Tag Archives: beef

Beef & Udon Noodle Soup

7 Apr

A little late getting this post up, but I’ve been doing my best to stick to my “make two new recipes every month” resolution. Last month, I made straight-ahead dense chocolate brownies for the first time (and homigad. So good.) and this fragrant, healthy, simply made soup. I got a great piece of blade roast from our butcher that was juicy and tender after 8 hours in the slow cooker. The lemongrass and ginger were fantastically aromatic, lending a lot of flavour to the broth. As always, I added hot sauce to my own bowl which rounded out the dish beautifully. It’s cold and dreary in Toronto this week – this recipe is perfect to ward off the fake-spring blues!

Ingredients

1.5lbs of blade pot roast
3c low-sodium beef broth
5 thin slices of fresh ginger
2 stalks lemongrass, trimmed, bruised and sliced crosswise
1 ts each, salt and pepper
3 packages udon noodles
2 carrots, cut into matchsticks
1 sweet pepper, cut into matchsticks
1tb fish sauce
1 lime, juiced

Directions

1. Place the broth, 4 cups of water, ginger, lemongrass and salt and pepper into the slow cooker. Submerge the roast, cover and set the slow cooker to low for 8 hours.
2. When ready, remove the beef with a slotted spoon, place in a bowl and shred with two forks.
3. Skim as much of the fat off the top of the soup as possible, then add the carrots, peppers and noodles into the broth. Replace the lid and set the slow cooker to high for 10 minutes.
4. After the 10 minutes are up, return the shredded beef to the broth. Add the fish sauce and lime juice and give it a stir. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

soup

Picture credit to Canadian Living.

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Mexican Pot Roast Tacos!

4 Nov

I finally got around to buying a Dutch oven, something I’ve been promising myself for months. (Yes, I promise myself kitchen toys.) The great thing about Dutch ovens is that they function like a giant cast iron pan: they retain heat beautifully. You can get them nice and hot so you can sear your meat properly, but then you can turn the heat way down and make all sorts of tasty meals in just one pot. I lugged that sucker home and picked up beautiful beef blade roast from a wonderful butcher just a few blocks from the house. (Royal Beef – check ’em out if you’re in the neighbourhood!) This is a great cut of meat for low-‘n’-slow cooking and so it was perfect for these tacos. I adapted the recipe from Tyler Florence, a foodNURD fave, and it was delicious as usual. We had enough leftover for snacks the next day, always a bonus!

Serves 2.

Ingredients

1lb shoulder/blade beef roast
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tb extra virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
1 14oz can crushed tomatoes
2 tb chile powder
2 tb cayenne pepper
2 tb cumin
3 bay leaves
2 dashes hot sauce, optional

Directions

1. Generously salt and pepper all sides of the beef.
2. Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven (or heavy duty pot with a tight lid) on high. Add in the garlic and sear the beef, getting a nice crust on all sides.
3. Toss in the onions and cook til they’re softened and lightly browned, roughly 3-4 minutes.
4. Add in the tomatoes, 1 can of water, spices and hot sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then add in enough water (again) to cover the beef.

Happily simmering away…

5. Cover the pot, lower the heat and let simmer for 3-4 hours, until the beef is tender. Allow the beef to cool in the liquid.
6. Shred with a fork and serve with warm tortillas, guacamole, cilantro, pickled red onions and salsa.

Ready to be eaten!

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Penne w/ Braised Beef & Rosemary Sauce

1 Oct

Having a big ol’ kitchen to mess around in has inspired me to get back in there and try some new recipes. We had a friend over for a Dinner ‘n’ Dexter night and I wanted to make something hearty and comforting. I know our friend is a big fan of pasta (as am I) and I have lots of herbs kicking around, so I opted to make a braised beef and rosemary pasta sauce. Not too fancy but definitely comforting, aromatic and flavourful. I recommend making this in the slow cooker as you’ll be using stewing beef. The longer you let it go in the pot, the more tender it will be.

Serves 4.

Ingredients

1.5lb stewing beef, cubed
2 tb veg oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 tb dried rosemary
1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
1 ts dried oregano
2 tb balsamic or red wine vinegar
1 ts dried thyme
1 ts salt
2 ts pepper
2 ts fresh rosemary, chopped
Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Directions

1. Pour the vegetable oil into a pan and set to medium-high heat. Brown the beef in batches being careful not to overcrowd the pan, roughly 1 minute per side. Season with salt & pepper. Place browned meat on a plate and continue with next batch.
2. Lower heat to medium and add in the onion, dried rosemary and a pinch of salt & pepper. Sauté 3-4 minutes until onions soften.
3. In the slow cooker, combine the onions and rosemary and the crushed tomatoes, vinegar, oregano, thyme, 1/2 cup of water and season with salt & pepper to taste. Put the beef and any of the juices that have accumulated into the pot and stir. Set to low and simmer for 4-6 hours until the beef is tender, stirring and tasting occasionally.

Simmering away…

4. With a few minutes to go, add in the fresh rosemary and stir.
5. Cook pasta to al dente and ladle sauce over. Top with parmesan cheese.

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NYT Project: Stir-Fried Beef

9 Jan

Stir-fried dishes are a great way to use up lots of ingredients in your fridge and are incredibly adaptable. You can pretty much throw any conceivable ingredient into your pan and make something tasty. So while they are not new to me, I have a bad habit of not getting my pan really, really hot to cook the meat. There’s something intimidating about cranking the dial on the stove to the highest setting, letting the oil get literally smoking hot and then tossing in my chosen ingredients for the day.  I think my fear is founded: I don’t want to burn anything, including myself.  Having said that, I know the major difference between restaurant food and home-cooked is heat (and butter).

So nuts to this, I thought, I’m going to do it the way I am supposed to do it! I am going to crank the heat up on this sucker and get a good sear on my flank steak! And I am going to wear long sleeves just in case. In the end, it was initially nerve-wracking but when I saw the beautiful crust on the steak, I was emboldened. Yes, it spattered a bit but I lived to tell the tale and the meat came out perfectly: nice crunch on the outside, just past rare on the inside.

Note:  this recipe is not exactly as it shown in the NYT Cookbook. I adapted it to suit my tastes and to become a full meal by adding rice noodles and peppers. I also found their original recipe for the sauce too salty, so I added some sugar. Feel free to leave it out if you don’t want it.

Serves 2.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb flank or skirt steak, cubed
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tb  sugar
1 ts salt
1/4 ts pepper
1 tb canola oil
4 tb corn or canola oil
3/4 c rice wine vinegar
3/4 c dry white wine
2 tb soy sauce
1 tb fish sauce
2 tb sugar
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 sweet pepper, thinly sliced
1 1/2 scallions, sliced lengthwise
1 tb butter
1 lime, cut into wedges

Directions

1. Toss the beef in a bowl with the salt, sugar, garlic and 1 tb canola oil. Marinate in the fridge for two hours.
2. Meanwhile, combine the rice wine vinegar, white wine, soy,  fish sauce and sugar. Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary.
3.  When you’re ready, divide the meat into two portions, and do the same with the peppers and onions. Pour 2tb oil into your wok and turn the heat to max. When your oil is smoking, add the meat in one even layer to the wok. Let it sit until a crust forms, then flip over to brown the other side.  (This whole process should take 5 minutes or less.)
4. Add half the onions and pepper. Stir and let cook for 1 minute.
5. Add half of your vinegar/wine mixture, shaking the pan if necessary to loosen the meat from the pan. Add half the butter and shake your wok until it has melted.
6. Remove everything from the pan and then repeat your process.
7. Serve with lime wedges over rice or rice noodles.

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Beef & Veggie Bowl

17 Aug

With tons of flavour and lots of healthy, delicious ingredients, you can’t go wrong with this! It’s especially good with the Pineapple Rice.

Serves 2

Ingredients
3tb rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 tb soy sauce
1 1/2 tb honey
1/3 lb skirt steak
1/4 lb green beans
1 yellow pepper, sliced
1/2 red onion, sliced thinly
1/4 red cabbage, shredded
1 1/2 c cooked rice

Directions

1. Preheat your broiler.
2. In a small bowl, combine the vinegar, soy and honey. Brush the beef with 1/2tb of the sauce and broil roughly 10 minutes.
3. Arrange the vegetables on a tray and toss with 1 1/2 tb sauce and broil, stirring at the 5 minute mark.
4. Let the beef rest for 10 minutes.  In the meantime, transfer rice and vegetables into 2 bowls. Slice the beef, add to the bowls and drizzle with the remainder of the sauce.

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