Category: Meats

Beef Stew

One time I asked my mother what her favorite food was.  She thought about my question for a few seconds and then said, “I like anything that I don’t have to cook.”

By the time I asked her that question, my mother had been cooking for her family over sixty years.  Even if we subtract all the Friday Fish Fries, Sunday Buffets and lunches with friends that she had enjoyed over those six decades, I’m sure that she had still cooked at least 60,000 meals.  My mother was fifteen years old when her mother was  diagnosed with tuberculosis and admitted to the TB sanitarium in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Mom’s two older sisters were married and no longer living at home, so she became the housekeeper and cook for her father and two older brothers with the extra responsibility of mothering a younger brother and little sister.  When her mother came home cured from the sanitarium, she was still weak, so Mom kept cooking.  Then she married my father and soon was cooking for her own offspring.

For over sixty years, seven days a week and three times a day, she worked in her kitchen.  She baked bread, cakes, pies, cookies and other desserts; she fried bacon, eggs, sausage and pancakes for breakfast; she roasted hams, chickens, turkeys and pork shoulders; she baked beans, squash, meatloaf, casseroles and puddings; and she made soups and stews almost every week in the year.

Since we grew many of our own vegetables or bought them cheaply from local farmers, soups and stews were a good way to satisfy big appetites without spending a fortune.  And of course, even tough cuts of meat become tender if you simmer them long enough.  Many of Mom’s stews included diced rutabaga, a vegetable which is no longer as popular as it once was.  Rutabaga adds a subtle sweetness to a stew that turns an ordinary dish into something really special.

Be sure to use it in the recipe which follows.  Even if you think you don’t like rutabaga, give it a chance.  This stew has made converts of many who knew they hated the root.

INGREDIENTS:

2 – 2 1/2  lbs. inexpensive cut of beef (chuck roast or similar)

1 large yellow onion 

1 clove garlic

2 to 3 cups of tomato juice

2 to 3 cups of dry red wine 

1/8 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. sugar

2 T butter

2 T cooking oil

1/2 tsp. basil

1 bay leaf

Pinch of cloves

Pinch of cinnamon

1/8 tsp. cayenne

1/8 tsp. marjoram

3 or 4 medium carrots

3 or 4 ribs of celery

2 or 3 medium potatoes

1 small rutabaga (3 to 4 inch diameter)

2 T flour whisked into a half cup of water

1 small can of sliced mushrooms (optional)

PROCEDURE:

Cut the meat into about one-inch cubes discarding bones and excessive fat.   Heat the butter and oil in a Dutch oven or other large pot holding at least 8 quarts.  Brown the meat in batches and set the cubes aside to drain on a paper towel.  While the meat is browning, remove the papery outer layer from the onion and garlic clove, chop the onion into half inch pieces and mince the garlic.

When all the meat has been browned, turn down the heat and add the onions to the pot.  Cook slowly without browning for three or four minutes until the onions are translucent.  Add the garlic and return the meat to the pot.  

Add equal amounts of tomato juice and wine to cover the meat, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about an hour stirring once or twice.  Add all the herbs and spices at this time with more liquid if necessary, and let the pot simmer another hour.  

While the meat is cooking, clean and chop the carrots into 1/4 inch slices.  Clean and chop the celery into 1/2 inch slices.  Peel and cut the potatoes and rutabaga into 1/2 by 1 inch pieces.  Add the vegetables to the pot with equal amounts of juice and wine to cover them.  

Simmer for thirty-five minutes.  Whisk the flour into a half cup of cold water and stir this mixture into the stew until the broth thickens slightly.  At this time add a small can of sliced mushrooms to the stew or add some fresh braised mushrooms if you wish.

Taste and correct the seasoning if necessary and serve with a glass of the dry wine, plenty of good homemade bread and perhaps a salad on the side.  

NOTES:  Don’t forget the rutabaga!  Mom did not use wine in her stews, but she liked my beef stew.  I do wonder sometimes if maybe that was just because she didn’t have to cook it.

Linguine With Summer Peppers and Sausage

Every cabin should have a stack of old food magazines.  They’re perfect reading for those days when you are trapped by bad weather miles from shopping malls, movie theaters and sidewalks.

Food magazines don’t have news stories, political cartoons, investment advice columns or movie reviews.  They do have ads, photos, advice columns and an occasional editorial.  And of course they have lots of recipes.

Our collection of old  Bon Appetite and Cuisine magazines includes issues from the 1980’s and 90’s.  They are filled with things I didn’t know.  For instance, in the July-August 1981 edition of Cuisine there’s an ad for a zucchini cookbook.  I can only think that the author must have planted ten hills of zucchini and was desperately trying to find ways to justify the mistake.

Letters to the editor in the same issue are relevant today.  From one writer I learned, for instance, that one of my favorite wines, Gewürztraminer, goes well with Indian cuisine.  I wish I had known this two years ago when there was a case price special on that wonderful wine at the local store.

The editorial in the August 1995 issue of Bon Appetite is a a philosophical essay. Among other matters “The Real Dirt on Gardens” addresses the question of whether “leisure activity” is an oxymoron.  The editor’s conclusion is that “Leisure is leisure and activity is activity and never the twain shall meet.  Not on my sofa, anyway.”  Clear, concise and accurate.

My wife was ignoring me and reading this issue while lying on the bed in front of our newly installed room air conditioner when she announced that she had found a recipe that looked good to her.  In the newly cooled air of the bedroom I first learned about “Linguine with Summer Peppers and Sausage,” one of the recipes in the “30 Minute Main Courses” article from long ago.

All I will say is, “It’s delicious!”

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. mild or sweet Italian sausage
2 large bell peppers, preferably red and green
1 medium onion (3 to 4 inches)
1 large clove garlic
1 cup dry white wine (sauvignon blanc works well)
1 lb. linguine
Salt for the linguine cooking water
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese plus more to pass

PROCEDURE:

First begin heating three to four quarts of water in a large pot.  Peel and thinly  slice the onion .  Then wash the peppers.  Remove the stem, seeds and white membrane and chop the peppers into half inch pieces.   Remove the paper from the garlic clove and mince it.

Sauté the sausage in a large skillet until it is lightly browned.  Break the sausage into bite-sized pieces as it is browning.  Depending on your sausage, either drain the meat or add a little oil.  You should have about a tablespoon of oil in the pan.  Add the onion, garlic and peppers and sauté until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.  Add the wine and simmer until the wine is slightly reduced, about six or seven minutes.

While the meat and peppers are simmering, cook the linguine al dente, following the directions on the pasta package.  Drain the pasta and mix it with the sausage and peppers.  Stir in the parmesan cheese.  Add a little salt and pepper and taste.  Adjust as necessary.

Serve with salad and bread for a wonderful but simple dinner.  Pass the parmesan so guests can add more if they wish.

NOTES:  Any sweet summer peppers can be used.  You should have two to three cups of chopped peppers.  Chardonnay can be substituted for the sauvignon blanc.