Thai-Style Ground Meat

Back in France, we're back to tightening the belt a bit again: all that homemade ice cream means that I need to watch what and when I eat; all that shopping (and not working) means that we need to work on making the most of our budget. This recipe was nice in both respects: it's a light dish that uses fairly inexpensive staple ingredients.

 Ground turkey isn't easy to come by in France, so I rescued some ground pork from the freezer and added it to the ground veal pictured. Otherwise, I followed the recipe fairly closely. It's super simple and fast to make: you make a quick sauce with soy sauce, fish sauce, lime zest and juice, and a bit of sugar. You then brown some ground turkey or your favorite ground meat and add some minced onion (the white part of a scallion), garlic, ginger, and chili. Add the sauce along with a large handful of chopped basil and a finely sliced scallion, and you're done. I would get your sides (we had rice and peas) ready first because this stir-fry really takes just a few minutes from start to finish. I saved a few of the aromatics and a bit of sauce for some scrambled eggs for Julia, and she seemed to enjoy it.

Agreed, it doesn't look like much, but it tastes really good. The chili I used was not very spicy, so we used a bit of siricha to spice it up. Otherwise, the flavors are balanced and clean, so that even though this is a hot meal, it's nice for summer. A great meal to come home to.

Lamb Merguez Burgers

I grew up eating lamb on the 4th of July: my grandmother and grandfather would serve grilled shish kebab at the party they always hosted on that day, also their wedding anniversary. This was invariably accompanied by my aunt's fabulous potato salad and my mother's surprisingly delicious green Jell-o salad, the only one I'll eat. The evening would finish with homemade red-white-and-blueberry ice cream and the setting off of fireworks.

But now I'm celebrating the Fourth of July in France, where it's just another day. Still, it's nice to celebrate our American-ness just a bit. So our meal was a good compromise. Claire made this cake and we watched the Tour de France, and then I made this lamb merguez "burgers" and we watched women's soccer. All-American, and yet not really. In fact, merguez is to France what pizza is to the United States: an immigrant food that has been embraced by the broader culture.

Most of the work of these burgers involves grinding: first spices (fennel and coriander), and then (at least for me) the meat. First the spices get toasted.

Then, after cooling down a bit, they go in the spice grinder. I used to think that toasting/grinding spices was a waste of time until I actually tried it. Now I'm hooked: the spices smell so great and taste really fresh and strong. I highly recommend picking up an extra coffee grinder at a garage sale and using it for spices.

 I had ground up my semi-frozen lamb with a small onion and some garlic. I then added the merguez-y stuff: the toasted/ground spices, some piment d'esplette (a paprika-like spice from the Basque country--it's a bit spicier than paprika, but it was fresh and my regular paprika was looking sad), salt, and--yes--butter. In Melissa's defense, the lamb I used (cut from the leg) was pretty lean, and merguez, which is the go-to sausage on the French grill, tends to be very fatty. And the meatballs I made turned out to be quite juicy and less gamy than some ground lamb dishes can be.

Why meatballs? Well, I knew I couldn't grill these and that my choices were the stovetop grill (I still haven't mastered that) or the oven (I had this article in mind). But then after a recent falafel experience, I decided that meatballs would be much more manageable in a pita than a large burger.

While the meatballs roasted (15 minutes in a 425 oven), I made my harissa mayonnaise (also a very French thing--it's awesome with fries!), grated some carrots, and sliced some cucumbers. I squeezed some lime over both and tossed them with a bit of salt. I thought these would make a good crunchy counterpart to the rich and spicy meatballs.

And voilà, my Franco-American 4th of July dinner. These vanished in no time flat. They were spicy, but just on this side of too spicy, with a great balance of flavors and textures. Claire, who generally dislikes lamb, devoured about 5 meatballs in her sandwich. So even though I had to wait an extra day for the traditional reading of the Declaration and the fireworks will come 10 days later, it was a good meal for a special day.

Vietnamese Grilled Steak and Cabbage Salad

One of Claire's favorite foods is stir-fry: the kind with well-marinated meat, a few vegetables, and a bit of sauce: Asian-American food at its finest. So when I saw this recipe come up, I knew it would be popular because of the marinade and the ingredients. Unfortunately, Claire was invited to a friend's house for dinner the night I was planning to make this recipe. "That's OK," she shrugged, "I'll eat it for breakfast the next day."

 Look at this beautiful meat.  It's "onglet" or hangar steak, lovingly prepared by my butcher. And though he probably would have shuddered in horror,  I went ahead and marinated it in soy sauce and lime and ginger and garlic and sesame oil, and then cut up my vegetables.

The green cabbage was not looking very appealing at the market last week, so red (purple!) cabbage it was. So I shredded the carrots and the cabbage, and then I went to bed with a nasty cold.

When I woke up, I could hear the sounds of cooking and laughter: our friend Jeannie was visiting, and she and Sami were trying to get the meal finished for me: neither one knew where much of the cookware or ingredients were, but they dug around and were eventually able to find everything they needed. Jeannie was concerned that she hadn't pressed the garlic as the recipe had directed, but I assured her that she had probably followed the recipe much better than I would have.

The steak was incredible: tender and flavorful. I wasn't quite so sold on the salad: the cabbage seemed awfully bitter. I had planned to add some frozen chopped mint and basil to the salad along with the cilantro, but I hadn't communicated that to the others--it might have helped. But Sami and Jeannie pronounced it "perfect", and Claire did in fact enjoy her breakfast steak and salad the next morning, while Jeannie had it for lunch. I might enjoy this even more as a classic stir-fry, with the cabbage and carrots cooked rather than raw. But it was definitely worth making, and very nice to have made for me.

Spicy Black Beans with Chorizo

 When Alicia chose this recipe, I was happy because I love black beans and rice. So easy, so cheap, so yummy. I just had a couple of hurdles to overcome.

Hurdle one: black beans. They're quite hard to find here. I asked my dried fruit/nuts/beans/rice guy at the market if he ever had black beans, and he shrugged, "I could paint some white beans for you, Madame." Uh, no.
Then I remembered that black beans are popular in Portuguese/Brazilian cuisine and that there is a Portuguese grocery in Saint Germain. Score! I had a lovely conversation with the store owner, who asked me if I was making feijoada. Um, no--not quite so many pork products in this dish. I described the dish to her, telling her that it was fairly common to eat black beans in the US. "Oh, look!" she told me. "These beans are from the US!" So much for eating local. I cooked up a bunch in my new pressure cooker early in the week and had them ready to go. Except we had eaten too many with our tacos the night before, so I had to supplement with canned kidney beans. The best-laid plans...

Hurdle two: the jalapeño. This one was my fault. It's not that hard to get hot peppers here, but I didn't buy any at the store because I was sure I had one in my produce drawer. I had one, all right, but when I pulled it out, it was definitely not fit for eating. I therefore decided to sacrifice a can of Hatch chiles that a friend from New Mexico had brought. The can says "hot", but they really aren't.

Finding cured chorizo, on the other hand, was a piece of cake. The French love to eat slices of chorizo and other cured meat as a snack with pre-dinner drinks.  I got the chorizo "fort", which would be strong or spicy, but it wasn't really. Seeing a non-spicy trend here?

 The recipe comes together easily from here: sauté sausage and vegetables, add spices and beans, simmer.

For the full experience, you need to also cook rice and fry some eggs. I am a terrible egg fryer, I must say. It's so hard for me to get the temperature just right so that the yolk is runny but the white isn't. Any tips?

And here's the whole shebang, plated and ready to eat. I forgot to add the hot sauce to the beans themselves, but we slathered it on afterwards (Trader Joe's Chili Pepper Sauce. Highly recommended).

There was nothing wrong with this--it's black beans and rice with an egg on top, for crying out loud!--but it didn't make a big impression, either. My favorite black bean recipe involves tomato juice, and I think I was missing that bit of liquid and acidity. Some lime juice might have punched this up a bit, or more chile. And when I dig into the leftovers for lunch very soon, I will experiment with some of those additions.

Baked Stuffed Potatoes with Corned Beef/Pâté

 I noticed on the jacket of the cookbook that among Melissa Clark's works are both The Deen Family Cookbook and The Skinny: How to Fit into Your Little Black Dress Forever. Hmmmm. To me, this recipe belongs more in the former category than the latter, especially the pâté version I made. At least I didn't use rillettes, which is basically shredded meat (at my butcher's, it's goose) preserved in its own fat. And it's true that these potatoes are not deep-fried.
Corned beef, which would have been leaner, is a speciality product only available from Jewish butchers here in France (as far as I know). I had planned a trip to Paris to buy corned beef and stock up on cocoa for brownies, but instead I went to a meeting. Much less productive.

But what the heck. I decided that pâté (this was actually a "terrine au beaujolais") was the perfect locavore solution: my butcher's wife makes it. The recipe is basically a main-dish stuffed baked potato. You bake the potato after rubbing it in salt (a technique I hadn't tried before and was very pleased with, since I'm a potato-skin lover), and then you mash the flesh with butter, some herbs (I have a family of dill haters, so I went with my favorite herb blend) and some processed meat product (while listening to NPR tell you that processed meat will kill you. But they were talking about hot dogs, not "house-made" pâté. Right?). Then you pile that delicious mess into the potato skins, top with cheese (I used some leftover sheep cheese I had from our mountain trip), and throw them back into the oven or under the broiler until the cheese has melted/browned. I made a vegetarian version for Julia that involved sautéed mushrooms, and she loved it, even though she's not a big fan of the baked potato.

I served this with the Crispy Roasted Cabbage, which as you see was very crispy this time. Perhaps too much so. I believe the secret was that I used only one small head of cabbage for a large baking sheet, so it crisped rather than steamed. Only Julia and I ate the cabbage, which is fairly par for the course.

I was completely skeptical about the idea of putting pâté in a baked potato, but I really enjoyed it. In fact, I think I like pâté better in a baked potato than on bread. Heresy! The rest of the family enjoyed it as well: once again, no leftovers. I think if I did it again with pâté, I would add a bit of whole-grain mustard. But I'd love to try this with corned beef, because I do love corned beef. Someday.

Chile-Coconut Short Ribs

When we returned from vacation last weekend, we had those post-vacation I-have-to-go-back-to-work/school blues. What better remedy than some comfort food in the form of braised beef in a tangy, spicy sauce?

So I went shopping for a few things: see my extremely fatty short ribs. My butcher asked me what I wanted to do with them, but I didn't want to shock him with the chile-coconut thing. Also, I'm not sure my French is up to describing this recipe. Especially considering that every time I order from the man, he screws up his face in intense concentration to understand what the crazy American lady wants now. Anyway, I just let him believe I was going to use the short ribs for a pot-au-feu or beef soup. That's why he gave me the marrow bone to the right: "to make the sauce more unctuous". Let me just say there was a lot of trimming involved, both before and after cooking.

And there is the cubed, trimmed meat (and marrow bone) in the pot with all the yummy aromatics: ginger, garlic, chile, lime. I only put in the juice and zest of one lime at the beginning of the cooking time, and I finished with the second lime when the meat was done. I think that freshened up the flavor. I also used a fat separator to degrease the sauce--it really needed it. Melissa may say that there's lots of "good fat" there, but I would like to respectfully disagree on that point.

I considered making the coconut rice and peas to go with the stew, as Melissa suggests, but that seemed like too much coconut for one meal. So I just made brown rice with peas. Claire objected to the rice being brown, but it was otherwise a nice accompaniment.

The verdict? The three of us who eat meat loved this. Once the meat was removed from the fat, it was fall-apart tender and delicious. And the sauce was just the right balance of spicy and tangy and sweet/creamy. There was none left after I had, ahem, cleaned the kitchen. It was a great way to ease back into the real world.

Thai-ish Pocket Bread Sandwiches

I remember exactly where I got this recipe, even though it was probably 15 years or so ago. It was from a "Beef: it's What's For Dinner" ad that I tore out of a magazine. And typed up. And finally made.

There is nothing authentic about this recipe, but it's still really good. I added a couple small sliced onions to the peppers, and since I had lemongrass in the fridge, I minced up about half a stalk of that and threw it in. If you don't eat meat, I imagine you could put some chickpeas or kidney beans in there. And even if you do eat meat, I would think that half a pound of ground beef is plenty--I felt like there was too much. But maybe that's just me. Anyway, make this. It will take you all of 25-30 minutes.

Thai Pocket Bread Sandwiches

1 lb. lean ground beef 2 T. soy sauce

2 small red peppers 2 T. lime juice

2 T. minced fresh ginger 1 t. sesame oil

4 cloves garlic, minced 3-4 pocket breads

1/2 t. crushed red pepper 1 tomato

1/2 c. chopped cilantro 6-8 lettuce leaves

3 T. chunky peanut butter

In a large frying pan, brown beef; drain off fat. Thinly slice peppers; add to pan along with ginger, garlic, and chilies; stir often until peppers are limp, 3-5 minutes . Stir together peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, and sesame oil; add to pan along with cilantro. Cut bread in half crosswise; core and slice tomato . Tuck equally into each half-round the tomato, lettuce, and meat mixture. Makes 6-8 pieces.

Tangerine Beef

This is kind of an Asian fusion recipe--according to the Bon Appetit I got it from, they made this at the Ritz in Shanghai. Perfect. We (the meat eaters among us) really enjoyed it--there's not a lot of tangerine flavor, which is kind of a shame, but it's still very much worth eating.

Tangerine Beef

Juice and grated zest of 2 large or 3 small tangerines

1 clove garlic, sliced

2 T. soy sauce

4 steaks of your choice (I used flank steak; the recipe called for tenderloin. Let your budget be your guide)

2 c. beef broth

1/3 c. ruby Port

1 star anise

2 T. olive oil

1-1/2 t. Szechuan (or regular) peppercorns (note: Szechuan peppercorns are legal again, but they still make your tongue numb!)

2 T. butter

8 oz. shiitake or regular mushrooms, sliced

2 large or 3 small shallots, diced

Mix together the tangerine juice/zest, garlic, and soy sauce in a large Zip-loc (or other container suitable for marinating). Add the steaks and refrigerate for 2-4 hours.

Remove steaks from the marinade and pour the marinade into a medium saucepan. Add the broth, Port, and star anise and boil to reduce down to about 3/4 c. This will take about 10 minutes. Take out the star anise and get ready to cook the steaks.

Heat the oven to 350. Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet. Coat the steaks with the peppercorns and then sear the steaks on both sides. Transfer them to a baking dish and let finish in the oven (if you like your steaks really rare, just have the oven on to about 225 to keep the steaks warm). Add the butter to the pan; when it has melted, add the mushrooms and shallots and sauté until the mushrooms start giving off juices. Add the reduced sauce, scraping up the browned bits in the pan, and let cook and reduce another 5 minutes or so. Season the sauce to taste.

Slice the steak thinly, especially if it's a flank steak or other less expensive cut, and serve with the sauce.

"Mole" chili

I have some Mexican friends who would have a heart attack if they saw this called mole. But it does have a nice complex flavor. I cut down on the cocoa a bit because Sami objects to tasting chocolate in a savory dish. Whatever. This recipe is from an old issue of Sunset, I'm pretty sure, and I've adapted it to (hopefully) avoid the toughness issue I had.

Lobo Chile Mole

2 lbs. beef chuck, in cubes 2 28-oz. cans tomatoes

3 large onions, chopped 2-1/2 c. beef broth

4 cloves garlic, chopped 1 can tomato paste

1 T. cumin seed 3 T. cocoa powder

2 t. oregano 3 T. chili powder

1 t. allspice 2 T. olive oil

In a 5-6 quart heavy pot with lid over medium-high heat, heat oil. Brown the meat on all sides; remove to a plate or bowl. Turn down the heat to medium and sauté the onions until they are translucent (probably about 10 minutes), being sure to scrape up any browned meat bits. Add a little water if those bits seem to be getting too brown. Add the garlic, cumin, oregano, allspice, chili powder, about 1 t. salt, and cocoa powder, and sauté another minute. Pour in the broth, then add the meat and any juices that have accumulated. Bring to a boil, then cover and turn down the heat to low. Simmer for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, or until the meat is becoming tender but not yet falling apart. Add the tomatoes and tomato paste and simmer for another half hour. Taste for seasoning--I needed to add some more chili to bump up the heat a bit.

Serve this over rice or with cornbread and with the accompaniments you like best--this is not an especially hot chili, so you may not need the whole cheese/sour cream thing. Maybe just some avocado and chopped tomato.

Italian Pot Roast

This recipe comes from my mother's tattered, grease-stained copy, "Fifth Printing, 1971," of Sunset's Favorite Recipes. It's precious to me because it includes my mom's notes on recipes, as well as my own, and even Alicia's. To wit: Mom's handwriting on the "Forgotten Short Ribs": "The whole family enjoyed this." Alicia's handwriting (looks like she might be 10 or so), "Minus one". A vegetarian in training.

Oh, yeah, it also has some good recipes. This one did not have Mom's writing on it, but it was definitely worth making. I made a few minor changes.

This is easy but cooks for a long time: plan ahead.

Italian Pot Roast

2 T. olive oil

3-4 lb. chuck roast (my butcher gave me beef shank--at least I think he did, since he pointed to his forearm)

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. pepper

1/4 t. ground ginger

2 large onions, sliced

4 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 c. white or red wine

1 oz. dried mushrooms (I used porcini, but a mix would be nice as well)

1 c. hot water

1 can tomato sauce

1 c. pitted olives (whatever kind you like)

Preheat the oven to 325. In a large oven-proof lidded skillet or Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Sprinkle the roast with the salt, pepper, and ginger and brown it well on all sides in the oil. Remove the meat, turn down the heat a bit, and sauté the onions until they are starting to turn golden. Add the garlic and cook another 30 seconds. Add the wine, scrape up the bottom, and let cook down just a bit. Put the roast in the pot, put some of the onions on top, and cover. Put in the oven and bake for 90 minutes.

While the roast is cooking, soak the mushrooms in the water. When the 90 minutes are about up, scoop the mushrooms out of the water (save that mushroom liquid!), squeeze them out a bit, and chop them roughly. Turn the roast over and add the mushrooms to the pot. Strain the mushroom liquid into the pot as well. Cover and put back in the oven for an hour. Add the tomato sauce and olives and cook yet another hour. Enjoy the way your kitchen smells. Take the meat from the sauce and slice it; check the seasoning of the sauce, and serve with pasta or potatoes or polenta. This probably serves at least 6.

Stuffed Flank Steak

My in-laws came for lunch today. They were the first guests we've had since we got to the apartment, which was how it needed to be. I had to come up with something conservative for them to eat--they are definitely of the meat-and-potato mindset. This is what I came up with: a salad with mâche, avocado, and almonds for a starter, this for a main course, and a fruit dessert I'll blog about later on the Maider Heatter site.

I think they liked it--I know Sami and I did. Flank steak usually comes in individual steaks here, so I asked my butcher to give me long, thin strips I could roll up. But the recipe as written is for one large steak--you could pound it or butterfly it to make it nice and thin and stuffable. The recipe also has you flour the steak before you sauté it, which I forgot to do, and frankly, I don't think it's necessary. Flour burns, too. One last thing--if you put some shallots and red wine in the pan after you take out the steaks, let that cook down a bit, and then add the juices from the baking sheet, you've got a nice pan sauce. But here's the recipe more less as written, from the June 2001 issue of Bon Appétit.

Stuffed Flank Steak Medallions

1-1/2 lb. flank steak (one piece)

2 minced garlic cloves

3 T. olive oil

1 bunch arugula (you really only need a small handful)

1 7-oz. jar sliced roasted red peppers, drained

6 thin slices prosciutto (about 2 oz.)

6 thin slices smoked Gouda (about 4 oz)

1 c. flour

1 T. paprika

2 t. salt

1 t. pepper

Pound or butterfly the steak until you have about a 9x10-inch rectangle. Whisk together garlic and olive oil; brush over the steak. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover meat with arugula, then peppers, prosciutto, and cheese. Roll the long way and tie with butcher's twine. Mix together the flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a large shallow dish. Roll the meat in the flour to coat (or just salt and pepper it).

Heat the oven to 350; heat the remaining 1 T. oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add meat and sear on all sides. This should take about 3-5 minutes. Bake the meat until cooked through (don't cook too long, though--about 150-160 on a meat thermometer should be plenty), about 45 minutes (I would check after 30 or less). Let meat rest 10 minutes. Remove string; cut meat into 1/2-inch-thick slices. I served this with the pan sauce above, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Fettucine with Salami and Mushrooms

After half a year of living in France and depending on the Internet for my recipes, I determined to put some of my older recipes that are not out there in Cyberland in the blog. So this is the first of what will hopefully be a series, mostly from 80s cookbooks and cooking magazines.

This recipe is adapted from one in a Sunset pasta cookbook that I picked up in Israel in the 80s--the same time and place I got my sideways haircut. Good times.

You can leave out the salami--I just sautéed it first and then set it aside for the meat eaters, creating a mushroom and leek pasta for my vegetarian daughter.

Fettuccine with Salami and Mushrooms

8 oz. dried (or fresh) fettuccine

1 T. olive oil

4 oz. dry salami, cut into 1/4-inch cubes

1/2 lb. mushrooms, sliced

2 leeks, cleaned and sliced thin (white and light green parts only)

Salt and pepper

1/4 c. white wine or vermouth

2/3 c. half and half

1 c. (3 oz.) freshly grated Parmesan (you may not need as much since the salami is so flavorful)

Put your (well-salted) pasta water on to boil before you start with the sauce. In a large skillet, sauté the salami with the mushrooms and leeks over medium-high heat until the vegetables are tender and the salami has rendered some fat. Season with salt and pepper, but go easy on the salt since salami is very salty. Add the wine and turn up the heat a bit; cook until the liquid has just about evaporated. Then add the cream and cook that down a bit as well. Hopefully by this point, you will have cooked and drained your fettuccine--add that to the pan along with half of the Parmesan and toss well. Serve with the remaining Parmesan and a pepper grinder. Serves 4.