One man. One cow. One year.
Stressed about Thanksgiving?
Imagine inviting arguably the greatest chef on Earth to your house for dinner.
So you could cook dishes from his cookbook.
For him.
A writer for Esquire did precisely that — inviting Thomas Keller over, and cooking for him from his own cookbook. You should read about it here.
In other news, this will be my last post before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Those of us here at Year of the Cow wish you a happy, healthy and delicious Day of the Turkey.
See you in December.
j
*If ten hours is quick.
Good morning, internets.
I haven’t posted in a bit. We took a weekend trip to see sequoias, and then caught a truly gnarly stomach flu. I was incapacitated for a fair length of time and was able to neither cook nor eat.
However I did have a lot of lying-motionless-trying-not-to-breathe time, and used it thinking up new taglines for NyQuil.
“NyQuil: Knocks your ass out.”
“NyQuil: Sit down. Sit down NOW.”
“NyQuil: I said what? When did I say that? To your face? Really?”
I’m back up and running now. And this weekend looks to be a jumbo tub of crazy due to the upcoming holiday. So I’m gonna use this Friday morning to get dinner ready for Friday night. Then we can nosh on it all weekend.
I’m braising a chuck roast. I’m calling it a quick roast because it’s Friday morning before I head into the office. I have to get toddler, dog, and me ready for the day, and I don’t have a lot of time.
Chuck is the shoulder primal of the beef critter. Moves the animal around, works all the time. Very tough, but very flavorful. A long, moist cooking method will convert that connective tissue (which makes it tough) into gelatin (which makes it delicious), while preserving the roast’s abundance of beefy loveliness.
I’ve done a very similar dish before. This time, I’m going to try to improve on it.
On to the show.
Mise: Use your imagination. Seriously, I’m up against it here.
Toddler has yogurt and toast in the next room. He’s good.
Dog has succumbed to gravity. She’s good.
TGIF.
I chop a quick mirepoix. I’m using red onions because I’m feeling frisky.
I put some beef stock on to simmer.
I also slice two cloves garlic. Further, I have some green onions I got at the farmer’s market a few days back. I add them to the mix.
On to the roast. Generous amounts of salt and pepper, and, per my friend Eben’s suggestion, a liberal dusting with flour.
Quick sear on all sides.
Shoes on toddler. Food for dog. Shoes for me.
When the roast has a good sear, I set it momentarily on a plate and tent it with foil.
This is going to cook all day, so I can’t use an oven. I’m going crockpot with it, like Grandma used to do.
Veggies into crockpot, with enough stock to cover. I also toss in some ground cumin, ground thyme, and a bay leaf.
Roast in on top of the veg, and more stock. Enough to cover three-quarters of the way up.
Yes, I added more stock than this.
Pot set to low for ten hours.
I set up a quick series of booby traps and tiger pits on the front edge of the counter to make sure my dog doesn’t try to eat before I do.
Gotta go. Good morning, LA traffic.
–
On my drive home, I get a text from my wife: “It smells amazing in here.”
When I get home Friday evening, I can smell my roast from the yard. In a good way.
It’s been ten hours, so my roast should be more than ready. A quick peek, and yes. It’s falling apart. We’re in good shape.
I prep some polenta with some Parmesan. Another Eben suggestion from last time I braised chuck.
I pull the meat, stash on a plate, and tent it with foil. Set aside.
Cooking liquid into a sauce pan. Reduce, reduce, reduce. Strain, et monter au beurre.
Plate: a scoop of Parmesan polenta, a few slices of beef, and a partial ladle of sauce.
Saucy.
Verdict: Okay, did I mention I could smell this from the yard? I was a little more aggressive with the cumin, and it worked out well.
I tried to improve on my last effort, and I think I succeeded. I managed my liquids a little better, and tweaked my spices a bit to the positive. And Eben’s cheesy polenta suggestion was a stroke of genius.
The meat was unctuous and lovely, with just a few savory notes from the onions and the herbs.
Braising in stock rather than wine was fascinating… it put the beef more out front, I think. In my previous effort, the acidity and the tannins of the wine were always lurking and commenting on the beef. Here, the beef was presented almost without counterpoint, with the veggies and the spices providing some nuance.
Then, paired with the parm polenta, hell to the yes. The sauce with the cheesy starchd was a big hit all around.
The Wife Says: She thought it was the best thing I’d made in a long time. I’ll take that.
Next up: Thanksgiving prep.
Hey, Internets. Miss me?
Things have been a little madcap around the Stone household, and so I apologize for my absence from these pages ‘lo this past week and change.
But it’s time to get back to it. My wife’s brother is in town to hit a Phish show, and he’s a great guy. So despite his (completely understandable) desire to rock some In-N-Out while he’s in town, we gotta do a celebratory steak while he’s under our roof. We are not barbarians.
Prep School Hippie.
I settle on New York Strip, which is well-represented on these pages. It’s off the short loin of the beast, which doesn’t do a lot of work moving the critter around. For more, see this entry.
However, steak is two things: Lovely to the bite, and boring to the site. Who wants to read about steak again? I’ve done it.
So the trick is to make this one a little special. Let’s head to the Larousse.
The Larousse Gastronomique lists eighteen sauces and four butters appropriate for grilled steak. I’m not really interested in serving this particular steak with a butter, so I peruse the sauces.
Bearnaise? Lovely, but time consuming. This is a weeknight.
Bordelaise? Not tonight, dear.
Barbecue? Really, Larousse? Not on a grilled steak. Philistines.
That rules out the B’s.
I settle on Sauce Robert. It’s one of the oldest sauces in the classical French repertoire – a version of it appears in French cookbooks as early as 1651. Escoffier was a big fan.
Who’s Robert? No one knows. Theories abound. Various Roberts have been proposed and discredited.
Likewise, no one seem to agree on how to make this sauce. I’ve found three different recipes in my research. Some with vinegar, some without. Some finished with a demiglace, some without. Since the Larousse Gastronomique is the culinary reference of record, I’m using theirs.
The mise:
Most of this is for the sauce. Let’s get to it.
I finely dice two onions, and deposit them in a saucepan with a little butter and a pinch o’ salt. When they start to take on some color, I add a tablespoon of flour to the mixture. Soon, the onions are brown and lovely.
My wife and brother-in-law comment that whatever I’m cooking smells amazing. That’s onions in butter, baby. Jump back.
My kung fu is the best.
Once those are a satisfying degree of brown, I add 300 ml white wine and 200 ml beef stock. (Yay, metric!)
Wine and stock and base ten measurements.
No call for demiglace, and vinegar is listed as an alternate. I cast a wary eye, Larousse.
Simmer, simmer. Reduce, reduce. At the end, I add a little mustard.
Steaks are thawed. A canola oil massage, salt, pepper. To the grill.
The cold, cold grill.
I am an idiot.
Elsewhere on these pages, I’ve confidently cackled “That’s why I keep a tank in reserve!” Well, that’s the one I just kicked.
There’s no pain like propane.
Time to turn this meal on its head.
Plan B
Back inside with the meat – on with the broiler.
When the mercury’s north of 450, I put the meat beneath the heat.
Last time I did NY Strip, I was looking at medium at two minutes. (Go go gadget blog. It’s one of the joys of having a record of previous meals that I can look that up.) For medium-rare, I’ll shoot for 1:30 per side.
Tick tick tick, flip. Tick tick tick, done. Five minutes to rest.
Check the sauce… simmering nicely on a back burner. Good to go.
Call me Bob.
The sauce goes in small compotes on the side, in case people dislike my sauceperimentation.
My wife knocks together a quick vinaigrette over a simple salad, and we pair with some good bread and a nice syrah.
Verdict?
Well, there’s nothing like a grilled steak. And sadly, this was nothing like a grilled steak. It may be my particular oven, but the hard crust of maillard-y goodness never fully materialized. The center was spot-on medium rare, however, so all was not lost.
The sauce Robert turned out well. Tangy and slightly acidic. It’s traditionally a sauce for grilled pork, and I can definitely see how it’d shine in a porcine environment. It was not out of place on our steaks, however.
In all, a slightly suboptimal NY Strip with a tasty sauce and fresh veggies is still a pretty darn good meal.
The Wife Says: Meh. She didn’t giggle and clap like when I do these on the grill, but nor did she clasp her throat and slip beneath the table. Either my broiler is terrible, or broiling steaks in general is suboptimal. I have a hunch it’s the former. In either case, I won’t be broiling steaks in the future.
Now I’m off to buy some propane.
