Beef Roast & Caramelized Onions

The concept was pretty simple: caramelize the onions and bake the meat in with the onions surrounding it.

Recipe below. But first, some pics.

Take 3 onions (medium):

Julienne thinly [long, thin, slices]

Put oil in a pan; use a bunch., cover the bottom. It's olive oil so it's good for you (Mediterranean diet and all that).

Decide that 3 onions are too many and only use two.
Sauté slowly over medium heat to extract the starches/sugars and get them good and brown (see below). This could take up a half an hour. Stir less often than you are inclined to.

Nice chunk of meat. it's obviously grainy so will need to cook slowly. Probably 125C [250F] instead of the usual 175C.

And cook it in liquid. In this case wrap it in lots of aluminum foil to cook it in its own juices. The onions will be in the packet too to add fluid and flavour.

Brown the meat in a frying pan. Really well.

This is not burnt, it's browned; really well browned. Remember, it's going to be wrapped in foil while baked and won't colour any further.

These are the onions, carmalized. Nice and coloured and sweetened.

Only oil and a touch of salt.

After an hour and a half in the oven (at 125C - or lower), wrapped, with the caramelized onions and 2 cloves (whole) of garlic, it looks like this when unwrapped.


Sliced.

Beef Roast & Caramelized Onion

Ingredients

• ½ kg onions, julienne [1#] [long thin strips]
  
• olive oil, generous
  
• 1 t salt
  
• ½ kg stewing beef (alito de añejo) [1#]
• 1 C white wine (for deglazing the pans)
  
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled & slightly crushed

Procedure

1. Sauté [fry] onions over medium heat for a long long time (30 minutes), until quite browned
• Add a little salt towards the end
2. Meanwhile, brown the meat very well, both sides and the edges
• Deglaze the meat pan with ½ C dry white wine
• Reduce almost completely and pour into the onions
3. Finish deglazing the pan onion pan with a ½ C of dry white wine
• Reduce
  
4. Place half the onions on a large sheet of aluminum foil
5. Top the onions with the meat
6. Top the meat with the other half of the onions
7. Top these onions with 2 smushed cloves of garlic
8. Wrap the foil package up and seal the edges
9. Stick it in the oven at 125C [250F] leave it there for 1½ hours

Done

Notes

1. Internal temp of the beef will be 65C when it's more or less done [150F] - then leave it to stew in its own juices for at least 10 minutes.
   
2. When browning the meat, put it in the pan and leave it alone. Let the heat do its work. I, for example, left it on high heat for 1 full minute each side. It initially sticks to the pan but more or less releases once it's good and toasty.
   
3. It's stewing beef so low slow cooking in fluids is the trick to getting this to tenderize
4. The onions will start to turn brown (caramelize) and stick to the bottom of the pan after their water has evaporated; so, for the first half of the time you're softening and cooking them and it's only during the second part that any browning actually happens.
5. Degalzing the pans gets the stuff that sticks to the pan to release and lets you uses these flavours in the rest of the dish- and it makes the pan much easier to clean later (no scrubbing)
6. Reducing the "sauces" made when deglazing concentrates the flavours and evaporates most of the alcohol from the wine; preventing any "winey" acidic alcohol taste.
7. On reflection the oven temp could have been even lower and the time even longer (100C for 2 hours maybe [210F])
   

When I tasted this dish I realized that I'd more or less duplicated, by (fortunate) accident, a dish that my mother used to make; some sort of onion-beef stew. But she didn't wrap it in foil and browned the onions less; and she certainly didn't use the white wine part of the recipe. There would have probably been a laurel leaf in it and flour to thicken the "gravy". I shall have to give her a call and see what the old family recipe was. Mom, if you're reading this drop us a line. maybe pull out the good old The Pillsbury Cookbook probably a 1960's edition) and see if I'm close to being right.

Beef Stew w/ Galangal & Juniper: The Recipe

So, have you gone out and bought your galanga powder and dried juniper berries? They are the secret ingredients in this stew. That, and some beer.

Here's that darn recipe for beef stew I keep not writing about.

Ingredients
Main

• 4 Tbs Olive oil, virgin
• 2 kg Stewing beef, cubes (4#)
• 1 kg Onions, julienne (2#)
• 4 cloves Garlic, slightly crushed
• 5 each Shallots, julienne
• 1 kg Green peppers, chopped (2#)

Liquids

• 1 can beer (33 cl)
• 1 liter Stock, beef (1 quart)
• water

Spices

• 1 tsp Galanga powder
• 1 stick Cinnamon, whole
• 2 each Cloves, whole
• 2 each Chili peppers, dried, whole
• 5 each Juniper berries, dried, whole
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper

Other Stuff

• 400 gr Tomatoes, whole, stewed (14 oz)
• 1/2 kg Potatoes, baby (1#)

Procedure

1. Olive oil into a large deep pan (dutch oven / french oven)
2. Brown meat, in batches, high heat, without the pieces touching. Until they are really really brown, almost so you think it's burnt (although it's not). If water develops in the bottom of the pan drain it off and continue. Water would mean you're "boiling" the meat;and you don't want that. Set aside.
3. Brown the onions in the same pan, medium heat, until soft (not crispy). Add the shallots & garlic towards the end (because they burn more easily). Set aside.
4. Braise the green peppers; until softened
5. Put the onions back in the pan. Put the meat back in.
6. Deglaze the pan with 1 can of beer
7. Add about 1 liter beef stock (not the reconstituted powdered kind). And/or add water to cover.
8. Add galanga powder, cloves, juniper berries, chiles (split and deseeded), cinnamon. Add salt & pepper.
9. Simmer but DO NOT BOIL at any time. Boiling is EVIL.
10. For up to 1 1/2 hours (depending on the meat tenderness)
11. After 30 minutes add the tomatoes.
12. When it's done, the meat is tender, add the baby potatoes (cut in half). Cook for 15 minutes more (for the potatoes)

Notes

1. Never ever ever let the meat boil. Never.
• makes it tough
2. Even better than olive oil is to use peanut oil to sear meat - very hot
• if it stops browning it's too wet; or gets liquidy in the pan; drain it and re-oil & continue searing
• brown it 'til really good and brown and maybe you think it's burnt
3. The French technique is to prepare all the ingredients independently then put it all back together in the pan. It seems like more work but it's actually easier to cook each thing _correctly_ and individually than it is to dig around in a mess of different ingredients cooking together.

Servings: 8
Calories: 715

Republished: due to some horrible formatting errors (thanks Shalee)

Total Lack of Inspiration & Beef Stew

It's been raining, I've had a cold and spring is probably at least a week away. Bah.

Due to a total lack of inspiration to finish my post about Galanga Beef Stew (which is 75% done but the last 25% seems all uphill) I hereby present the notes I partially worked from while making the dish. They're from the Cordon Bleu course I took in Basic Cuisine last year.

When cooking stuff I typically reference about a half dozen different recipes and I actually read them (not just browsing the ingredients). Then I make up something just slightly different (or, one might say, slightly the same)

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#8 Estouffade de Bœuf Bourguignonne : Beef Burgandy Stew

Marinade was yesterday.
This is made with shoulder meat.

An interesting link about Boeuf Borg. at LES TECHNIQUES DE BASE EN CUISINE

Traditional garnishes are turned potatoes, glazed pearl onions, sautéed mushrooms, and lardon

A key here is - always strain everything whenever it's changing pans
Important points:

• Never ever ever let the meat boil, not before the oven, nor in the oven, nor afterwards
• makes it tough
• Use peanut oil to sear meat - very hot
• if it stops browning it's too wet; or gets liquidy in the pan; drain it and re-oil & continue searing
• brown it 'til really good and brown and maybe you think it's burnt
• remove to a bowl (you'll flour it later)
  
• do veggies in same pan (sweat - don't brown)
  
• deglaze (w/ fond) & put in sauce
• prepare sauce - e.g. tomato paste but not too much! makes it acidic later
  
• Boil wine/blood juice sauce to remove the blood effect - skim (straining later will finish skimming the last of the scum)
• Roast the flour (get rid of gluten / gluey taste)
• veggies into oven pan, meat into pan, sauce over meat; top up with fond to cover (at least 90%)
• rind of the lardon goes into the estouffade and any cartilage from trimming the lardon
  
• into oven to only simmer - never boil (200c / 1 hr)
  
• out of oven; pick out meat (put on standby); strain vegs (toss 'em); boil & skim sauce
• adjust seasoning

Note: Fats get/capture flavor first (e.g. in sauces); then gives it up to water later - and the fat can be skimmed off
this works real well in long cooked things like Beef B.

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And since I'm messing around and not providing anything particularly useful I'll toss in a picture somewhat at random. This one is about a meter (yard) on each side and hangs in the salon (living room)at my house.

Beef Stew w/ Junipers

I believe I've got the recipe put back together. The big thing with this one was the oldfashioned french cooking techniques I used. While I document those here's a picture to hold us over.

Galanga, Juniper, Cinnamon

I made a quick beef stew for the family before I went out for the evening. Reports came in (via SMS on the mobile phone) that it was fantastic. Very gratifying.

The next trick is trying to reconstruct what exactly I did; since I was being inventive and not really paying attention. I do recall that it had some unusual flavour components (spices) including galanga, powder juniper berries, cloves and cinnamon.

Let me work on it and I'll get back to you.

Stewing Meat: Morcillo

I needed to make a simple dish (easy [lazy]) and had some parameters that limited what I could use for ingredients (low carb, fat, salt etc). And besides, it's hot out and I don't want to spent much time in the kitchen (35 C [95 degrees F] in the garden today).

Simple Beef Stew

Ingredients:

• 1 kg beef; stewing meat; trimmed and cut into small cubes
• 2 red onions (julienne)
  
• 1 white onion (julienne)
  
• 4 cloves garlic (chopped)
  
• 3 carrots (halved, the long way)
  
• 2 T dry sherry
• 2 T sweet sherry
• 1/2 c veal stock (beef broth)
  
• 1 Boldo leaf (or laurel)
• 1 T sage
  
• water
  
• pepper
• salt (very little)
  

Procedure:

1. Start with a whole piece of stewing beef (not pre-cut at the store) and trim off the fat, grissle and silvery parts. This can remove up to 25% of the weight of the beast - but gives you a lean result (very healthy) that's got no nasty bits in the final dish.
2. Oven to 190C (375 F) (you need it later)
   
3. Oil in an ovenproof pan; just to barely coat the bottom (less if you're using non-stick; although stainless steel gives the best result)
   
4. On top of the stove, brown the meat; the pieces should be just barely touching in the (hot) pan. Do it in a couple of batches if you have to. Brown it until the meat's well colored and the liquids that the process produces are more or less cooked away.
• This is an important step that professionals do better than typical home cooks. Be patient; it takes time to brown the meat well.
  
• Set browned meat aside
5. Saute the onions (I mixed red and white/yellow - I don't know why)
• Until starting to get soft (this too takes some time [10 minutes maybe])
6. The onions will start taking up the residual stuff left over from browning the meat
   
7. Add garlic and cook that a little too
8. Push the onions to the edges , add dry sherry to the center and flamé a little (mine failed to burn properly; I should have prewarmed the sherry instead of just pouring it into the pan). This step is to help clean residues from the bottom of the pan (deglaze).
   
9. Add sweet sherry (this is for flavor) (no flames here)
   
10. Add carrots (no particular cooking needed) [these are for flavor more than anything else)
    
11. Add back the meat
12. Pepper generously
13. Add veal stock (for flavour)
14. Plus boldo leaf (if you can find it [a great alternative to laurel])
15. Plus sage
16. Water to almost cover the meat
17. Set heat to high and bring the liquids just barely to a bubble (don't boil; it makes the meat tough)
18. Into the oven for 3 hours - check/stir every hour or so (I left it uncovered)
• I let it get fairly thick, but not dry

Done

Notes:

1. It comes down to this being a recipe of Meat, Onions, Garlic, Carrots and some flavoring
• Cube meat; brown; sauté onions & garlic; add carrots, liquids and spices; cook
  
2. Probably the flambé-ing step should be after the meat is browned. Then reduce that to almost dry before sauté-ing the onions.
   
3. Check for salt / seasoning 1/2 way through the cooking; once the liquid's reduced somewhat
   
4. Boldo leafs are stronger than Laurel - use a 1/2 to 1/3 as much
   

= End =