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.

Christmas Pudding (Gran's)

I love a good pudding.
This one is old fashioned, a very small amount of flour and lots of bread crumbs.  It reminds me of a bread and butter pudding, with loads of eggs and fruit and cooked in a water bath or a steamer.  As I was putting the mix together it didn't feel quite right so I booted off an email to Lucy, who has been making the family Christmas puddings for some years now.  She said had always cooked the recipe from Aunt Happy. Lu felt I had the wrong recipe... I scouted through the book and realised that Nonna has 2 recipes , this one is Gran's, her mothers.  I will do Happy's later.

It was a cold winters night, a perfectly lovely time to eat Christmas Pudding. We stirred brandy into the warm custard, just before serving.  Gran served a Clear Brandy Sauce, the recipe is in Nonna's book, but I'm not a fan, it is just brandy, water and sugar thickened with arrowroot.  I prefer Brandy Custard, or Brandy Butter or just Brandy flambe' - pour some brandy onto the pud and light carefully!

225g Currants
225g Raisins
120g Sultanas
½ Glass Rum/Brandy (⅓ cup?)
225g Butter
¾ cup Sugar
½ cup Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tabs Mixed Spice
½ Loaf Stale Breadcrumbs (2 cups?)

5 Eggs

1. Mix fruit with Brandy
2. Cream Butter and Sugar, I used brown sugar, but the recipe didn't specify so white would be ok too.
3. Add eggs one at a time
4. Sift Flour, Baking Powder and Mixed Spice
5. Fold Flour, Bread Crumbs, and Fruits and Brandy into Butter mixture
6. Spoon into well greased and paper lined pudding tin.  Secure the tin so that there is no chance of water leaking inside. I used strings to secure and the paper from a block of butter to line the tin. Make sure that you keep an eye on the process so that there is always plenty of water in the saucepan and boil 4 - 5 hours.
7. Store in the fridge until Christmas and then boil a further 2 hours before serving with brandy Custard.

Recipe for Boiled Custard in another post soon!

N.B. How much is half a loaf of bread in Gran's language? And I'm sure it wasn't fluffy white sliced, so I actually used Gluten Free Potato Bread and decided to measure it out to 2 cups, perhaps you could use a little less, certainly no more. And any bread really would be fine.
How much is half a glass of brandy in Gran's language, a brandy balloon? a sherry glass? I decided it doesn't really matter and settled for a measured 1/3 cup, again you could easily put in more.

Beef Guide for Slow Cooking

With so much meat being bought from the supermarket it is more difficult to work out the best cut for cooking with, I find it confusing and I worked in a butcher shop at some point in my food career!

I have been thinking more about which beef cut I’ll use as I make my way through Mum’s recipe book. Her book re-introduces me to beef cuts that I rarely use so I thought I would write a short beef guide for slow cooking.

In general people seem to find it difficult to work out the best cut for cooking with, I find it confusing too and I worked in a butcher shop at some point in my food career!

Perhaps it is because we eat less red meat these days.  We have easy access to a wide range of fresh fruit and vegetables, seafood and chicken, and beef has slipped down the ranking in my kitchen and I’m sure in yours too!  I never do a Roast Beef it is almost always a Roast Organic Chicken, weighing in just under 2kg, smothered in garlic, herbs and seasonings (details another day).  So I have become less experienced with beef buying and today I had some questions to ponder:

Which cut of beef is suitable for various cooking methods? 

When the label says casserole meat, what cut is it?

What part of the beast did it come from?

What did that beast feed on?

Looking at meat in a supermarket display, lined up on trays under plastic film and bright lights it is hard to even think about the animal it came from.  I prefer to talk to the local butcher, get a feel for some honest and sustainable supply chains. The butcher makes me think that the meat is fresher, he knows where the meat comes from and if they are grain fed, I feel closer to the farmyard.  Of course buying our meat at the Wayville Farmers Market on Sundays is a better option.  I never feel very organized when I am there to buy meat up for too many meals… I should think about that really.

Beef Guide for Slow Cooking

The Braising/Casserole meats have lots of connective tissues that will melt to tenderness when braised in a flavoursome stock, with herbs and vegetables and perhaps wine, cook slowly and carefully

Chuck Steak      can be a little fatty but good flavour      cook 2-3 hours

Gravy Beef       melts in the mouth easy to use      cook 2-3 hours

Boneless Shin      flavoursome and tender, my favourite    cook 2-3 hours

Osso Bucco (shin, bone-in)      lovely flavour, bone keeps the structure   cook 2-3 hours

Topside      not my choice for a slow cook, too dry     cook 1½- 2 hours

Round**        lean, clean flavour, can be expensive   cook 1½- 2 hours

Blade (Oyster Blade)      similar to shin, great flavour   cook 1½- 2 hours

Skirt Steak                     easy to cut, lean and tasty  cook    1½- 2 hours

Casserole Steak              never too sure what it is, I avoid unspecific labelled meat

** On display at my butcher they have lovely “round” round steaks for $23.99/kg sold as BBQ steaks. And other braising steaks are available at around $17/kg, maybe as low as $12/kg in the supermarket. To cook the Danish Beef Steak I wanted to cook it just like Mum would.  So I asked my butcher if he could find me some regular, old fashioned round steaks. He sliced 1.5 kg straight off the round part of beef from out the back of the shop, and he reduced the price to $18/kg for his trouble, which was much appreciated. The round steak had an intense beefy flavour and was very tender.

To clarify and avoid confusion over the correct terminology I have referred to one of my favourite cook books to check some terminology: Stephanie Alexander (1996), The Cooks Companion (Viking/Penguin).

1. Braising is to cook meat, slowly in the oven with aromatic vegetables, herbs and stock

2. Meat cooked on the stovetop it is called a Stew, it usually has more liquid.
3. Cooking meat slowly in liquids is also called a Casserole, but actually it is the container, heavy based and with and with tightly fitted lid that is the Casserole.

             

Glad to have that cleared up!

·  

When I was in Japan recently beef was selling for around $80/kg. Very expensive and really the only beef they have has all those fatty sections through it, (see above) called Kobe or Hida beef.  So for these reasons I ate lots of seafood, chicken and vegetables in Japan. 

Aubergine Parmigiana

I've eaten several versions of Aubergine Parmigiana here and in Italy and they have all been amazing.  I am an aubergine/eggplant fan, anytime it is on a menu I will order it, Indians and Japanese also do incredible dishes with this versatile and 'to die for' vegetable. Tonight, start of the week I usually cook something simple, that may give us some leftovers for Al's lunch tomorrow, something gluten free of course and it is cold so we are looking for warming nourishing meals. My favourite classical Italian cookbooks are "Jamie's Italy" and Marcella Hazan's "Classical Italian Cooking" (for details see my page on "Great Recipe Books"). The version I cooked tonight is a cross over with the classic and a version that an Italian girl Nadia shared with me. Her mother slices the aubergine paper thin and then drops it into a cheesy eggy batter to fry up and then layer upon layer with tomato salsa and cheese on top.  Mine is a combination of these recipes I hope you like it!

AUBERGINE PARMIGIANA

2 large Aubergines (make sure they are high quality glossy black)
cooking salt
3/4 cup grated Cheese (use Mozzarella, Parmesan or Cheddar, your choice)
Batter
3 Eggs
3 tabs Water
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan
2 tabs Rice crumbs/Bread crumbs
Olive Oil
Tomato Salsa
2 Onions finely chopped
2 cloves Garlic finely chopped
2 tins chopped Tomatoes
1 sm tub Tomato Paste
ground Black Pepper
chopped Fresh Herbs

1. Slice the Aubergine thickly, layer into a colander with a generous sprinkle of salt, leave for 30 mins
2. Rinse Aubergine well and pat dry
3. Break eggs into a medium bowl, whisk and stir in other batter ingredients, mix well
4. Heat heavy based frying pan, add a good cover of oil and when hot, but not smoking add pieces of  Aubergine that has been dredged through the batter, coat well before adding to hot oil

5. Fry all of the pieces, keeping the pan topped up with oil. So that they don't get too greasy keep the oil pretty hot, without letting it burn.
6. Meanwhile make the Tomato Salsa by cooking Onions and Garlic in a little oil until soft and golden
7. Add Tomato paste and stir over heat for 2 mins and then add Tomatoes and Herbs and Spices, cook gently 10 minutes
8. Layer fried Aubergine slices, Tomato Salsa and grated Cheeses, ending with Salsa and Cheese.
9. Bake in moderate oven 180˚C

Serve as a side dish, or with a simple green salad.

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.