basic beef stew

Stewing beef, or any other meat basically can be broken down into two steps, reducing the stew and then simmering until the end. There are loads of variation on how to prepare beef stew, but what i’m showing here will be the most basic stuff which after you have mastered can be taken into the next level.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

for the beef

a kilo of cubed beef chuck (chuck is used because it is one of the toughest meat on a cow, suitable for long cooking that stewing involved)

all-purpose flour/wheat flour (enough to cover the meat)

white pepper powder (enough to cover the meat)

paprika powder (enough to cover the meat)

for the stew

2 tablespoon of butter

a tablespoon of cornflour/cornstarch

2 litres of beef stock

one large onion, diced

a tablespoon of tomato paste/puree

4 medium carrots, cut into small pieces

3 large russet potatoes, peeled and cut into golf ball pieces

4 celery stalks, cut into small pieces

2 bay leaves

a teaspoon of dried rosemary

a teaspoon of dried parsley

salt & freshly ground black pepper

Mix the flour, white pepper and paprika powder in a bowl and coat the beef entirely. Pan fry the beef on a skillet until brown on all side. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Melt butter in a large deep sauce pan or pot. Cook the onion until lightly browned. Then add the tomato paste and cook while stirring for about a minute. Then stir in the flour, and cook until the flour had absorbed the liquid inside the pan. Immediately deglaze with a litre of the beef stock and bring to a simmer. Add the beef, the bay leaves, rosemary and parsley and let reduce the liquid for about an hour. It the liquid has reduced to much before the hour mark, add a cup or two of water. Once the stew has reduce, add in the remaining beef stock, season with salt and pepper and stir in all the remaining vegetables including the potatoes. Cover the pan and continue simmering for another hour.

About 15 minutes until the final hour mark, finish off with a dash of lemon juice and check the seasoning. Add more salt and pepper to your desire. If you want a thicker broth, leave that final 15 minutes of simmering with the cover off, otherwise return the cover to the pan.

Serve with bread, baguette or own its own. Marvelously delicious!

baked meatball with tomato sauce

Despite its simple form and style, there are considerably some efforts needed to prepare this. First off, prepare the meatball. Here’s how.

Then prepare the tomato sauce. Here’s how.

Finally, pre-cook the meatballs halfway on a pan (by pre-cook I mean half-way or ¾ way since they will be baked inside the oven later). Prepare a square baking dish, pour the tomato sauce into the dish, place the meatballs in, top with some sliced cheddar or grated parmesan or shredded mozzarella and bake until the cheese has melted, about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with bread.

Perfect for a lazy night of cooking. (provided the meatballs are prepared earlier and making the tomato sauce is no longer considered as troublesome chore)

Beef Steak

I bet my ass that most of you when visiting a steak-house and ordering your RM50 a plate beefsteak, be it in places like Tony Roma’s to Chili’s, would know jack shit the difference between a sirloin, a T-bone or a New York strip. And when the server asked you the type of doneness you would like on your piece of meat, you would probably blurt out “well done” or “medium-rare” with the conviction of an executive chef of a Michelin-starred restaurant, when in fact, you have not a single idea what the hell does that mean, just so to save face to the server like you know what you want.

And let me tell you, anyone who ordered their beefsteak “well done” is a complete asshole, and does not deserve to savour the tastiness and juiciness of a piece of meat from a well grown cow.

Alas, this piece is not about the lesson of ordering beefsteak at a steak-house, but how to prepare the same RM50 a plate cuisine that is so easy to do at home. But, just for the sake of the discerning public and an extra knowledge about the wonderful world of meat, particularly beef, I would throw in some explanation about what is what and which is which.

Cuts of meat

Believe it or not, the meat that you are about to turn into delicious beefsteak or that you ordered from that smirking waiter comes from a cow. And a cow is such a huge animal that there are many parts of its body where the meat is derived from, and each part contributed to the texture and taste of the meat, as well as the price of it. Each part and their meat that comes of it are known as “Cuts of beef” in the world of cow linguistic.

Cuts of beef are first divided into primal cuts, pieces of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering. These are basic sections from which steaks and other subdivisions are cut. Do not confuse the term “primal cut” to the term “prime cut” which is completely different. Prime cut is a term used to characterize cuts considered to be of higher quality. So you see, the general rule is, since the animal’s legs and neck muscles do the most work (i.e. eating, walking, kicking you off when to try to milk it), they are the toughest; the meat becomes more tender as distance from hoof and horn increases. Different countries and cuisines have different cuts and names, and sometimes use the same name for a different cut; e.g., the cut described as “brisket” in the US is from a significantly different part of the carcass than British brisket. So, for the purpose of this piece I shall use the US type of cuts as I prefer the Yankees than the snotty Brits in general.

Upon slaughter, the beef are split along the axis of symmetry into “halves”, then across into front and back “quarters” (forequarters and hindquarters).

Forequarter cuts

· Chuck: The steak from this part commonly known as Chuck steak and Ranch steak. The trimmings and some whole boneless chucks are ground for your burger meat.

· Rib: This is where your short ribs, the prime rib and rib eye steak come from.

· Brisket:  Primarily used for barbecue.

· Shank: The toughest cuts, normally used for stews and soups. Never served as a steak.

Hindquarter cuts

· Short Loin: from which the T-bone, Porterhouse and New York Strip steak comes from.

· Sirloin: The very pricey sirloin steak comes from. There are two parts, bottom and top. Flap steak comes from the bottom part.

· Terderloin: The most tender, and ever more expensive that sirloin. This is where your Fillet Mignon, Tournedos, Chateaubriand and Terderloin steaks originated from.

· Flank:  Inside Skirt and Flank steak. The flank is used mostly for grinding.

· Round: The round contains lean, moderately tough, lower fat cuts, which require moist or rare cooking. Some representative of steaks round steak, eye of round, top round, and bottom round steaks and roasts.

Degree of cooking

The doneness of your steak depends on the amount of time a steak is cooked. It is all about personal preference; shorter cooking times retain more juice, whereas longer steak cooking times result in drier, tougher meat but you wouldn’t worry about contracting e-coli, since the burnt meat will also burned all bacteria and viruses that may be hidden in it. Lest you make fun of yourself in front of your waiter/waitress, a vocabulary to describe the degree to which a steak is cooked are as the following:

· Raw:  Totally uncooked. Sounds gross but actually used in dishes like steak tartare, carpaccio, gored gored, tiger meat and kitfo.

· Blue rare or very rare: Cooked very quickly; the outside is seared, but the inside is usually cool and barely cooked. The steak will be red on the inside and barely warmed.

· Rare: The outside is grey-brown, and the middle of the steak is fully red and slightly warm.

· Medium rare: The steak will have a reddish-pink center. This is the default degree of cooking at most steakhouses when you do not state any doneness level upon ordering.

· Medium: The middle of the steak is hot and fully pink surrounding the center. The outside is grey-brown.

· Medium well done: The meat is lightly pink surrounding the center.

· Well done: The meat is grey-brown in the center and slightly charred.

Additionally, a Chicago-style steak is cooked to the desired level and then quickly charred. The diner orders it by asking for the style followed by the doneness (e.g. “Chicago-style rare”).

Grilling

Now that we have learned some basic knowledge about the cuts of meat and the level of cooking for your steak, it is now time to put it on the griller. There are many type of griller out there, but my favourite and most convenient for me is the non-stick grill-pan. It may not be the most authentic grilling experience, but for a simple dinner with your partner at home it is sufficient enough. As always, treat your non-stick pan nice. Clean it with a kitchen wipe gently. If you really need to wash it please don’t scrub it like you would do to a wok. Grilling the perfect steak is an art form; it takes practice and patience to master it, particularly due to the many factors that played-in during the process (eg. temperature, quality of meat). However, with these simple steps you should have no trouble grilling a fantastic steak.

1. Allow your meat to reach room temperature before grilling. This helps grill a steak faster and more evenly.

2. Trim the steak of excess fat. This is the one that lines up the side of the meat, generally white in colour. The reason is, as it cooks, fat shrinks faster than the meat and can cause your steaks to curl.

3. Season. A light brushing of olive oil, some freshly ground black pepper and salt is all you need. Though, the seasoning is entirely up to you. Preheat the grill pan as hot as it will go.

4. Oil the grate of the pan.

5. Grill. Let the steak rest on the pan until it is done before turning the other side. How long that take depends on the thickness of the meat and how done you would like your steak to be (refer chart below). ALWAYS resist the temptation to turn over the steak while grilling to see how done it is because by doing that you would disrupt the momentum of the heat and the timing will run-off and ruin the doneness of the steak.

6. Use pressure test to check the doneness level of the steak. When getting close to having a done steak, press it with your index finger or the flat side of a grilling fork to get a feel for it. A rare steak will be soft. A medium steak will be firm but yielding. A well done steak will be firm.

7. Let the steaks rest for 5 minutes before serving. This will let the juices flow out from the center, redistributing moisture, so the whole steak is nice and juicy.

As a general rule, adhere to the grilling time by meat thickness as mentioned below. Please note that the times are approximate and will vary depending on the type of grill, heat, meat quality and so on. Divide in half the time for each side.

Thickness

1″ : 6-8(Rare), 8-10(Medium),10-14(Well done)

1 1/2″ : 8-10(Rare), 10-12(Medium),12-16(Well done)

2″ : 12-16(Rare), 16-20(Medium), 20-24(Well done)

spaghetti and meatballs

Meatballs are fantastic! Meatballs are amazing! They’re easy, fast and simple. They’re so easy, that i always wondered why are there still people buying those frozen ready-made meatballs? I have two kids to tend to, and always reached home from work by the time the sun has gone down, yet i have time to make those wonderful meatballs everytime i felt like having them as dinner. They’re wonderful to have with simple tomato sauce, whether accompanied by chunks of bread or by pasta, they’re great with vegetable broth, or by having them as sandwiches. Their potential are endless, yet so simple – all you need is good quality minced meat.

For the meatballs

500g minced meat

1 large egg

1 large onion, finely chopped

50g of breadcrumbs/12 pieces of cream crackers

a handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

1 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the tomato sauce (serves 4)

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 cans of 400g chopped plum tomatoes

400g of spaghetti

a handful of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

salt and freshly ground black pepper

extra virgin olive oil

To make the meatballs: In a large mixing bowl, add the minced meat, chopped parsley, egg, the Parmesan cheese and a good pinch of salt and pepper. If you’re using the cream crackers, wrap the crackers in a clean towel and smash up until fine, breaking up any big bits with your hands and add into the bowl. If you’re using the breadcrumbs instead, add them into the bowl. With clean hands scrunch and mix up well. If you feel the mixture is still to sticky and would not hold up shape, add some of the breadcrumbs until the mixture have a good consistency and can be shaped. Shape the meatballs into the size of golf balls (or bigger, depending on your preference, but not too big or it will be hard for them to cook properly) and then pat them down so they can evenly cook. Drizzle them with olive oil and jiggle them about so they all get coated. Put them on a plate, cover and place in the fridge until needed.

To make the tomato sauce: Put a large pan of salted water to boil. Heat a large sauce pan on a medium heat and add 2 lugs of olive oil. Add your onion to the pan and stir until softened and lightly golden. Then add your garlic, and as soon as they start to colour, add the tomatoes. Bring to the boil and season to taste. Meanwhile, heat a frying pan and add a lug of olive oil and your meatballs. Stir them around and cook for 8–10 minutes until golden (check they’re cooked by opening one up – there should be no sign of pink). Add the meatballs to the sauce and simmer until the sauce thickens, around 20-30 minutes, then remove from the heat. Once the pasta is cooked, stir them to the tomato sauce, add the Parmesan cheese, correct the seasoning and serve immediately.