Tag: vegetables

Braised Top Round Beef Roast

To paraphrase Juliet in Shakespeare’s wonderful love story, “A braised beef roast by any other name would taste as good.”

Call it a pot roast if you like. Brown the beef well, add some vegetables and a cooking liquid in which to simmer the meat, and you will have a braised beef roast. Braising is a cooking method for turning a tougher cut of meat into a tender main course for dinner. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word comes from a French word, “braiser,” which means hot charcoal.

In the eighteenth century, “braise” came into English to describe a method of cooking a la braise, which the O.E.D. describes as “to stew in a tightly-closed pan (properly with a charcoal fire above and below), the meat being surrounded with slices of bacon, herbs, etc.” Neither the French nor we use charcoal fires to braise beef or cook pot roasts today, but we all enjoy a good roast.

The source of the heat is not really important. Electric, gas or wood ranges work equally well. However, you cannot make a true pot roast or braised beef roast in a slow cooker, since you need to sear the meat in a hot pan or Dutch oven before adding the other ingredients.

The recipe below creates a rich flavorful roast. The bacon and parsnip add a complexity of flavor lacking in conventional pot roasts, hence my naming it Braised Top Round Beef Roast. You could use bottom round roast if you prefer. A chuck roast has more fat, so it might not work as well. I would suggest making an Easy Beef Pot Roast with it instead.

INGREDIENTS:

2 to 3 lb. beef top round roast
3 or 4 slices bacon
1/4 tsp. salt plus a little on the carrots and potatoes
1/8 tsp. black pepper plus a little on the carrots and potatoes
1 medium onion (about 2 1/2 inches in diameter)
1/2 cup dry red wine
1/2 cup water
1 beef bouillon cube
1 small parsnip
1 bay leaf
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
4 to 5 carrots
2 to 3 medium potatoes
1 1/2 T all-purpose flour
1 1/2 T softened butter
A little brown gravy sauce (optional)

PROCEDURE:

Though round roast is very lean, there may be a layer of fat left on the meat on one edge, most of which you should trim away. You do not need to trim all of it off, and be careful not to cut away any of the lean meat. Cut the bacon slices into pieces about two inches long. Put the bacon along with the fat trimmings into a covered skillet over moderate heat and cook it for three or four minutes. Do not overcook the bacon. It should not be crisp. Discard the fat trimmings and set aside the bacon.

You should have about a tablespoon of grease in the skillet. Increase the heat to high and brown the roast on all sides. There should be dark brown areas on the roast. Drain the pan to leave no more than a teaspoonful of grease. Reduce the heat to low. Sprinkle salt and grind pepper over the roast.

Layer the bacon on top of the roast. The bacon adds flavor and bastes the meat as it cooks. Clean and cut the onion into quarter-inch slices and layer them on the bacon. Don’t worry if some pieces of onion fall off the roast. Pour the water and wine around the meat.

Peel and mince or grate the parsnip. You should have about a quarter cup. Sprinkle the parsnip into the liquid around the meat along with bouillon cube, the bay leaf and cloves. Cover and simmer very slowly for two hours. Check occasionally and add liquid if necessary.

If you are using thin-skinned red or yellow potatoes, just wash them thoroughly and cut them into quarters or sixths, depending on the size of the potatoes. Thicker-skinned potatoes such as russets should be peeled before you quarter them. Peel or scrape the carrots and cut them into two inch pieces. I like to split larger carrots in half lengthwise before cutting them into pieces.

Arrange the vegetables around the meat, sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper, cover and cook until the vegetables are tender, thirty-five to forty-five minutes.

In a small bowl mix the butter and flour together to make a paste. This paste is what the French call beurre manié (roughly burr-mun-yay). Literally, it means kneaded butter. Think of it as a soft dough that thickens a broth and makes it taste even better.

When the vegetables are tender, remove the meat and vegetables from the pan and keep them warm while you make the gravy. If necessary, add equal amounts of water and wine to the liquid in the pan so you have about a cup and three-quarters of liquid.

Drop the beurre manié paste you made earlier by small amounts into the hot liquid, using a whisk or fork to blend away the lumps. Keep stirring and raise the heat slightly if necessary to bring the gravy to a simmer. Cook the gravy for three or four minutes. Add a few drops of brown gravy sauce if you want a darker gravy. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve with a salad or relishes and bread.

NOTES: You can make beurre manié in quantity and store it to use later. Knead equal amounts of flour and butter together until you have a firm paste. Roll marble-sized balls and store them in a closed container in the freezer. When you need to thicken a sauce or gravy, stir two balls into the hot broth for each cup of liquid. Add more balls for a thicker sauce or gravy.

I keep encountering people who say that they don’t like parsnips. When we have time to visit about this vegetable, I often find that they don’t even know what a parsnip looks like and have never eaten one. Trust me, you will not taste anything odd in the sauce. The sweetness and pungency of that little root works wonders in beef sauces. However, you may have to tell the cashier at the checkout that the little white root is a parsnip, so he or she can key the right code into the scanner.

Pork Fried Rice

Rice, vegetables and pork are the three core ingredients of Chinese cooking. As is the case with many food plants, scientists are not sure when and where rice was first cultivated, but they do agree that it happened in southeast Asia between 8,000 and 13,000 years ago. The oldest records are from China and show that rice has been an important food there for thousands of years.

Fried rice also has a long history. Reay Tannahill in Food in History notes that a recipe from Li-Chi, a book of ritual from the Han dynasty (200 B.C. to 220 A.D.), contains eight recipes to be made for senior citizens. One of them is for rice fried with crisp pieces of fat from a wolf’s breast, a dish prepared to honor old people.

Even 2,000 years ago, fat from a wolf’s breast was almost certainly a delicacy reserved for special occasions and personages. Pork, however, was already a common meat in China 4,000 years ago, and Chinese cooks probably have been combining leftover rice with meat and vegetables to make a tasty and economical dish for at least a couple thousand years.

More than fifty years have passed since I first tasted fried rice. My mother made rice pudding and she served us her version of chop suey over rice, but as far as I remember, she never tried to fry leftover rice. Instead, she would add it to soup or heat it with milk and sugar to make a breakfast dish. It was sometime during the winter of 1961/62 at the University of Wisconsin that a girl in one of my classes suggested that we eat Chinese when I asked her out to dinner.

She was from Milwaukee and familiar with the three major advantages of Chinese restaurants for students. The food is tasty, servings are generous and prices are reasonable. Fried rice is one way that Chinese restaurants maintain those advantages today. Rice is inexpensive, especially when it offers a way to use leftover white rice, and a few finely chopped vegetables provide color, flavor and texture.

There are thousands of recipes for fried rice from plain to elaborate. The simplest use only rice, some cooking oil and seasonings. The more elaborate add ingredients ranging from costly, like steak and black truffles, to inexpensive like pork and common vegetables. Having a limited budget, we opt for the inexpensive. Believe me, it still tastes darn good.

INGREDIENTS:

3 T vegetable oil, divided
1 small boneless pork chop, 6 to 8 ounces
Dashes of salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup chopped scallions plus one or two for garnish
1 rib celery
1 medium carrot
1/2 cup fresh or frozen green peas
1 large egg
2 cups day-old cooked rice
1 clove garlic or 1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. minced fresh ginger or 1/8 tsp. ground ginger
1 T soy sauce

PROCEDURE:

Have all the ingredients ready to combine in a wok or large non-stick skillet before starting. Begin by taking an egg and the rice from the refrigerator and letting them warm a bit.

Cut the pork chop into thin slices about an inch long and set them aside in a small bowl. Clean and chop three or four scallions into a quarter inch dice and put them into a mixing bowl. Clean a rib of celery and the carrot. Chop the celery into half-inch pieces and the carrot into eighth-inch slices or half-round slices and add them to the scallions along with a half cup of fresh or frozen green peas. If you are using fresh ginger and garlic, mince about a half teaspoon of each and set them aside in a small bowl.

Heat two tablespoons of oil in a wok or large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add the pork and stir fry it for about three minutes, seasoning it with a little salt and pepper. Add the carrot, peas, celery and scallions and continue cooking until the pork is done, another four or five minutes. Remove the meat and vegetables to a bowl and return the skillet to medium heat.

Heat another tablespoon of oil. Using a wooden spoon or fork, beat the egg until it is lemon colored, then scramble it vigorously in the skillet until it is completely set and in small pieces. Reduce the heat to low and add the rice, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger. Stir gently, fluffing the rice and breaking up any clumps for about a minute. If the rice sticks to the skillet, add a little more oil. Return the meat and vegetables to the skillet and cook until everything is heated through, four to five minutes.

Serve with a green salad for a lunch or light dinner. Pass the soy sauce.

NOTES: You really need day-old or even two-day-old rice to make good fried rice. White or brown rice work work equally well, but you should use long-grain rice. We almost always have leftover rice when we have Pork and Broccoli or Jalapeño Beef Stir Fry, but you can cook some rice a day or two in advance and store it in the refrigerator. Though I cannot speak from experience, I understand that freshly cooked rice makes mushy fried rice.

Be careful not to use too much oil, and never add water. If you want to be fancy, chop a scallion into thin rings and sprinkle a few over each serving as a garnish.