Steak Temoana

This is an old recipe of Mum's that I haven't seen her cook for years. It is delicious and dead easy to make, also very low fat if you trim the meat well. In Nonna's day many recipes had their flavour boosted with tinned or packet soups and you will see them used a lot in this blog. These soups are little sachets of salt, stock powder, dried veges, and inexplicable additives so I usually prefer to replace them with alternate ingredients as described below. This way I can control how much salt I'm using and avoid all the additives, fresh is best!

1- 1.5 kg Blade Steak

½ tsp Curry Powder

1 pkt dried Mushroom Soup (**use replacement for GF)

2 tsp Mixed Spice

1 cup Dry Sherry

1 tabs Tomato Sauce

¼ cup Vinegar

1 tabs Worcestershire Sauce

2 chopped Onions

12 stoned Prunes

12 Pineapple chunks (tinned)

1. Measure Curry, Mushroom Soup and Spices into a plastic bag

2. Cut meat into 3-4cm squares

3. Toss meat into plastic bag and shake until meat evenly coated

4. Place into casserole dish with other ingredients placing Prunes and Pineapple on top

5. Cook 2 hours in moderate oven 165ºC

** Instead of using the dried Mushroom Soup you can replace it with 2 tsp beef stock powder, 3 tsp GF flour, ½ tsp black pepper, ½ tsp salt. Place in plastic bag with other ingredients as above.  Add a handful of fresh mushrooms sliced or 50g dried porcini mushrooms that have been soaked in hot water for 5 mins and then sliced, add soaking liquid as well.

Swiss Bliss

SWISS BLISS
1 kg (2lbs) Blade or Chuck steak

1 tabs butter

1 pkt French Onion Soup Mix

½ green Capsicum (Pepper)

2 Tomatoes

½ cup Tomato Juice

1 tabs Worcestershire Sauce*

Salt & Pepper

1 tabs Cornflour

Arrange meat pieces in the centre of large sheet of buttered alfoil,
I found that 2 alfoil parcels was easier to handle. Over the meat

sprinkle soup mix, chopped Capsicum and sliced Tomatoes,

season with Salt & Pepper, mix Tomato Juice

and Cornflour pour over meat,

seal with ends of alfoil, place envelope in shallow baking dish,

bake 2 hours in mod oven 170ºC,  sprinkle with chopped Parsley before serving,

Swiss Bliss is surprisingly good!  I always thought that braising steaks needed a lot of liquid for them to tenderise sufficiently to my liking, we used Oyster Blade steak and it was melt in the mouth, and lovely flavours. I don’t usually buy tomato juice, no one will drink it and the only container I located was a 1 litre can.  Wishing not to waste the left over juice that I’m sure would have decayed in the back of our fridge I used tomato puree instead and included a dessertspoon of water.

* “Lea & Perrins” brand Worcestershire sauce is the one Dad loved in his homemade cocktail sauce for Sydney Rock Oysters: Tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Lemon juice, Pepper and Salt and a dash of Cream. Delicious X

Danish Beef Steak

Many family recipe books show the influence of our European migrants so we expect to see Italian, French, Greek, and Spanish influences.  Mum was more inclined towards open Danish sandwiches (recipes to come in a later post) and today it is Danish Beef Steak and soon it will be Swiss Bliss.  They both sound very exotic, and there is something to be said about a good name.  Probably influenced during one of their many overseas business trips, Mum must have come home all inspired.  (After my recent trip to Japan I went immediately to the Asian grocery stores at the Adelaide Central Markets to stock up on nori, soy and tofu etc).  These are two recipes for good old-fashioned slow cooked meals using cheaper cuts of beef that are transformed into tender, tasty comfort meals that we all really enjoyed.

Danish Beef Steak

Serve with steamed vegetables

1 kg (1½ lb*) Round Steak*

1 large Brown Onion

2 Bay Leaves

¾ cup Red Wine

2 tabs Butter

2 tabs Flour

1 cup Stock

Salt, Pepper, Dried Herbs, pinch of each

2 cloves Garlic

1 Carrot

1 stalk Celery

Cut steak into pieces approx. 4-5cm square. Place meat in a casserole dish, add Onion, Bay Leaves and Wine. Stand overnight in the fridge.  Heat butter in a fry pan and brown the meat in small batches.  Add the flour to the pan and mix into the butter, keep stirring then add all other ingredients.  Bring to the boil, place the meat back into the casserole dish.  Pour in the vege mixture. Cook about 1½ hours in moderate oven 150°C.

*Recipe has been adjusted and rounded up to metric, and altered where I thought was necessary to complete the dish.

When I cooked this I took the meat out of the marinade and dredged each piece in flour. Then browned the meat in the butter.  Because the meat was wet from the wine, it was too heavily coated in the flour and the resulting dish has a gravy that was too thick, so I have changed the method to ensure that you get a better result.  Do let me know how it works for you.