Posts Tagged With: sirloin

Cambodian Lap Khmer (Beef Salad)

Posted on September 26, 2022 by pauldelancey

Cambodian Entree

LAP KHMER
(Beef Salad)

INGREDIENTS

6 ounces fresh beef sirloin or tenderloin steak cut thinly as possible
1½ tablespoons fresh basil*
1½ tablespoons fresh mint*
¼ pound Chinese long beans (also called yardlong beans)
1 red chile pepper
½ small red onion
1½ tablespoons fish sauce, Hoisin sauce, or soy sauce
1¼ teaspoons sugar
¼ pound bean sprouts
2½ tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 lemongrass stick or 1 tablespoon lemongrass paste
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¾ teaspoon prahok, shrimp paste**, fish sauce, or even omit
2 tablespoons water

* = or use 1 tablespoon each of dried basil and dried mint. Again, if your guest gives you guff about this, turn your sonic obliterator on her. It’s okay, you are the master of your kitchen. (See Courgette v Aubergine, 1973.)

** = prahok can be found in Asian supermarkets on online. Shrimp paste is the closest substitute to prahok. It too can be found in Asian supermarkets or online. However, foodies will tell you shrimp paste really is only a distant substitute. Indeed, an entirely reasonable approach to finding prahok is to not use it at all. If some oaf complains about the missing prahok, zap him with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your kitchen.

SPECIAL UTENSILS

large freezer bag
deli slicer or kitchen mallet
sonic obliterator

Serves 2. Takes 2 hours.

PREPARATION – BEEF SIRLOIN

Put sirloin in freezer bag. Push out all air from freezer bag and close tightly. Freeze meat for 1 hour. (Meat will firm faster in the freezer if you put the bag on a metal tray before putting it in the freezer. Periodically check to see if sirloin has firmed. The sirloin is just firm enough if a knife goes the meat smoothly.

If cutting with knife, make sirloin strips by cutting against the grain as thinly as possible. If cutting by deli slicer or mandoline, set the cutting thickness to ⅛. (Be sure to use the safety features on these kitchen tools. (If you can’t slice the sirloin thinner than ⅛”, flatten the slices with a kitchen mallet until they are ⅛” thick. )

PREPARATION – REST

While sirloin firms in freezer, dice basil, mint, Chinese long beans, red chile peppers, and red onion. Add basil, mint, Chinese long bean, red chile pepper, red onion, fish sauce, sugar, and bean sprouts to 1st mixing bowl. Toss with fork until well blended.

Cut beef slices into strips 1″ wide and 2″ long. Add beef strips to 2nd mixing bowl. Pour lime juice over beef. (The citric acid in the lime juice will “cook” the sirloin in the same way as ceviche does for fish.) Cover and set aside for 15 minutes.

While sirloin marinates, remove outer, white layers of lemongrass. Mince remaining green part of lemongrass (Skip this bit, if you’re using lemongrass paste.). Add vegetable oil to pan. Heat oil using medium-high heat until a bit of garlic will dance in the oil. Carefully add garlic and lemongrass to hot oil. (Add sirloin here if you want it sautéed.) Sauté on medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Add prahok and water. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 3 minutes. Stir frequently. Remove from heat.

Add all ingredients to large salad bowl. Toss with forks until well blended.

TIDBITS

1) Lap Khmer is a Cambodian dish. Cambodian was, as of press time, the most popular cuisine in Cambodia. However, the cuisines of: Paraguay, Austria, Mali, El Salvador, and Luxembourg remain quite underappreciated.

2) Indeed, Greenland, with a cuisine that emphasizes: whale, musk ox ptarmigan, lump fish roe, seal meat, and wild cloudberries quite shunned by native Cambodians. Sad to say, you’ll never hear the following conversation in Cambodia.

Acharya: Hey Thyda, where would you like to eat tonight?
Thyda: I dunno. Where would you like to eat?
Acharya: I dunno, what do you want?
Thyda: I dunno, how about Greenlandic?
Acharya: Great,. I was thinking about Greenlandic cuisine this very morning. But which restaurant?
Thyda: How about The Fragrant Elephant? My friend Jorani says their food’s quite tasty. And it’s just two streets away from us.
Acharya: But won’t it be crowded?
Thyda: Yes, it will. We’ll have to make reservations right now.
Acharya: And don’t forget, let’s save room for fresh wild Arctic berry desserts. You know how much I love them.

 

Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

 

 

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Korean Grilled Steak

Posted on September 1, 2022 by pauldelancey

Korean Entree

GRILLED STEAK

INGREDIENTS

1½ pounds sirloin
2 teaspoons sesame oil (2 tablespoons more later)
3 garlic cloves
1½” ginger root
3 stalks green onions
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons sesame oil (1 tablespoon per batch)
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds or sesame seeds

SPECIAL UTENSIL

electric griddle (Should you wish to use an outdoor or tabletop grill, please do so before slicing.)

Serves 4. Takes 1 hour 20 minutes.

PREPARATION

Tightly wrap sirloin in plastic. Put in freezer for 40 minutes or until the meat is just firm enough to be thinly sliced. Slice sirloin into strips as thin as you can.

While sirloin firms, mince garlic. Grate ginger root. Dice green onions. Add garlic, ginger root, green onions, brown sugar, rice vinegar, 2 teaspoons sesame oil, and sesame seeds to mixing bowl. Mix with spoon until well blended.

Spread 1 tablespoon sesame oil over griddle. Set heat to medium high. Sear sirloin strips for 2 minutes or until the bottom side browns nicely. Turn strips over and sear again for 2 minutes or until the new bottom side also browns nicely. Serve with sauce on the side. Goes well with rice.

TIDBITS

1) John Keats belonged to the Second Generation of Romantic Poets. Keats’ poems were really good reads. Indeed, his poems often made number one on The Top Ten British Poems. Indeed, who can forget his evocative “Ode to a Nightingale?” No one who’s read it will ever forget it. Of course, those who’ve never read that poem will never forget it either. So no one, then.

2) Keats remains beloved by chefs everywhere for his brilliant culinary poetry. Ask any chef about their favorite poems. They will invariably reply, “Ode to a Three Ingredient Meal” and “The Rigors of the Twelve Hour Shift.” Keats, of course, is also famous for his memoir, Two Years Before the Cattle Herd. It’s a rip-roaring yarn. During that drive, Keats dazzled his fellow drovers by cooking up a slab of beef. An anagram-prone drover named the new dish “Steak” in honor of Keats. There.

 

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Beef Smore From Sri Lanka

Posted on February 25, 2021 by pauldelancey

Sri Lankan Entree

BEEF SMORE

INGREDIENTS

2 pound piece of sirloin or beef chuck
2 tablespoons vinegar
½ teaspoon pepper
3 garlic cloves
1″ ginger root
1 large onion
1 small green chile
1 stalk lemongrass (tender inner bottom part only)
2½ tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
2″ cinnamon stick
¼ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
10 fresh curry leaves or ½ teaspoon dry curry leaves or curry powder
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1¼ cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon lemon or tamarind juice

Serves 6. Takes 2 hour 30 minutes

PREPARATION

Make holes in beef with fork. (This will aid in marinating.) Add beef, vinegar, and pepper to bowl. Marinate for 1 hour.

While beef marinates. Mince garlic cloves, ginger root, green chile, and onion. Seed and mince green chile. Thinly slice lemongrass. Add ghee to pan. Heat ghee at high heat until is hot enough to make a fenugreek seed dance. Carefully add beef to pan. Sauté for 2 minutes on each side or until browned all over. Remove meat to plate. Leave beef juices in pan.

Add garlic, ginger, green chile, onion, cinnamon stick, fenugreek seeds, fresh curry leaves. and lemongrass. Sauté for 3 minutes on medium heat. Stir frequently. Add beef back to pan. Add beef, red pepper flakes, coconut milk, and lemon juice. Lower heat to low and simmer 40 minutes or until the beef reaches your desired level of doneness and coconut milk reduces to a gravy. Turn beef over every 10 minutes. Slice beef to your desired thickness. Spoon onion gravy over beef slices.

TIDBITS

1) At first, Sri Lankan Beef Smores were cooked on a handy twig over an open flame.

2) But the weight of the meat made the twig snap

3) The sirloin would fall into the ashy fire pit.

4) Chefs then shouted, “I need more sirloin.”

5) So many sirloins landed on ashes that this requested shortened to, “I need smore sirloin.”

6) Then eventually to “Smore” by the Monosyllabic Chef Association (MCA).

7) And so it went. Sirloin after sirloin fell into one campfire pit after another.

8) This food wastage bankrupted one restaurant after another.

9) Clearly, the food-service industry needed a new idea.

10) And in 1619, Chef Kasun Perera revolutionized everything when he said, “Why not move this meal indoors? We won’t get rained on.”

11) “Or even stampeded by elephants.”

12) Sure, moving the meal to avoid getting crushed by wild beasts seems obvious now.

13) But isn’t the way with all new ideas?

14) No, not all new ideas arise from Stampeding Elephant Fear Syndrome (SEFS). Rather, all new ideas will eventually seem obvious.

15) You could have skipped to this tidbit from tidbit 11, but it wasn’t obvious then. It is now. See?

16) Or even have skipped to here. Any way, moving fire pits inside dramatically lessened the number of deaths due to elephants.

17)However, way too many restaurants burned to the ground from the flames in the open pits.

18) Customers look askance at fleeing a burning restaurant.

19) The restaurant industry needed another fertile mind.

20) It got with Tharindi Bandari, when in 1878, he said, “How about cooking things on a pan on a metal stove?” They will be no fires when we cook our beef smores this way.”

21) It’s impossible to overstate how this brainstorm transformed cooking.

22) Now, the entire world enjoys fire-storm free dining.

23) America came up with a different solution to the ashy sirloin problem. In 1958 little Timmy Perkins replaced the ingredients of the Sri Lankan Beef Smore with marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate saying, “The weight of melting marshmallow will never break our twig.” It worked! It tasted great. “I’ll have smore,” said Timmy’s dad. And in 1997, Timmy’s brilliance would win him the Noble Price for Culinary Achievement.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Lomo Saltado

Posted on February 8, 2021 by pauldelancey

Peruvian Entree

LOMO SALTADO

INGREDIENTS

½ pound French fries
1 aji amarillo chile or jalapeno
½ red onion
1 large tomato
¼ cup fresh cilantro
1 pound sirloin or ribeye
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
3 tablespoons vinegar

SPECIAL UTENSILS

mandoline
wok or large pan.

Serves 4. Takes 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Cook French fries according to instructions on package. While French fries cook, use mandoline or knife to cut aji amarillo into ¼” rings and red onion and and tomato into ½” slices. Dice cilantro. Slice sirloin into ¼”-thick strips. Rub pepper and salt onto sirloin strips.

Add oil to wok. Heat oil using high heat until a tiny bit of onion in the oil starts to dance. Add sirloin strips. (Don’t let the strips touch each other. You might have to cook in batches.) Sauté each batch at high heat for 2 minutes or until meat browns. Stir occasionally. Add browned batches of sirloin strips, aji amarillo, red onion, and tomato. Reduce heat to medium and sauté for 3 minutes or until tomato starts to soften. Stir frequently. Add soy sauce, vinegar, and French fries. Sauté for 3 minutes or until sirloin is done to your liking. Garnish with cilantro.

TIDBITS

1) This recipe is from Peru. Peru is a country on the planet Earth. The outer part of Earth is its crust. The crust covers oceans of hot magma. Volcanoes occasionally spew out magma. The magma that flows along the ground, lava. incinerates all its path. The magma that flies into the air blocks the Sun and kills crops. When that happens, we get a winter that lasts for years. Mass extinctions occur. Peru is part of the Earth’s crust. Thus, when we wish for Peru to disappear because our luggage has disappeared when we flew out of the country, we are indirectly wishing for a large section of our planet’s crust to disappear. Then all of the horrible things in the above tidbit would happen. We’d all die! That’s bad. Be careful what you wish for!

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Carpaccio

Posted on October 2, 2019 by pauldelancey

Italian Entree

CARPACCIO

INGREDIENTS

½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
¼ cup mayonnaise, homemade if possible*
¼ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2½ teaspoons whole milk
½ pound beef sirloin or beef tenderloin, no fat**
⅛ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon white pepper

* = This dish has few ingredients, so it relies heavily on using fresh ones.

** = Must be center-cut sirloin or tenderloin. Must be, must be, freshly cut and cut thinly as possible, like deli cut. For safety’s sake, prepare meat as soon as you get home.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

kitchen mallet, if sirloin is not deli cut (See Tidbit 1 below)
plastic wrap

Serves 2. Takes 20 minutes plus any time needed for homemade mayonnaise.

PREPARATION

Add lemon juice, mayonnaise, and Worcester – shire sauce to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add enough milk to thin the sauce to the point where it barely coats a spoon. Stir with whisk until sauce is well blended.

Add deli-thin slice of beef sirloin to plate. (If you can’t buy sirloin cut this thin, place your slices you have between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound them with a kitchen mallet until they are paper thin and about the width of a plate.) Drizzle sauce over tenderloin slice in a criss-cross pattern as shown in above photo. Repeat for remaining slices.

TIDBITS

1) You can flatten your sirloin even more with a road roller. (Shown to the right.)

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

 

Categories: cuisine, international | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Smoked Sirloin Roast

Posted on March 7, 2019 by pauldelancey

American Entree

SMOKED SIRLOIN ROAST

INGREDIENTS

3½ pounds top sirloin roast
5 tablespoons Montreal steak spice
2 tablespoons sea salt
2 cups wood chips: hickory, mesquite, or oak

SPECIAL UTENSILS

electric smoker
kitchen string
digital thermometer (if your smoker doesn’t have one)

Serves 6. Takes 2 hours.*

PREPARATION

Preheat electric smoker to 250 degrees. Trim off excess fat from sirloin roast. Rub both sides with Montreal steak spice and sea salt. Roll up sirloin and tie it with kitchen string.

Add wood chips to electric smoker. Add sirloin to basket in smoker. Smoke until internal temperature, as measured by thermometer, reads 145 degrees. This will take about 2 hours.* The thermometer should be inserted into the thicket part of the meat. Check every 15 minutes after 1 hour. If you’re lucky, your smoker will be set up so that your smart phone will tell you when it’s done. Carefully remove basket from smoker and let sit 10 minutes. Carve and serve.

* = Please note that the various smokers perform differently. So, check the manual for placement of sirloin in smoker, cooking temperature, how to use wood chips, and other pertinent information.

TIDBITS

1) To serve six million people, simply multiply the ingredients and the number of special utensils by one million. Except for the ball of kitchen string. Simply get a ball of string that’s large enough. Buying ingredients for that number of guests will cost a lot of money. This is where your enormous ball of string comes in. People will pay good money to see a string ball that big. Why it would have a diameter (Does quick calculation in head.) of at least 25 feet. That’s all? Sorry, you’re on your own with expenses.

2) Then there’s the problem of finding 1,000,000 outlets. Even if you used every outlet in your city of 50,000, your smokers’ power surges would bring down your municipality’s power grid. The Pentagon, of course, knows this, and has plans to air drop millions of slow cookers and tons of ingredients around Russia’s nuclear basses. The resultant power surges will disable Russia’s entire nuclear capability. Now you know how the world will be safe.

Chef Paul

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Tripleta

Posted on August 23, 2018 by pauldelancey

Puerto Rican Entree

TRIPLETA

INGREDIENTS

 

1 garlic clove

1 medium onion
¼ cup ketchup
3 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup mayonnaise
2 teaspoons adobo seasoning
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1¼ pounds sirloin steaks
1¼ pounds pork loins
2 chicken breasts
1 Roma tomato
¼ pound cabbage
4 French rolls
8 slices Swiss cheese
3 ounces crispy French fries (or follow instructions on French fry package)

Makes 4 big sandwiches. Serves 4 to 8. Takes 1 hour 45 minutes.

PREPARATION

Mince garlic clove and onion. Add garlic, onion, ketchup, lemon juice, mayonnaise, adobo seasoning, pepper, and salt to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Cut sirloin steaks, pork loins, and chicken breasts along their heights until you have 4 pieces of each. (Otherwise, you’ll might have a sandwich so tall, you won’t be able to eat it.) Add sirloin, pork, and chicken to mixing bowl. Toss with hands until meat is well coated. Cover and marinate in refrigerator for 1 hour. While meat marinates, cut tomato into 8 slices. Shred cabbage.

Set grill to medium setting. Remove meat from marinade and add to grill. Save marinade. Grill meat for 10 minutes or until done or done to your liking. Turn meat once. Toast roll halves on grill for 3 minutes or until they begin to brown.

Spread equal amounts of marinade on all French-roll halves. Add equal amounts of shredded cabbage, sirloin, pork, chicken, Swiss cheese, tomato, and crispy French fries to French-roll bottoms. Add French-roll tops. Cut sandwiches in half, if desired.

TIDBITS

1) This is a big meal. But we can’t stay in shape if we eat this sandwich and right after take a nap.

2) This sandwich is delicious. We can’t give it up for any reason. But we want to stay in shape.

3) Clearly, we need to exercise after eating this.

4) What exercise?

5) Cartwheels. Cartwheels? Egad. They’re hard. I’ll fall. I’ll hurt myself.

6) Ok then, how about lifting weights? Oh my gosh, no! I don’t have weights. I’ll have to go to the gym. The gym is far. It’s expensive. It’s crowd. It smells like a gym.

7) Ok then, how about running? Heck no! Running shoes are expensive. I’ll twist my ankles. I’ll get lost. I’ll get blisters. I’ll get completely tired and won’t be able to make it back home without calling an expensive taxi.

8) Ok then, how about walking? Boring. It’s too slow.

9) How about letting the Tripleta do the cartwheels? Yes, I like that. Let’s do that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chef Paul

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Easy Beef Pho

Posted on March 13, 2015 by pauldelancey

Vietnamese Soup

EASY BEEF PHO

INGREDIENTSEasyBeefPho-

2 cups beef pho broth
12 ounces rice noodles
8 ounces thinly sliced sirloin
4 ounces deli-sliced roast beef

½ cup fresh basil
5 green onion stalks
1 or 2 jalapeno peppers
3 limes
2 cups bean sprouts
½ tablespoon chili garlic sauce
2 tablespoons fish sauce or hoisin sauce

Makes 10 bowls. Takes 25 minutes.

SPECIAL UTENSIL

sonic obliterator

PREPARATION

Add beef pho broth to pan. Cover and bring to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer until all ingredients are ready. Add rice noodle to second pot. Cook according to instructions on package. Drain noodles.

While pho broth boils and rice noodles cook, dice basil and green onion. Thinly slice jalapeno pepper and limes. Add sirloin and roast beef to pot with pho broth. Simmer on low heat until sirloin is no longer pink. Divide rice noodles, basil, green onion, jalapeno pepper, bean sprouts, chili garlic sauce, and fish sauce between bowls. Garnish with lime slices. Ladle equal amounts of pho broth with meat into bowls. Serve to adoring guests.

Some guests might complain that this recipe isn’t authentic, that it skips steps, that it doesn’t use pig knuckles, and so on. You could reason with them, saying you can’t find beef knuckles at your local supermarket, you didn’t even know beeves had knuckles, and that properly prepared pho.takes five days, and that you have a life to live. Or . . . you could simply zap them with your sonic obliterator. You don’t need their negativity in your life.

TIDBITS

1) Pho is an anagram for hop. Hop On Pop is a book by Dr. Seuss. Culinary historians think the author had been planning to write No Mo’ Pho but decided against it when he discovered pho is actually pronounced “fuh.” It’s all for the best as Hop On Pop brought Dr. Seuss enduring fame.

 

 Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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Yam Neua (Thai Beef Salad)

Posted on August 18, 2013 by pauldelancey

Thai Entree

YAM NEUA
(Thai Beef Salad)

INGREDIENTSThaiBeefSal-

6 cups napa or Chinese cabbage or cabbage
1/2 cup carrots
1 cucumber
1 1/2 pounds beef sirloin steak
3 cloves garlic
2 shallots
1 tablespoon lime juice (1 tablespoon more later)
5 tablespoons Thai fish sauce or Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon palm sugar or sugar
1/2 teaspoon cilantro
1/2 teaspoon lemongrass
1/2 tablespoon red pepper flakes

1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon olive oil

PREPARATION

Shred napa and carrots. Mince garlic and shallots. Peel, seed, and slice cucumber. Cut sirloin into thin strips.

Add 1 tablespoon lime juice, fish sauce, palm sugar, cilantro, lemongrass, and red pepper flakes to large serving bowl. Mix ingredients with fork. Add cabbage, carrots, and cucumber. Mix again

Add sirloin, garlic, shallots, basil, coriander, 1 tablespoon lime juice, and olive oil to skillet. Sauté on medium-high heat for 5 minutes or until sirloin is no longer pink. Spoon sirloin strips and juice from skillet on top of salad in serving bowl.

A perfect salad for meat lovers.

TIDBITS

1) Cabbage is the new sexy. According to recent research in England, cabbage is the best natural aphrodisiac.

2. Many dishes are aphrodisiacs as well. They include: grilled oyster, grilled asparagus, grilled bananas, honey grilled shrimp, grilled Parmesan potatoes, and grilled carrots.

3) Whoa, look what grilling does.

4) Watch out if your date asks you over for grilled cabbage.

5) What if grilled beans were an aphrodisiac? How would you grill them? They’d keep falling through the spaces in the grill?

6) Chocolates make people more romantic. Would grilling chocolate cause overwhelming passion? Who would know? The chocolate would probably melt on the grill and drip on the hot coals below. Or, the chocolate would burst into flames. Either way you’d scorch your fingers trying to give that chocolate to your sweetheart and then you wouldn’t feel romantic at all.

7) Or you could profess you love, if you want to try a non-culinary approach.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

 

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La Daube Provencale

Posted on December 15, 2012 by pauldelancey

French Entree

LA DAUBE PROVENÇALE

LaDauPr-

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 pounds stewing steak or better
2 yellow onions
8 whole cloves
1 carrot
4 garlic cloves
1 10 ounce can diced tomatoes
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 ounces bacon strips
1 bay leaf
6 peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
1/4 cup red wine

PREPARATION

Cut the steak into 1/2-inch cubes. It is all right to use a better grade of steak than stewing. (As I write this recipe, my local supermarket is having such a sale on top sirloin it’s cheaper than the fattiest ground beef. Go figure. Now if they would only have a sale on gold.)

Peel the 2 onions and cut each of them into 4 wedges. Stick a whole clove into each of the 8 onion wedges. Scrape off the surface of the carrot. Cut the carrot into round pieces no more than 1/2-inch thick. Peel and mince garlic cloves.

Put olive oil and bacon strips in skillet. Heat at medium-heat until bacon begins to brown. (Some versions of this recipe call for strips or slices heavily marbled with fat. This is no problem at all. Simply pick the package of bacon that is on top of the others. Some good Samaritan has gone before you, heroically going through all the bacon packages looking for the meatiest and leaving you exactly what you wanted.)

Back at the range it is time to add to the skillet: steak cubes, onion wedges with cloves in them, carrot pieces, garlic,
diced tomatoes, bay leaf, peppercorns, orange zest, sea salt, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. (“Are you going to Scarborough Fair?” Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Cook on medium heat until steak cubes start to brown. Add red wine. Bring to boil. Lower temperature to between off and warm. Cover with lid and let stew simmer for 2 1/2 hours.

This is great. Give it only to loved ones or a boss at promotion time.

TIDBITS

1) Insects don’t like the scent of onions. So, cut open an onion and rub the two halves all over your body before crossing a mosquito-infested swamp.

2) The French tried to build the Panama Canal before the Americans did. They failed because too many of their workers succumbed to malaria.

3) The Americans succeeded because they discovered malaria was borne by mosquitoes. We destroyed the pesky critters by destroying their swamps.

4) Mightn’t it have been simpler to have the canal workers rub their bodies with onion halves before going to work each day?

5) Of course, the thousands of sweaty, oniony workers would have had problems convincing beautiful ladies to dance with them after work.

6) But just how many spiffed-up young ladies could the workers have found in the middle of a mosquito-riddled swamp?

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.

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