Posted by Adam Kuban, May 10, 2008 at 5:00 PM
I'm sure a good deal of you already have dinner plans for tomorrow night, what with Mother's Day and all. Since I'll be about 1,200 miles from my own mom tomorrow, I thought I'd make a batch of one of my favorite childhood dishes as a sort of culinary tribute in absentia. Wait, that doesn't make any sense. I guess I just want to eat somethign to remind me of home tomorrow night. So I'm going to share this recipe for Beef Stew that my mom often made (and probably still does).
And for anyone who likes to quibble with recipes, now's not the time. It's my mom's, it's Mother's Day weekend, and anyone giving guff is on a fast road to Banyourassville. ;)
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Posted by The Serious Eats Team, May 10, 2008 at 10:15 AM
Adapted from Italian Grill by Mario Batali.
- serves 10 -
Ingredients
3 tablespoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
Black pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary, plus 2 or 3 whole springs
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons Colman's dry mustard
One 8-pound prime rib roast, chine bone removed and fat trimmed to a thin layer by the butcher
About 1 cup dry white wine
Coarse sea salt
Procedure
1. In a small bowl, combine the salt, pepper, chopped rosemary, thyme, and dry mustard and mix well. Rub the spice mixture generously all over the meat. cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 1 hour at room temperature.
2. Prepare a gas or charcoal grill for spit-roasting over indirect medium heat (or according to the instructions for your grill). Pour about 1/2 inch of wine into the drip pan, add the rosemary sprigs, and set under the center of the spit.
3. Push the spit through the roast and secure it with the clamps. Attach the spit to the rotisserie mechanism, cover the grill, and cook for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, depending on the temperature of your grill, or until the internal temperature–insert an instant-read thermometer about 3 inches deep into the center of the roast, without touching the bones–reaches 115° to 120°F for medium-rare (the temperature will rise at least 5 degrees while the roast rests). Check the temperature after 1 1/4 hours, and once it has reached 110°F or so, check it often.
4. Remove the spit from the grill and place the roast, still on the spit, on a carving board (if you remove the spit before letting the roast rest, you will lose a lot of the juices) to rest for 15 to 20 minutes.
5. Remove the spit from the roast. Carve the roast off the bone and cut into 3/4-inch-thick-slices. Place on a platter, set out a small bowl of coarse salt and a pepper mill alongside, and serve.
Posted by Lucy Baker, May 7, 2008 at 3:15 PM
Today's Cook the Book recipe is for thick, juicy, seared sirloin steaks. Not exactly your typical Mother's Day fare. But why shouldn't it be? Steak dinners are always special, whether eaten out at a swanky restaurant, or off a paper plate in your own backyard.
Paula Disbrowe's recipe marries hearty hunks of beef with a delicate, wine-saturated red onion marmalade. As she states in her head note: "I like the idea of giving a macho piece of meat a pretty and rather feminine treatment." The results are a little bit sweet, a little bit spicy, and definitely spectacular. What mom wouldn't love that?
Win 'Cowgirl Cuisine'
As is always the case with our Cook the Book selections, we're giving away a number of copies to lucky readers. Enter to win here.
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Posted by Joshua Bousel, May 7, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Editor's note: Ladies and gents, make friends with Joshua Bousel. He's a certified grilling geek. And that's a compliment; this guy takes the flame seriously. He'll be dropping by each week with a recipe for you to fire up for yourself. Let the flames begin! —Adam Kuban
In my mind there are two seasons each year: grilling season and the other. Although I wish I had started sooner, Cinco de Mayo on Monday marked the arrival of the former, and I could think of no better way to celebrate the holiday than grilling fajitas.
Alton Brown's fajita recipe has served me well for years now, time and again producing the best fajitas I've had in New York City, where I live and where good Mexican options are notoriously lacking. It's also the perfect recipe for some weekday celebration, with a quick-and-easy marinade and the fast-cooking skirt steak, one of my favorite cuts of beef. It was no surprise to me that these, once again, came out absolutely delicious, bursting with beefy goodness that's topped with a flavor that transports me to ... someplace with better Mexican food.
Although Cinco de Mayo was duly celebrated, what I'm going to remember most from this holiday is the second I placed those steaks over the hot coals, got one whiff, then excitedly ran back into the house and belted out to all who would listen, "I really love to grill!" Yes, it's that time of year again.
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Posted by Blake Royer, April 24, 2008 at 5:00 PM
The basic hamburger has many permutations, depending on condiments–from classics like bacon and cheese to crazier additions like a fried egg. The meat itself can be charred on a grill, or seared on a griddle; the bun can be crusty, soft like a potato roll, or nixed altogether. The patty can be thick or thin; the meat ground from sundry parts of the cow. But unless you're from Australia, you might never have heard of this one: sliced beets. My girlfriend came across this recipe while befriending Aussies in England.
Especially counterpoint to a crispy, griddled, well-salted patty, the sweet earthiness of a roasted beet works wonderfully. After reading about thin-patty cast iron burgers the other day, I was anxious to get home and make one, which is when I remembered I had some Chioggia beets waiting to be roasted. I skipped the traditional Aussie burger bacon for avocado, but kept the essential fried egg, which drips its yolk over everything like a sauce. This is a great burger twist to have in the repertoire as summer approaches.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, April 23, 2008 at 4:15 PM
I usually reserve eating ribeye for when I am alone. When the fiancée is off interviewing for jobs and going to school, I’m home alone with a simply prepared steak and usually absolutely no vegetables. It’s simple, indulgent, and slightly embarrassing. The only flourish of cooking prowess was a pan sauce, most often made with red wine. Sometimes I didn’t even bother—too many times the sauce would come out bitter or too fatty. I needed some help.
According to Simple to Spectacular, this is as simple as pan sauces get. Luckily, it doesn’t really taste like it. The trick, I’ve learned, is to let the pan cool slightly and drain as much of the fat from the pan before deglazing. I’m always leery of adding anything extraneous to my steaks, but the ginger and soy never feel like they’re trying to steal the steak’s thunder. And that’s the way it should be. What the ginger and soy do for this recipe is accentuate some of the higher notes. The results tickle the back of your tongue instead of obscuring the seared goodness of a perfect steak.
This is also the first time I’ve ever not put salt on a steak. It felt weird. But the soy sauce more than made up for the missing sodium.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, April 21, 2008 at 3:45 PM
The first of our highlighted Cook the Book recipes out of the gate this week is adapted from an April Bloomfield dish in The Oprah Magazine Cookbook. Bloomfield is the chef at celebrated New York City gastropub The Spotted Pig. And though this dish is not on the menu there, having had several other of Bloomfield's plates, I'd imagine this one is up there, too. I'm clipping it and adding it to my summer grilling menu to find out for sure.
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, April 18, 2008 at 1:00 PM
It isn’t summer yet, but the sun has me thinking. Every June when the food magazines put out issues full of gorgeous grilled things, I, a grill-deprived citizen of New York City, feel somehow snubbed. The rest of the country, I imagine, is enjoying lingering al fresco dinners on decks and in gardens as I continue to eat inside at a corner of the table that also holds my computer and my work. Certain things I never get to eat at home at all—grilled fish, grilled pizza, grilled corn.
Luckily, two summers ago I finally made the consoling discovery that you can cook very tasty hamburgers indoors in a cast-iron skillet. For some reason I never make them in winter, but now that I can leave the house without a coat, it’s time to throw open all the windows for a Saturday night cookout high above 57th Street.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 29, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Each Saturday evening we bring you a Sunday Supper recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.
I don't know what did it, but this past week I'd been craving a good sloppy Joe. Luckily, I had just the recipe for these tangy-sweet sandwiches.
You see, a couple years ago, I had a similar craving, but I wanted to avoid whatever weirdness might be in those canned mixes. I was thinking aloud about this around a coworker at the time, and the following week, out of nowhere, she dropped off a hand-written recipe on my desk for "Hamburger Goo." I'm not going to lie and say it's faster than opening a can and pouring, but really, all you have to do is dice some onion and chop some celery and you've done the heavy lifting. After that, it's just a matter of browning some ground beef and measuring out some basic pantry staples.
If you're a fan of the canned stuff, this recipe is a pretty close approximation, and you can feel all the better for it knowing exactly what goes into it.
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Posted by The Serious Eats Team, March 19, 2008 at 11:45 AM
The following recipe is from the March 19 edition of our weekly recipe newsletter. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here!
If you're not lucky enough to have grown up with a bubbe fussing over you and cooking you some of the most amazing comfort food ever, then Jewish Home Cooking by Arthur Schwartz can help you approximate the experience yourself. Here's an adaptation of Schwartz's potted sweet-and-sour meatballs, which can be used in stuffed cabbage, stuffed peppers, sweet-and-sour cabbage borscht, and more.
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Posted by Gina DePalma, March 18, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Eggs are essential ingredients in Italian Easter celebrations, playing a role that extends beyond the huge, elaborately decorated chocolate eggs that decorate every shop window in the weeks before the holiday.
Eggs were a symbol of new birth and renewal for many of the ancient civilizations predating the Christian era, when they were adopted as a representation of the resurrection of Christ. They evolved as part of the traditional Easter feast partly because they were one of the foods originally forbidden to have during Lent. These traditions are still intact today, ingrained in the mind, heart, and stomach; each region of Italy has its own special recipes for consuming eggs on Easter.
Romans are likely to enjoy a light first course of Brodetto Pasquale at their Easter table, the local version of a soup that features eggs as well as lamb, another iconic Easter food.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 13, 2008 at 1:00 PM
My Last Supper takes the old "last bite on earth" game to the next level by asking that question of 50 of the world's best-known and most-loved chefs. Though beautifully photographed and almost more of a coffee-table book in size and format, there are some serious recipes in here to accompany the memorable visuals and fun interviews. As this week's featured Cook the Book entry, we'll be highlighting a recipe a day from it. Today's is by Gordon Ramsay, who really needs no introduction around these parts. In the book, Ramsay's succinct interview matches the let's-get-this-over-with expression on his face. It's not so much the interview we're interested in this time but the delicious-sounding roast beef, which follows below. I do like the fact that he'd listen to Keane's first album during the meal, though.
As is always the case with our Cook the Books, we're giving away a number of them this week. Enter to win My Last Supper »
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Posted by Lucy Baker, March 11, 2008 at 8:00 AM
"May I have two pounds of short ribs, please?" I asked the butcher.
He hacked off a portion of meat and tossed it onto a metal scale. "This is two. A little over, actually," he said.
I looked at the meager mound of bones and beef, then down at the March issue of Cooking Light, which I held in my hands, turned to the last page: Cabernet-Braised Beef Short Ribs. Yields six servings. I was only feeding four, and still there was no way.
"Are you sure? My recipe says that two pounds is enough for six people."
He laughed. "Honey, for six people, I'd get ten pounds."
I pondered this. Maybe six butchers could eat ten pounds, but I doubted that twentysomething Brooklynites, used to a steady diet of sushi and small plates, could make it through that much meat.
"Let’s make it an even three," I said.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, March 1, 2008 at 5:30 PM
Each Saturday evening we bring you a Sunday Supper recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.
Brian Halweil's thoughtful words on braising yesterday had me searching Serious Eats for a boeuf Bourguignon recipe to offer up to readers. Until now, the dish was missing from this site's recipe box. Below is a preparation I've had some luck with a few times in the past. It's adapted from Susan Spungen's Recipes, a Collection for the Modern Cook. As Brian pointed out, winter is the perfect time for braising, and boeuf Bourguignon is one of the most iconic braised dishes out there.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, February 23, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Each Saturday evening we bring you a Sunday Supper recipe. Why on Saturday? So you have time to shop and prepare for tomorrow.
While I was talking to my mom on a visit home recently, she reminded me that I used to call beef stroganoff "beef goofy."
"Why?" I asked. She had no idea. I don't know either, but that crazy name conjures up all sorts of comfort food memories for me and is one of my favorite meals to wind down the weekend with.
When I was a kid, our family used to make the sauce from a package, but when I started cooking for myself, I found it wasn't that much harder to do it from scratch. In fact, the hardest part for me is getting the timing down on the egg noodles that I serve and eat the stroganoff over. I usually prepare the noods ahead of time, like my mom did, and let them sit in the colander in the sink until the sauce is ready to serve. If you're a little slow with the sauce-makin', just give the noodles a quick heat for a half a minute or so in the nuker.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, February 23, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Our final Cook the Book recipe of the week, adapted from Cook with Jamie by Jamie Oliver, is for a comforting bowl of shin stew. After sautéing some vegetables and searing the beef, the oven does most of the work, slowly cooking the beef shin to a tender-as-you-like-it texture while filling your kitchen with a tempting aroma.
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Posted by Jenn Sit, January 30, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Photograph from iStockPhoto.com
Every year, I get excited about the Super Bowl. It's not about the halftime show or the commercials, and although I've been trying my best to understand the finer points of the game, it really comes down to one thing: the food.
When I told my boyfriend I wanted to throw a Super Bowl party this year, he wasn't too thrilled when he realized it would attract a crowd more interested in eating than watching the game. He was so concerned that he went so far as to propose I throw a Saturday night eating party, leaving Sunday to intense game-watchers. Sure, like that's gonna happen.
Here are some great recipes for the big game that I'm sure will show him that serious eating doesn't need to be sacrificed for serious watching. Now, I'll just have to convince him that my red and blue Giants cupcakes could theoretically be for the Pats, too.
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Posted by The Serious Eats Team, January 29, 2008 at 3:30 PM
This one's kind of a tailgating classic, especially if served the original way—dumping chili directly into the Fritos bag, transforming the bag itself into the serving vessel. (Though I think "serving vessel" is a bit high-falutin' in this context.) And while only a lucky few may be tailgating at the Super Bowl this year, we can all make this at home and pretend.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, January 28, 2008 at 3:00 PM
The first recipe of the week adapted from Robb Walsh's The Tex-Mex Cookbook is for carne con chile. Yes, you read that right—not "chile con carne." Jorge Cortez, (La Margarita in San Antonio), the gentleman who gave Walsh the recipe, said the large chunks of meat called for the flip-flop in the name.
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Posted by Robin Bellinger, January 28, 2008 at 11:00 AM
I don’t work in an office anymore, but when I did, I almost always took my lunch. This was partly a function of the alarming rate at which my overly enthusiastic cooking generates leftovers and partly because a sack lunch is so much cheaper (and usually healthier) than whatever you can buy in midtown Manhattan. Eventually I found myself cooking dinner and packing lunch for a husband, too, but this (he) presented a problem: the pot of whatever-it-was that had, once upon a time, fed me for two dinners and two lunches now disappeared between the two of us in thirty minutes flat. And then he would look up as if to say, “Where’s the rest of our dinner?” If I was going to pack lunches, I would have to plan and shop for them separately.
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Posted by Ed Levine, January 6, 2008 at 11:15 AM
On Sundays when I was growing up we would frequently have grilled steak and pizza for dinner. I have no idea what my mother's rationale was for serving such an unlikely but delicious combination, but I have to tell you that is one mighty fine Sunday dinner menu.
What could be bad when you're getting red meat, crust, tanginess, and creaminess in at least every other bite. You get the same combo in tonight's Sunday Supper recipe, Seared Beef Filet with Horseradish-Spiked Mashed Potatoes and Horseradish Cream, from Nancy Silverton's excellent but seemingly unappreciated book, Twist of the Wrist.
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Posted by Jenn Sit, December 21, 2007 at 1:30 PM
The Holiday Countdown is upon us and with only one weekend of shopping left, no one wants to spend the day battling the hoards of frenzied shoppers over that last Wii to then go home and cook a big dinner. But instead of settling on the same ol' take-out, try the short ribs ragu with pappardelle recipe from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics. If you prepare it before you head out, while you’re waiting in those long lines you can think of how tender the ribs are getting with each hour you’re away. By the time you max out your credit card and make your way home, the meat is ready to fall off the bone and into your mouth. Most of the work is done already, so you can rest your aching feet and have a hearty meal that’ll warm your insides and fill with you the holiday cheer that you may have lost amidst the Macy’s crowds.
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