen foods properly, you will get good results.
- Kosher salt is not table salt. Yes, there is a difference. Kosher salt is flat, not square, and it sticks to foods. Buy some kosher salt, and use it. Once you switch, you won’t go back.
Hardware:
- Kitchen timer
- Instant read thermometer
- Grill — I use propane. What’s that, you say? You live in an apartment and don’t have a grill? A broiler is an upside down grill, and will provide good results, with somewhat more mess. Don’t use aluminum foil…you need the juices from the meat to drain.
OK, on to the prep. This is brain dead simple, but each step is important.
- Steaks come out of the fridge about 30 minutes before you are going to cook them. They need to get to room temperature. Skip this step and you will have burned exteriors long before the center cooks.
- About 5 minutes before you are ready to grill, rub each steak in olive oil. They shouldn’t be dripping, but you want to get a nice even coat. I just pour oil into my hands, rub each steak, and put it back.
- Season each steak on both sides with salt and pepper. Be generous.
- Let the grill warm up. Grill each steak on direct medium heat.
Here is where things get a little tricky. How long do you grill your meat? This depends on a couple of variables, but if you did what I told you and took out the meat ahead of time, then the only two we need to worry about are steak thickness and desired doneness. I like my steak medium. My wife will only eat well done meat. (It’s a glaring point of shame in an otherwise splendid marriage.) What do we do?
Simple: we vary the thickness. A one inch thick steak takes about 8-10 minutes to reach medium. Before hers goes on the grill, I butterfly it. That is to say, I cut it lengthwise, leaving a little bit of meat connected to each piece. The steak now opens like a book, or like a butterfly. We cook hers using the exact same timings, but because it is now half as thick, it cooks to well done.
Back to the grill. 8-10 minutes on direct medium heat. What I do is set the kitchen timer for two minutes. Steak goes on. After two minutes, turn the steaks 90 degrees without flipping them. Two more minutes, flip the steaks. At this point, you will notice that you have made a nice hatch pattern with your grill marks, just like the fancy steak houses. Two more minutes, and turn another 90 degrees. Then off the grill.
Now, if you want another level of doneness…that is where the thermometer comes in. Keep an eye on your temperature, and you can get whatever level of doneness you want.
By now, the scent of mouth watering charred meat is filling the house, and you are going to want to chow down. WAIT! The last secret of great steak…you have to let it rest for 5 minutes or so. Resting lets the juices in the meat settle down and redistribute. This keeps them in the meat, instead of on your plate.
Serve with a little salad, perhaps, and a nice, full-bodied red wine like a Cabernet. Heaven on a plate.
That’s it. For maybe $20 worth of ingredients, you have prepared a meal that would cost you $75 in a restaurant. Total time investment: maybe 30 minutes?
Some final thoughts:
- Don’t be afraid to experiment. I’ve had a few meals that I have had to admit defeat with and feed to the garbage disposal.
- Don’t get suckered in with all the fancy kitchen crap. I love gadgets as much as the next guy, but you can get most of what you need to get done without ever sitting foot into a kitchen gadget store.
- Don’t worry about fussy, fancy recipes. Good food is simple food, well prepared with fresh ingredients.
-
Do your part!
-
-
-
-