Beef Stew in White Wine

We were in the mood for something comforting so I made this Beef Stew in White Wine based on a recipe from America's Test Kitchen. I didn't have put any anchovy fillets because Porgy is allergic to seafood or any salt pork because I wanted to keep it light. I substituted the red wine with white wine and added some fresh English peas for some crunch.


Ingredients:
2 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through garlic press
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 pounds of beef stew meat, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 lb potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 lb Crimini or button mushrooms, halved
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups white wine
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 bay leaves
4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 lb fresh English peas
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon of corn starch
salt & pepper

Directions:

• Heat the oven to 300 degrees.
• Pat the meat cubes dry with paper towels. Do not season. Heat 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a large heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over high heat until just starting to smoke. Cook the beef cubes in batches until well browned on all sides, about 8 minutes. Repeat the remaining beef adding another tablespoon vegetable oil if necessary, set aside.
• Reduce heat to medium, add onion and carrots to the Dutch oven and stir to combine. Cook, scrapping the bottom of pan to loosen any browned bits, until onion is softened about 2 minutes. Add minced garlic, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, until no dry flour remains, about 30 seconds.
• Return the beef cubes to the pan along with the beef juice, slowly add wine, scraping bottom of pan to loosen any browned bits. Increase heat to high heat and allow wine to simmer until thickened and slightly reduced, about 2 minutes. Stir in broth, bay leaves, and thyme. Bring to simmer, cover, transfer to oven, and cook for 1 1/2 hours.
• Remove pot from oven; remove and discard bay leaves. Stir in potatoes, cover, return to oven, and cook until potatoes are almost tender, about 45 minutes.
• Using large spoon, skim any excess fat from surface of stew. Dissolve the corn starch with 1/2 cup of water in a small bowl and pour into the pot. Stir in the English peas and mix carefully until stew is thickened about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Minestrone (kind of) Soup

Today I made this soup based on a simplified Minestrone recipe on NYTimes in preparation for the cold and wet weather coming to San Francisco. To make it even healthier and substantial, I added some sliced sausages and a can of white kidney (cannellini) bean. I am not really sure if I can still call it Minestrone soup or not but I know that now I am ready to take on the rain!


Ingredients:
4 Italian sausages, sliced
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
4 garlic, finely chopped
2 potatoes, cut to 1-inch sections
1 can diced tomatoes, drained & rinsed
1 can white kidney (cannellini) beans, drained & rinsed
1 cup of dry white wine
2 cup of vegetable (or chicken) broth
2 cup of water
1/2 cup of chopped parsley
1 cup of frozen peas
salt & pepper

Directions:

• Heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a Dutch oven over a medium heat for a couple of minutes and saute the sliced sausages for a few minutes until totally cooked and set aside.
• Add a couple more tablespoons of olive oil into the pan and saute the chopped onion, carrot, celery rib and minced garlic for 5 minutes.
• Add the cubes potatoes and cooked for 2 minutes.
• Add the drained tomatoes, white wine, broth, and water.
• Cook until boil and lower the heat to a simmer for 10 minutes.
• Add the drained beans and simmer for another 15 minutes.
• Add in the chopped parsley and frozen peas.

Ham & Pea Barley Soup

Brrrr... it's been pretty cold in San Francisco in the past few days, I felt that we needed something warm, soupy and more substantial for dinner besides salad. To keep it somewhat healthy, I made this ham & pea barley soup utilizing the ingredients that I had in my freezer and pantry using Whole Foods' Root Vegetable Stew with Beef and Barley recipe as a guideline.


Ingredients:
1 cup of medium diced ham
2 carrots, small diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 cup sliced crimini mushroom
1 cup pearled barley
1 bay leaf
2 cups of chicken stock
1/4 cup of flour
2 green onions, finely chopped (or 1/4 cup of parsley)
salt & pepper

Directions:

• In a large Dutch oven or soup pot, heat 1 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat and cook the ham cubes for about 5 minutes or so until a bit browned, set aside.
• Add remaining 2 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and stir in the chopped onion and carrots, scrapping the brown ham bits from the bottom of the pot. Cook the vegetables for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Add the barley and continue to cook, stirring for an additional minute.
• Add in the bay leaf, chicken broth and ham back into the pot, bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Continue cooking, uncovered, stirring occasionally for 30 minutes.
• In a small bowl, mix the flour and 1/2 cup of the cooking broth. Add the flour mixture and the sliced mushroom into the pot and cook for another 30 minutes until barley is cooked and stew is thickened.
• Adjust seasoning with salt & pepper and add in the frozen pea and cooked for another 5 minutes.
• Garnish with parsley or green onion.

Hearty Tuscan Bean Soup

This year is definitely one of those roller-coaster years with lots of ups and downs. The day after I did my previous post, Arthur had a major setback in his separation anxiety training so we had to start somewhat from the beginning all over again, then Porgy had a horrible sore throat for 2 weeks and now I have cold with major sore throat (possibly strep throat) combo and lost my voice since Christmas eve.

While I was resting over the Christmas weekend, I saw an episode of America’s Test Kitchen where they shared a tip on how to make a delicious & hearty Tuscan Bean soup without having the beans fall apart at the end. (The secret is to brine the beans with salt water for overnight, rinse them well, cook them without salt over low heat in a 250F oven for a couple of hours!) I thought that it’s an appropriate dish to make since it’s been cold and rainy in the past few days in San Francisco and that it would make my throat feel somewhat better. Since I'm not a member of America's Test Kitchen, I followed a similar recipe that's available at Food.com.



Ingredients:
Salt
1 lb dried cannellini beans, rinsed and picked over (I used red kidney beans instead)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
6 ounces pancetta or bacon, cut into 1/4-inch pieces (I used Merquez - spicy Moroccan style lamb sausage)
1 large onion, chopped medium
2 medium celery ribs, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
8 medium garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
4 cups low sodium chicken broth
3 cups water
1 bay leaves
1 bunch of kale, stems trimmed and leaves chopped into medium-sized pieces
1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed
1 sprig fresh rosemary
ground black pepper

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 250F.
• Add 1/4 cup of salt to 4 qt water and stir until dissolved. Add the picked over, rinsed beans and leave them to soak overnight at room temperature.
• In a large Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat until hot and add the sausage (or pancetta/bacon) and cook 6-10 minutes, until the edges are crisp and browned. Remove the sausages.
  
• In the same pan, add onion, celery and carrots and cook until very soft and a little browned, about 15 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minutes.
• Drain water from beans and discard. Rinse well and add beans to the pot. Add broth, water and bay leaves. Bring to a simmer, then cover and transfer to a preheated 250°F oven and cook for 60 minutes.
• Add kale, tomatoes and sausages to the pot. Re-cover and cook until beans are tender, about another 30 minutes.
  
• Add rosemary sprig and submerge it in the soup. Let stand off heat for 15 minutes, then remove and discard rosemary and bay leaves.
  
• Drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and serve with a nice pain epi or sliced baguette.
  

Beef Tongseng

I'm back!!! Finally I'm not as crazy busy with work and Arthur. Yes... Arthur still has his moments from time to time but at least I don't have to keep worrying about him all the time because Porgy and I decided to put him in a doggie day care. We love this particular doggie day care because they also do trainings and long walks with their "customers".

Earlier this week, I met up with close family friends who were visiting from Indonesia. They brought an Indonesian cookbook for me from my sister and I've been going through the recipes in the past couple of days. Yesterday, I decided to make this Indonesian Beef in Spicy & Sweet Soy Sauce called Beef Tongseng. In Indonesia, you would make this dish with goat or lamb meat but I find that fatty beef meat can be a good substitute for them. I followed a recipe from Gramedia International's "Menu Sehari-hari" cookbook.


Ingredients:
1 lb beef eye roast, cut into 1-inch cube
6 shallots, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
1 lemon grass stalk, bruised
1 tablespoon tamarind water
5 tablespoons sweet soy sauce
4 1/4 cups water
1/2 head of small cabbage, de-bone and roughly cut into thin strips
10 red chilli pepper, seeded and cut into strips
salt and sugar to taste
4 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon black peppercorn
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1/2 tablespoon minced galangal

Directions:

• Using mortar and pestle or food processor, grind the garlic, black peppercorns, coriander, ginger and galangal until they become a smooth paste.
• Stir fry the shallots with 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium heat for 3 minutes or so until light yellow colored.
• Add seasoning paste, bay leaves and lemon grass and cook for another couple of minutes until fragrant.
• Add the meat, toss around and cook until the meat change color.
• Add in the water, soy sauce and tamarind water. When the water boils, lower the heat and continue cooking until the meat is soft.
• When the stock has reduced by half, add the chopped cabbage and chili pepper.
• Adjust seasoning with salt and sugar according to taste.
• Finish cooking when the stock/sauce boils again and serve over white rice.
  

Rawon

Geesh... I can't believe that it's almost end of May already, time definitely flies by quickly. Although I had been cooking plenty of interesting dishes, I didn't have the time to blog them because I had been pretty busy with other things. Since I kind of feel bad about neglecting this blog (don't ask why), I promise that I'll try to be more diligent.

I had been thinking about Rawon (an Indonesian black beef soup) since I had a small portion of it a my sister's place in Indonesia a few months ago. Here is my family's version of this dish courtesy of my Mom.


Ingredients:
2 lb beef stew meat
6 large garlic cloves
10 shallots
4 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
10 black nut (kluwek), rinsed and soaked in warm water
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
salt & pepper
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
1-inch galangal, peeled and bruised
4 kaffir lime leaves, bruised
1 stalk lemongrass
2 bay leaves, torn in half
2 tablespoons palm sugar
1 red chili, cut into strips
vegetable oil
3 green onions, chopped
hard boiled eggs
bean sprouts

Directions:

• Cook the beef stew meat cubes in a pressure cooker for 30 minutes to help the meat becomes tender quickly without having to simmer the soup for hours.
• Take out the meat cubes and save the strained beef broth.
• Using a mortar and pestle, grind the garlic, shallot and coriander seeds in batches with some salt and white pepper. Put the mashed-up mixture into a food processor, add in the turmeric powder, kluwek meat, grated ginger and red chili flakes and grind/puree until smooth.
• In a heavy bottom pan, heat 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil over a medium heat and stir fry the spice paste for a couple of minutes until fragrant.
• Add in the galangal, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass and torn bay leaves and stir fry some more for a couple of minutes or so.
• Add in the cooked meat cubes, mix well so the cubes are coated with the spice paste and cook for a minute or two.
• Add in enough strained beef stock (or water) to completely cover the meat plus an extra inch and cook until boil.
• When the soup is boiling, lower the heat to a simmer, cover the pan and let simmer for 30 minutes or so until the spice flavor is absorbed by the meat.
  
• In the mean time, you can make several hard boiled eggs and blanch the beansprouts (optional).
• Add the chopped green onions and red chili strips and adjust seasoning by adding salt, pepper or palm sugar accordingly.
• Serve over rice with halved hard boiled eggs, blanched beansprouts and shrimp crackers (if you have any).
  

Vegetable and Tofu Soup

After eating plenty of cupcakes in the past few days, we both felt that we should eat better so I made this light yet very tasty Vegetable and Tofu Soup. It is another fantastic recipe from Periplus' Homestyle Chinese Cooking cookbook – I'm loving this cookbook more and more!


Ingredients:
6 cups of water
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 lb fresh Shiitake mushrooms (or 8-10 dried Shiitake mushrooms)
1/2 lb of fresh bok choy or similar Chinese vegetables
1 package of firm or soft tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
5 slices ginger, cut into thin strips
2 teaspoons white pepper
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon Shaoxing cooking wine
1 teaspoon Mirin
1/2 cup of chopped fresh cilantro
2 green onions, finely chopped

Directions:

• If using dried Shiitake mushrooms, soak them in hot water for 15 minutes and drain.
• Bring water to a boil in a large pot and then add salt.
• Cut the mushroom stems and then cut each mushroom in half.
• Wash and rinse the vegetables, removing any dirt, any tough or wilted stems, and separate the leaves.
• Add the mushroom to the boiling water, and let the water return to boil, then add the tofu, ginger, white pepper, soy sauce, Shaoxing cooking wine and Mirin. Return to boil on medium flame, cover with lid and simmer for about 15 minutes (or 20 minutes if using dried mushrooms).
• Add the vegetables and stir, let water return to boil and simmer for 1 more minutes.
• Sprinkle chopped parsley and green onion prior to serving.
  

Butternut Squash and Carrot Soup

Today, I made another dish based on a recipe in Ina Garten's Barefoot in Paris cookbook using left over ingredients. I had fun cooking this Butternut Squash and Carrot Soup because this was actually my first time making pureed soup - it's super easy and tasted fantastic!


Ingredients:
2 tablespoons of ghee
1 teaspoon cumin
1 big yellow onion, chopped
1 butternut squash, cubed
3 carrots, cubed
3 cups chicken (or vegetable) stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
croutons
salt & pepper

Directions:

• Heat the ghee in a heavy-bottomed stockpot, add the onions, cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes until translucent.
• Add the cumin, butternut squash, carrot cubes and cook for another minute or two.
• Add the chicken (or vegetable) stock and a little bit of salt and maybe 1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. Add more stock or water if needed enough to cover the squash and carrot cubes.
• Cover and simmer over medium-low heat for about 30 minutes, until both the squash and carrot are very tender.
• Let cool for 10 minutes or so and process the mixture in a food processor (or blender) in batches.
• Return to the pot, add the heavy cream, adjust seasoning and heat slowly.
• To make croutons: cube a couple slices of bread, put them in one layer in a preheated 350F oven and bake for 10 minutes or so until crunchy. It's more simple than sauteing them in a pan.
• Serve soup with a couple cracks of ground pepper and croutons.