Round – Oktoberfest

Guten tag, internet.

I first visited Germany in the summer of 1998. I was alone, armed only with phrases that would get me beaten to ein pulp if used in polite society. In Munich, I befriended a Canadian dental hygienist with a large purse, and we boosted two massive beer steins from the Hofbrauhaus in a move that sounded like a good idea after several hours at the Hofbrauhaus.

I returned to Munich in autumn of 2009. This time I was accompanied by my lovely wife and larger ambitions. Among them, avoid the damn Hofbrauhaus. This ambition, at least, was largely realized. We rented bikes and saw much more than I’d been able to see on foot the first time around. We stayed in a lovely hotel, visited with great friends who now live in Germany, and had a wonderful time.

However, we were not able to participate in Oktoberfest, which began in Munich the week after we left. I’m back in Cali now, and the jetlag has dissipated. So I’m going to do up my own Oktoberfest oktober-feast.

I’m putting together what is essentially Bavaria’s national dish – sauerbraten, kartoffelkloesse, and red cabbage with apples (which I don’t know the german word for). Sauerbraten is a roast from the bottom round, marinated for some large number of days in vinegar, then braised and served with a sweet sauce made from the braising liquid. Kartoffelkloesse are potato dumplings – a traditional Bavarian side dish. The red cabbage is sauteed with tart apples and tossed with vinegar and sugar. Also very traditional.

Recipes are here, here, and here (for the red cabbage).

Today, I’ll be  braising a rump roast. It’s cut from the top end of the hindquarter, on the bottom round.The bottom round is the outside portion of the rear leg of the bovine. (The top round is the inside bit.) It’s called the bottom round, because when the primal is laid on the butcher’s table, it’s done with the outside on the bottom. Hence, “bottom” round.

This cut does a lot of work and has a lot of connective tissue, which is perfect for our braising aspirations.

If I do Oktoberfest alone, oompah bands everywhere will shed fat, salty tears for their wayward American cousins. So we’re inviting our friends Andy and Jen along for the festivities. This is exciting in a couple of ways. First, we haven’t seen them in a bit, so it’ll be nice to catch up. Second, I’m cooking for other people. People I like. People who don’t owe me anything and may or may not lie convincingly if I wreck this meal. So I need to be on top of my game.

Which is why my game began Thursday. I pulled a rump roast from the iron box in my backyard, and seared it. Then I began the three-day marination. Water, cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, an onion, a carrot, two bay leaves, some cloves, some juniper berries, and some mustard into the big cast iron casserole dish that may be familiar to regular readers of these missives.

At 1p on Sunday, I pull it, add some sugar to the liquid, and stash it in my oven at 325.

This meal has sides that are fairly integral to the experience, and one of them will take a lot of work. So I get started on my potato dumplings as soon as the roast goes in, boiling two large russet potatoes, cooling them, peeling them, and ricing them with a fork. (Which, by the way, is much better than forking them with some rice. People get the wrong idea.)

Riced is nice.

Into the fridge to cool fully. Meanwhile, I dice some bread into cubes about a centimeter on a side, and brown them in a mixture of butter and olive oil.

Potatoes cooled and riced, I add some salt, freshly-grated nutmeg, AP flour and cornstarch to make a dough. It’s a little tacky, so I add a touch more flour.  Finally, an egg goes in as an additional binder.

I roll the dough out into balls. I get ten out of the batch. That should be about perfect. I put one of my browned bread-cubes into the center of each, and munch on the rest because I made too many. Math is fun. Stay in school, kids.

Now here’s where you can tell this dish is German, and not American. My Yankee instinct is to heat a load of peanut oil to about 350, and fry these little dumplings until they’re golden brown and delicious. But that isn’t in the cards for this dish.

These little guys are to be boiled, for ten-ish minutes per batch of four. They float to the top when they’re done, which is kinda a slick little indicator.

Rise, my dumplings...

While those are working, I start on my my final side. Out comes the mandoline, and shred goes the cabbage.

Pretty red cabbage ribbons head into a lidded skillet with salt, butter, sugar, and cider vinegar. (Vinegar! It’s what’s for dinner.)

Fifteen-ish minutes, and I pull it off the heat.

Dumplings are resting quite happily under a warm, damp towel. Roast and cabbage are pretty much done… they just need a final procedure apiece before plating, which won’t happen until my people arrive, and they’re running a few minutes late. I’m quietly pleased that everything is on schedule. This is a rarity.

I have a few minutes to kill, so here’s a picture of my dog.

And I helped!

Andy and Jen! Great to see ‘em. Go time

Sliced apple into the cabbage with a tablespoon of flour over medium heat for a little sautee and thickening action.

The roast comes out, and I stash it under foil in my microwave/holding area. The recipe calls for reducing the sauce with the help of a handful of crushed gingersnap cookies. I dig this recipe.

Sauce reduced, and we’re in business. Cabbage is done, dumplings are done, roast is rested. Plate.

Verdict: Eminently edible, and definitely the best plating I’ve presented on these pages.

The roast was especially “beefy,” and the sour of the vinegar was nicely offset by the sweet notes in the sauce. However, the roast was ever so slightly drier than I would have preferred. The dumplings turned out very well. I also would have preferred a little more crispness in the cabbage, but it wasn’t a dealbreaker, and the flavor was tart and lovely. All in all, I call it a success. Add a nice marzen bier, and we’re golden.

The Wife Says: Looked great on the plate. Agrees that the roast was a tad dry, but the sauce and the dumplings made up for it.

But here’s the thing – a meal is much more than the sum of it’s parts. It’s an event. An experience. A rest from toil (until the dishes pile up), and a pause for reflection. A happy progression of moments that allow us to chat, to drink, to laugh, and to taste the fruit of a day’s labor. Those elements are the hallmarks of a great meal, of which good food is only a part.

And on one fall Sunday, we were able to share a meal with good friends, catch up, and linger over the dusk of another fading weekend.

I’ll take it.

Next up: L.A. friends, you’re on notice.

Chuck/Round – Chili Brew Beef Stew with Floating Biscuits

Good afternoon, interwebs. Great to rap at ya.

It’s autumn here in the City of Angels, and the signs are everywhere. People wear scarves in fifty degree weather. Schools and civic groups begin to think about importing snow-making machines. And high above, it’s vaguely overcast. Maybe. If you squint.

I’m a Kansas kid and I love the fall, so I’ll take it when I can get it. My family and I went on a long bike ride yesterday in Santa Barbara, and I had to put a hoodie on over my t-shirt. I’ll take it.

Because it’s fall, we’re feeling like comfort good. But which? Is it cold enough for a stew? Chilly enough to knock out some Beef Bourginon? I know Los Angeles thins the blood, but I need to save the culinary big guns for when I really need it.

Thankfully, the Grassfed Gourmet cookbook has some options. I decide on some chili.

There are as many chili recipes out there as there are DNA sequences. Frequently, they call for ground beef. I’m not really interested in using ground beef today. I have some time and effort to spare. So I find a recipe in the Grassfed Gourmet that interests me.

It calls for “stew meat,” which I have and have used in this space before. However, it also calls for bones and/or oxtails. Fascinating. I’m saving my oxtails for something special, but I have plenty of stew meat and bones.

Plus, it calls for beer, biscuits and (weirdly) turnips. I’m onboard. Let’s see what you’re all about, Turnip Chili.

The mise:

Note the root veggies on the right.

The recipe calls for 1.5 pounds of meat in any combination of stew meat, oxtails, and soup bones. I have stew meat in one pound increments, so I have a half pound to do something or nothing with. I vote something.

I find a big soup bone that isn’t really suitable for roasting for marrow (go go gadget future plans!), and that weighs about a half pound. Ish.

One of these things is not like the other.

I dust everything involved in seasoned flour.

All the meat gets a quick sear in olive oil, including the bone. Set aside.

More olive oil, and the onion goes in for a sweat.

A little more olive oil, and in go the diced carrots and turnip.

My recipe calls for three carrots. My veggie delivery service this week provided peeled-and-washed baby carrots. I estimate.

Close enough for jazz.

And the turnip is still just weird to me.

Onions are just starting to brown. Back in with the meat and the bone.

In goes a can of beer, enough beef stock to cover, thyme, and a couple of bay leaves.

Boil, reduce to simmer, cover.

An hour and forty-five later, and the meat chunks are soft and lovely. I pull the bone, and throw together the rough biscuit dough for the topping. After I apply it, I stash the pot uncovered in the oven.

Fifteen more minutes, and everything is golden brown and lovely.

I can get down.

Plate.

Ah, fall.

Verdict: Some number out of some larger number. Frankly, I’m not where to start on this one.

First, it was lovely. The meat was braised nicely, the beef flavor was pronounced, and the biscuit was, quite frankly, a show-stopper. And my toddler son devoured it by the spoonful fistful.

For good or ill, I was not aware of any particular turnip presence.

But chili? Really? I wouldn’t call that. I’d call it a nicely done beef stew topped with biscuits.

Further, either my heat was a tad high, or the biscuits absorbed a fair bit of the liquid beneath them. Because the biscuits didn’t so much float on the “chili,” so much as they rested on it.

Still, if you’re looking for comfort food on something resembling a fall day, this is a fine choice.

The Wife Says: If you’re expecting competition-style Terlingua chili? 5 out of 10 peppers. She thought it had more in common texture-wise with stuffing than with chili.

However, if you’re interested in a hearty and fulfilling fall meal that’ll make the house smell delightful… 9 out of 10. It was delicious and satisfying, it just didn’t resemble her concept of chili.

However, I’d make this again. The beef really shone. And if I massaged it a bit, I think I could manage the liquid content better so that it didn’t remind anyone of stuffing.

The Son Says : Ten! But that’s because that’s the highest he can count, and he’s pretty excited about it.

Is this a turnip? In chili? Really?

I would, and will, make this again.

Next up: Everything goes all spangles and tarts.

Chuck/Round – Dude Stew

I know. The title of this post sounds like hot tub time at a frat house. I assure you, that is not how I spent my Saturday.

Tonight, my lovely wife attended a Drag Queen Tupperware Party at a friend of ours’. I believe the Tupperware is sold by – and largely to – drag queens, rather than being an emporium where one could purchase a sensible product line to keep your drag queens fresh. But I could be wrong on that.

Regardless, D and I are kicking it by ourselves tonight. No ladies. No chicas. No wives or mothers. Just a coupla dudes bein’ dudes.

Maybe we’ll watch some football. Maybe we’ll rebuild the transmission on that old ‘78 Firebird I got up on blocks (Huh? shut up). Maybe we’ll wrassle some ‘gators. Who knows.

It’s also gonna be a crazy weekend. I likely won’t get to cook at all unless I do it tonight.

Luckily, I have help.

The crew.

Alright.

We’re looking for a no-fuss, relatively quick meal. We had swim lessons this morning, so we’re also looking for something hearty. Something stick-to-your-ribs. I’d also like to use some of my recently-delivered organic vegetables that I got in on Wednesday.

It’s summer, but we don’t play by anybody’s rules but our own. Let’s make stew.

This dish uses either chuck or round… I’m not entirely sure which. The butcher who partitioned my beastie was under orders to cut stew meat from both primals. From the looks of it, I’m guessing round. It doesn’t seem to have the marbling I’ve seen in the chuck I’ve used from this steer.

The mise:

You got anything for me to do?

This dish is pretty simple. We do have some prep, though. First, we peel some garlic.

I got this.

Gotta peel onions, too.

That's how you do that.

And carrots.

And, because we’re dudes, we’re gonna use some bacon.

How ya feel about bacon?

Me too.

Ready to cook.

First we crispify the bacon. How much bacon? Some. Measuring’s for chumps. Remove.

Beef in to brown in baconfat. Like God intended.

Beef out.

Baconfat good.

Onions in. Until soft-ish.

A little flour in, to make roux’s first cousin, “a little flour fried in baconfat with onions.” Then bay leaf, thyme, and some beef stock. I don’t have any in the freezer, so I use boxed. (Nobody’s rules but our own!)

Boil, baby.

Once we’re boiling, lid up and drop heat to low. D and I retire to watch some “Science.“

When the iphone beeps a half-hour later, we deposit some carrots and potatoes, re-boil, re-drop, re-lid, and kick back a while longer.

Forty-ish minutes later, veggies are soft and the meat is like buttah. Peas in, bacon in, and wait five minutes for what D calls, the “big boom.”

Dinner up.

Verdict: Quite good. It wasn’t revelatory, but it was definitely solid. The bacon added a nice smoky note to a very earthy, satisfying dish. I think next time I’d like to use half wine, half stock to braise the meat. This is a dish I think I could get better at, should I do it more. Which I intend to.

The Wife Says: Yay! Tupperware!

The Son Says: Sometimes one spoon just isn’t enough.

Up next: Patagonian monkey rugby.

EDIT: This was even better the second day. And still better yet the third. Time is on your side.

Round – Emerald Stir Fry

Saturday morning! Is there anything better?

I mean, really. It’s a beautiful sunny day in city that’s full of them.  Let’s make the most of it.

First things first. Haircut. I look like Australopithecus.

Post-shearing, I’m alone in an empty house. Wife and son have scampered off to our local Temple of Unpleasantness.

Maybe I can put lunch in front of them when they get home.

We’ve recently received a shipment of veggies from L.O.V.E. Delivery, so I have a ton of options. A quick peek in The Freezer, and a package of “fajita/stirfry beef” is staring me in the face. Works for me. I’ve been wanting to make a stirfry for a while.  My wok hasn’t been used in ages, and it’s starting to get despondent.

My Google Fu yields this. It’s just about perfect.

I set the stirfry package to thaw in water, with a trickle from the tap giving me a little convection current to speed the process. I hate to do it, as we’re in a drought and living like fremen, so I kill the trickle before it’s fully thawed.

The meat. I check my Cut/Wrap sheet, and my stirfry meat is bottom round. After de-packaging, this becomes apparent. It’s pre-sliced by the butcher and ready to rock. Frankly, it looks a lot like my jerky did before I cured it.

Time to cook. The mise:

This recipe uses a sweet Japanese wine called mirin that I’ve never used before. I’m intrigued.

I enjoy sake. I wonder what this stuff’s like?

It's like that.

Don’t try this at home. It’s crazy sweet.

I build the sauce base out of mirin, o.j., soy sauce, brown rice vinegar, red pepper and water. Broccoli and edamame are prepped and standing by (note to self: use frozen, already-shelled edamame next time. Shelling this much edamame is a pain). Beef’s ready. Oil and aromatics (just garlic) ready to go in first.

Stirfry is like a train (choo choo, not wedding dress). Everything’s living in the same cooking vessel, so you have to manage your workflow pretty carefully to make sure nothing burns and everything gets done at the same time. The prep is very nearly as important as the actual time spent in front of the wok. Proper preparation prevents piss-poor performance.

I light the fire under the wok. Oil in. Minutes later I flick a little water in there, and it does the happy dance. Beef in, and the train pulls away from the station.

Beef has some color on it, but I don’t want to cook it all the way yet, otherwise it’ll either be overdone when the veggies are finished, or it’ll be cold. Out it comes, and onto a plate. Little more oil. Minced garlic in.

I smell garlic. In go the edamame and broccoli. The recipe calls for some other greenery, but I didn’t use it because a) I didn’t have them, and b) I don’t wanna. Stir, stir, stir.

Veggies are a little soft. In goes my sauce (which I mixed beforehand and had standing by. You can’t add individual liquids sequentially in a stifry, or they’ll evaporate at different rates. Also, it takes forever. Prep!)

I let the sauce reduce a little, then add some cornstarch-in-water to help it thicken, and follow up by adding the beef back in to finish cooking.

I have a moment to breathe, so I take a photo.

I cook another few minutes. The beef is done and everything looks great, except I have way too much sauce, and it’s way too runny. Probably because I omitted approximately half my veggies. That’s cool. I have a friend who can fix this, and his name is cornstarch.

Soon, all is right with the world.

But soft! What sound through yonder back door breaks? It is the garage door opener. And my wife and son are back from the dreaded mall.

Just in time for lunch.

I also had brown rice going on a back burner. Did I mention that?

Verdict: We really enjoyed it. It was really bright and lovely, and the sauce complemented but didn’t overpower the beef. Add in the edamame and it’s a protein bonanza, which is fantastic if you’re trying to build muscle mass (which I’m not, and furthermore find hilarious) or just like edamame (which I do). Also, broccoli is a bona fide superfood. For example, a half cup of broccoli has more Vitamin C than an orange. Your mama was right, broccoli is crazy good for you.

It was a relatively quick, healthy meal, and pretty easy to do provided you prep well. We’re gonna do something like this again.

And now, a new feature – The Wife Says. No, I’m not trying to get all Of Mice And Men on you, but my lovely wife is a bit twitchy about me plastering her name all over the interwebs.

Anyway, it’s easy for me to say everything I make is fabulous, so I’m introducing a slightly less biased opinion. Hence the new feature.

And The Wife Says: Seven stars out of ten. She enjoyed the meal. It was a solid outing in the stirfry realm, and something she thinks I could definitely master if I did it more. She ate leftovers. That’s something.

Next up: kofta kebabs.

Round – Chicken Fried Steak

Sunday afternoon. I think to myself, “Man. I’d really like a salad.”

Quick poke around the fridge. Not so much in the way of salad material. Some romaine hearts. A couple of veggies in the crisper that haven’t yet evolved into sentience, but nothing that really goes together. Hm. I guess I’ll just do a super-simple salad and knock together a quick vinaigrette to make it a little special.

Alright, so my salad can be a side salad. That raises other questions for dinner, since I can’t make that a standalone dish. I need a main course.

Let’s poke around in the freezer. Meh.

Let’s poke around in The Freezer.

I pull out a piece labeled “tenderized round steak.” I used some top round in jerky a couple of weeks ago, and it turned out really well. I saw these steaks back then, and they piqued my interest. Plus, I still haven’t used the new Jaccard I picked up the other day.

Let’s do Chicken Fried Steak.

This dish reminds me of home. I developed a fondness for it waiting tables at a pancake house in Kansas. It’s the perfect end to a long night of trying not to get your ponytailed ass knocked to the ground by a throng of drunken faux-cowboys. Good times.

For this one, I’m going back to Alton Brown.

The mise:

I warm the oven to 250. How do I know?

Hey, look! I'm not an idiot anymore!

No more trips to Chucktown for me.

The two round steaks are thawed and ready. I dredge them with seasoned flour. The “tenderized” on the label was no joke. These things have been thoroughly perforated.

But I wanna use my new, pretty Jaccard, so give them another once-over.

le jaccard

At this point I can almost see daylight through them, so I’m calling them sufficiently tenderized. I don’t want them to look like a meat doily on the plate.

I let the steaks sit for a few so the crust can cement to the meat. Meanwhile, I heat up a little canola in a stockpot (my frying pan isn’t big enough) and stare off into middle distance.

Basil's supervising.

She has flour on her flank. Not fussed about it

At this point, I start to think about the other veggies I have laying around. I just picked up some white onions. I don’t think they’d do well on my side salad, though. What else? I have a lot more canola oil, because we were running out…

Where’s my mandoline?

It slices! It dices!

Steaks go into a little hot, shimmery oil. Long enough to get some Golden Brown and Delicious on, then a flip.

Onions go into a lot of hot, shimmery oil. Long enough to get some Golden Brown and Delicious on, then a rescue.

Everything goes into gently warm – and accurately measured – oven.

Did I mention I'm not an idiot anymore?

Steaks done – into oven. Onion rings done – into oven.

Gravy time. I have too much cooking oil in the pan, so I siphon a little off. In goes some flour to make a little roux (while whisking). Then a quick deglaze with chicken broth (while whisking), add milk and thyme and cook it down (while whisking).  Pause to admire my work (while whiskeying).

Everything’s ready. We plate up, and I snap a shot with the focus-challenged remnants of The Great Camerageddon of ‘09.

One of these things is not like the other.

Therein lies a problem. How am I supposed to keep gravy from getting on my lettuce?

That's how.

Denuded of vegetation, dinner’s ready.

Simpler times, indeed.

Verdict? If you like Chicken Fried Steak, this is better than most of those you’ll get in a restaurant. Plus, you know where it comes from. There’s no What-The-Hell-Am-I-Eating? mystery about this meat.

I enjoyed this dish, and it was a big hit with my son, who doesn’t generally dig meat. That said, I think I could have needled it a little more (despite my butcher’s prep), and probably fried it a little longer.

As a side note, if you dig onion rings, think very hard about making them at home. They’re not difficult, and they’re shockingly good. You just need a lot of oil and good temperature control.

In all, a great way to end a weekend.

Though I never did get that salad.