greg cooks

nourishing the body

beef

Beef, It’s what’s for dinner

To me there is nothing more satisfying than a big slab of medium rare grass fed cow seared on a grill. We’re not talking steak sauce here. Never ruin a good piece of meat with too much seasoning. We buy our beef a half cow at a time from a local farmer. Let me tell you, I’ve had Kobe beef before but North Dakota beef wins in taste and texture hands down. All this tender juicy piece of cow flesh needs is just some salt and pepper.

Beef shouldn’t be adorned with complicated side dishes either. Just a grilled vidalia onion and some home baked fries make a perfect accompaniment to what is flesh perfection.

What more is there to say? I likes my beef now and then.

Four courses

First I must apologize for being awol for a while. Life and work have been getting in the way lately of my blogging efforts. Although I have been cooking here and there and have several dishes to catch up on. I wanted to share a meal I made a couple weeks ago. This was a four course meal starting with a light Greek salad. The foundation of the salad is a bed of romaine and red leaf lettuce. That was tossed with a rather simple but flavorful lemon and olive oil dressing. The salad is topped with sliced red onions. I like to soak them first in ice water after slicing to tame down their heat. There’s also some greek salad peppers, kalamata olives and, of course, feta cheese. The whole thing was garnished with a bit of sumac powder.

I have been on a real pasta kick lately and it started with this fettucine al fungi. Homemade pasta is so simple to make that I can’t understand why I don’t do it every day. I never really measure for my pasta. Sometimes I’ll use egg, sometimes not. Just mix some flour, egg, water and salt, knead it until elastic, and let it rest for a bit before rolling out. I have a pasta roller that makes easy work of it. Nothing can beat the taste and texture of fresh pasta. This evening I made a mushroom, cream and cheese sauce for it. It has three kinds of mushrooms – dried shitakes (soaked), fresh shitakes, and fresh baby portabellos. These were sautéed in a pan with good olive oil and of course lots of garlic. A splash of cream and a splash of truffle oil were added and the fresh cooked pasta was tossed in. A handful of grated parmigiano reggiano was added and the pasta was plated up.

Beef was on the menu for the main course. As a unifying theme I went with beef and mushrooms but I moved from the Mediterranean to Asia with this sesame, garlic and soy marinated beef. It was a pretty simple stir fry but had plenty of flavor. I served it with polenta that had been cooked with the retained liquid from soaking the mushrooms. I also served up some baby bok choy seasoned with soy and sesame oil.

For dessert a rather simple chocolate mousse. Nothing fancy here. I just melted some good chocolate and folded it in to some whipped cream. That’s it! Easy as mousse.

Asian Hot Pot

Many cultures have a variation on a hot pot dish. The idea is that you have a central pot with something hot that you cook foods in and eat. Fondue is a hot pot dish. You coat food with a hot cheese sauce, for example. In Asia most countries have a variation on this type of communal eating. In Japan it is called shabu shabu so named for the swishing sound thinly sliced beef makes when you cook it quickly in a pot of boiling broth. There’s hot pot in China and in Korea. I love this dish. It is healthy, lowfat, and just plain fun. Often after eating the meats and vegetables, noodles are cooked in the boiling broth and it is eaten like a soup. It’s a great way to eat and we really enjoyed our hot pot dinner tonight. This one was really a fusion of styles borrowing from Japan and Korea.

Here is a picture of the place setting. The sauce you see flavors the meat and vegetables after it comes out of the hot broth. It was simply made by whisking together a tablespoon of peanut butter, a teaspoon of Korean gochujang sauce (a sweet and spicy red chili sauce), some sesame oil, some mirin, rice wine vinegar and a bit of water.

Some hot pots simply start with water and the meat and vegetables cooked in it flavor the broth by the end of the meal. I like to start with a broth already flavorful and seasoned. It makes for a more hearty and delicious meal. I started by taking some water and soaking dried shitake mushrooms in it for several hours. Then a large piece of konbu (Japanese seaweed) was added along with chopped garlic and some beef dashida powder. This was simmered for about an hour to create a flavorful broth and cook the mushrooms.

I have had inquiries about the dashi powders I refer to quite often. I buy Korean dashida from my local Asian market. Three staples I rely on a lot are shown below. There is a beef flavored soup powder, a clam flavored one, and a fish flavored dashi. They are great for quickly whipping up flavorful soups and broths.

My hot pot this evening featured beef. I love beef. Of course you could use anything you like in your hot pot. I used a well marbled rib eye steak this evening. You want a nice cut of beef that will be tender when barely cooked. I slice it very thinly so it cooks quickly in the simmering liquid. It’s easy to slice if it is still partially frozen.

Vegetables make up the greatest portion of the meal. You can use anything you like. This evening we had a lot of mushrooms. On the platter below you can see (clockwise from the top) napa cabbage, soybean sprouts, carrots, the cooked shitake mushrooms, fresh oyster mushrooms, and enoki mushrooms.

The meal takes a while to eat which is just fine for me. I like to eat slowly. It’s nice when the meal forces you to slow down and enjoy it. The meat and vegetables are cooked a little at a time, dipped in the spicy peanut sauce and enjoyed with wonderful company. After the meat and veggies are all consumed it is traditional to cook noodles in the remaining broth. Tonight I made homemade udon noodles. I was greatly inspired by Kevin at Closet Cooking and followed his recipe. Instead of flattening the dough out and cutting into strips I rolled and stretched them out by hand into ropes and cut them. They turned out great! Thanks Kevin!


I have to say by the end of the meal the broth was fantastic with the udon.

New Years Day Pot Roast


Nothing is more comforting than a slow cooked pot roast. On a bitter cold first day of the new year this really hit the spot. Slow cooked in my new Le Creuset pot with carrots, onions, peppers, red wine and a bit of honey mustard bbq sauce this really came out well. I served it in a big bowl with left over mashed potatoes and sopped up the juices with the left over day old sourdough herb onion bread.

Garlic Beef

This evening I opened up a very unusual and interesting French wine from Languedoc. Minvervois to be specific. I thought this vegetative and peppery wine would go great with some Asian influenced beef. So I made a garlic beef dish served with steamed baby bok choy. I thinly sliced some ribeye steak and mixed it up with half an onion, quartered and sliced. I also added a head of garlic chopped, a splash of soy, mirin and a good shake of cornstarch. Oh, and some black pepper. This was simply stir fried in a wok until just under cooked. I added about 1/4 cup of water and covered it to let the sauce form from all the starch. It turned out pretty good. Quick and easy too. The wine matched perfectly.

*edit: I also added a healthy amount of chopped fresh ginger to the mix.