Category: Main Dishes

Aunt Dorothy’s Beef Tips In Gravy

A couple of years ago when I was at the supermarket trying to find two cans of dark red kidney beans for Jerri, I asked a young woman adding cans to her shopping cart for help. She was, I would guess, under thirty and very capable. In about two seconds she found the dark reds hidden next to their light red cousins. After thanking her, I asked what she was cooking for dinner.

“Oh I’m pretty much a heat and eat cook,” she answered. The phrase has stuck with me, for I too am a heat and eat cook occasionally. Give me a can of corned beef hash and I can turn it into a delicious breakfast just by adding heat and making toast. I’m fairly talented at baking frozen pizzas too, and I can warm a can of clam chowder that always makes me think of Ishmael and Queequeg eating supper at the Try Pots on Nantucket.

Aunt Dorothy’s recipe for Beef Tips In Gravy is not heat and eat, but it is simple enough for the most timid cook. The results will surprise you and your guests. Imagine how you will feel when someone at the table exclaims, “This is delicious! The meat is so tender and the gravy is wonderful.”

You will need to prepare yourself for the inevitable question: “Can you give me the recipe?” You could of course confess that it’s just cans of stuff and dried soup mix and spoil their enjoyment. Or you could say, “It’s a recipe from an old aunt, and I don’t have her permission to share it.” A true statement and everyone will be happy, including Aunt Dorothy.

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/2–3 lbs. beef
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sherry
1 package dried onion soup mix
1 4 oz. can mushroom pieces and stems

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 325º.

Trim any excess fat from the meat and cut it into one-inch cubes or one half- by two-inch strips. Mix the meat with the soup, the soup mix, sherry and mushrooms in a bowl.

Put everything into a three quart casserole and bake covered for about three hours. Stir after each hour and add a little wine or water if the gravy seems to be drying out or getting too thick.

Serve over rice or noodles with bread and salad.

NOTES: Any inexpensive cut of beef will work. Use a dry or semi-dry sherry. Do not use cooking sherry, as it is simply cheap wine with salt added.

Aunt Dorothy said that the mushrooms were optional. She also noted that you can cook this recipe in a crockpot: Stir the ingredients together and put them in the crockpot set on high. After an hour reduce the heat to low and cook for about six hours.

This recipe will serve six to eight people, but you can cut it in half. Be careful to add no more than half a package of dried soup mix, as it has a lot of salt in it.

Grandma Emma’s Swedish Meatballs

Here is another recipe from Pegi’s grandmother, Emma Ada Melrose, that she passed on to her daughter and granddaughter. Dale and Pegi brought these Swedish meatballs to a church potluck a few years ago, and I asked for the recipe. Most Scandinavian recipes are light on spices, but Grandma Emma’s doesn’t call for any at all, unless you want to call salt a spice.

Apparently Pegi’s grandmother devised a shortcut by using a can of condensed cream of celery soup rather than the more traditional milk or cream and various spices one finds in most Swedish meatball recipes. The list of ingredients for condensed cream of celery soup includes “flavorings” which suggests spices. I was a bit apprehensive when I saw that not even black pepper was in the recipe, but I followed instructions, and my meatballs were as tasty as those I remembered.

Jerri thinks that Grandma Emma probably put this recipe together in the 1950’s when almost every cook in the United States was experimenting with condensed Campbell’s soups. That statement, incidentally, includes my mother and aunts, who fed us kids dozens of dishes promoted by the Campbell Soup Company. Jerri’s Green Bean Casserole is one deriving from that time that I still love. Since Campbell’s introduced cream of celery soup in 1913, it’s possible that the recipe is even older.

The one thing I know for certain is that this is a recipe worth making once in a while. It’s extremely simple and produces Swedish meatballs just as good as most of those I have enjoyed over the years at many a lutefisk dinner. Serve the meatballs with boiled or mashed potatoes and a vegetable. If you want to be a true Wisconsinite, pass a bowl of cranberry sauce as well.

INGREDIENTS:

1 can condensed cream of celery soup
1/2 cup water
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 egg
2 T minced onion
2/3 cup dry bread crumbs
1 tsp. salt
A little extra water

PROCEDURE:

Blend the water into the condensed soup in a small bowl to make a smooth sauce. Combine a quarter cup of the sauce with the ground beef. Lightly beat an egg and mince two tablespoons of onion. Thoroughly mix the egg, onion, bread crumbs and salt with the meat.

Lightly oil a large skillet and shape the meat into balls about an inch in diameter. Brown them in batches over moderate heat, leaving room to turn the balls without breaking them. Once all the meatballs have been browned, drain any extra fat from the skillet. Return the meatballs to the skillet and add a tablespoon or two of water. Cover the skillet and simmer the meatballs about twenty minutes until they are done.

When the meatballs are fully cooked, you can cool and store them and the sauce in the refrigerator. Later you can mix the sauce with the meatballs and heat them thoroughly in a pan, casserole or microwavable bowl before serving. If you wish to serve them immediately, mix the hot meatballs with the sauce and continue simmering them for another ten or fifteen minutes.