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Posts Tagged ‘Dutch Oven’

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Sauerbraten

In Beef, Meat, Recipes on November 2, 2012 at 3:29 PM

Sauerbraten

(Active preparation-45 minutes; inactive preparation-4 days; cooking time 5 hours)

Ingredients

4 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 6.5 lb. Bottom Round Roast
1 tsp. ground black pepper
2 tbsp. Kosher salt

For the marinade:

2 cups of water
2 cups dry red wine
2 cups red wine vinegar
2 cups cider vinegar
2 large carrots peeled and sliced
2 medium onions, chopped coarsely
2 tsps. yellow mustard seeds
24 juniper berries
12 cloves
4 bay leaves
1 tbsp. whole black peppercorns

For cooking and finishing:

½ cup of sugar
3 dozen Gingersnap Cookies, crushed

Preparation

Marinate the Roast:

1.    Pat dry the roast with paper toweling and sprinkle with Kosher salt and ground black pepper.
2.    In a 5 quart or larger pot, melt the butter, add the seasoned roast, fat side down, and brown on all sides for about 10 or 12 minutes in total.
3.    When fully browned, remove the roast and set aside in an enameled Dutch Oven, or large non-reactive bowl, preferably one with a cover.
4.   Next, prepare the marinade: add the 11 ingredients to the pot, cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.
5.    When the marinade has cooled, pour it over the roast, cover and refrigerate for 4 to 5 days, turning it once each day.

Cook the Roast:

6.    When ready to cook the roast, remove from the refrigerator and pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Alternatively, cook on stove top.
7.    Add sugar to marinade and stir well, place Dutch Oven on middle rack of oven and slow cook, covered for 5 hours until roast is fork-tender. If using stove top, bring to a boil, reduce heat so liquid is just bubbling, cover and cook 5 hours.
8.    With either cooking method, if roast is not completely covered by the liquid, turn it once or twice during the 5 hours.
9.    When done, shut the oven, or heat, remove the meat to a platter and keep warm.
10.    Strain the solids from the marinade and discard them. Wipe clean the Dutch Oven, and remove and discard any solids still attached to the roast.
11.    Add the strained marinade back to the Dutch Oven, place it on the stove top, bring to a boil and whisk in the crushed gingersnap cookies.
12.    Add back the roast and keep warm on a low flame until ready to serve.
13.    Slice the roast and pour the gravy over the slices. Serve at once with sides of red cabbage and mashed potatoes.

Please see Where Have All the Germans Gone?

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Coq au Vin

In Chicken, Meat, Recipes on February 25, 2012 at 12:49 PM

Coq au Vin

Serves 8 or serves 4 with leftovers.

Adapted from several cookbooks, see East Side, East Side, All Around the Town

Ingredients:

2 Bell & Evans Free Range Chickens, quartered, about 8 or 9 lbs. total weight
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 bottles of Côtes du Rhône
3 bay leaves
3 sprigs of thyme
1 large shallot coarsely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
¾ lb. pearl onions, about 16 to 20 depending on size
½ lb. thick sliced bacon
1 lb. Cremini mushrooms
¼ lb. unsalted butter
3/4 cup flour
½ cup cognac
2 & ½ cups unsalted beef stock
6 tbsps. Beef demi-glace

Preparation:

Steps 1 to 7 take about 1 hour and can be performed a day in advance and refrigerated overnight.

1.    Prepare a bouquet garni, by wrapping the bay leaves, thyme sprigs, shallot & garlic in a piece of cheese cloth and tying it off.
2.    Separate the drumsticks from the thighs and cut each breast in half leaving the wings attached to the upper half of the breast. You will end up with 16 pieces of chicken. Liberally salt and pepper each piece.
3.    Place the chicken pieces and the bouquet garni in a large non-reactive bowl and cover with the contents of 1 bottle of the wine. Cover the bowl and refrigerate, marinating the chicken for 6 to 8 hours or overnight.
4.    Bring a small pot of water to boil, add the pearl onions and blanch for 1 minute. Remove the onions and when cooled, remove and discard their skins.
5.    Re-boil the water; add the bacon slices and par-boil for about 3 minutes to remove some of the saltiness. Drain and pat the bacon dry. Heat a non-stick sauté pan on medium and fry the bacon until cooked but still soft about 3 or 4 minutes. Remove the bacon, slice into ½ inch wide pieces and set aside.
6.    Remove most of the bacon fat from the sauté pan leaving about two tablespoons.  Add 2 tbsps. of butter and then the skinned onions, brown on high heat for about 3 minutes, remove and set aside.
7.    Repeat step 6 with the cremini mushrooms, adding 2 tbsps. of butter and browning the mushrooms for about 5 minutes.
8.    When the chicken pieces are finished marinating, drain and pat them dry; reserve the marinade and the bouquet garni.
9.    Dredge the chicken pieces in flour. Melt 4 tbsps. of butter in a stainless steel sauté pan on medium heat and brown the chicken pieces well, for about 10 minutes turning them several times. You will probably have to do this in two batches.
10.    Remove the chicken to a large casserole, or Dutch Oven.
11.    Add the cognac to the sauté pan; bring to a boil and deglaze the pan about 1 minute. Pour the cognac and the fond over the chicken; add the reserved marinade, 2nd bottle of wine, beef stock and bouquet garni.
12.    Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and cook for 30 minutes adding the mushrooms, onions, bacon after 15 minutes.
13.    Remove the chicken, bacon, onions and mushrooms, set aside and keep warm. Remove and discard the bouquet garni.
14.    Strain the liquid through a fine sieve, and pour off the fat. Clean the casserole, return the sauce to it and bring to a boil, add the demi-glace to thicken the sauce and when it reaches the consistency thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, add back all of the set aside ingredients, stir well and heat covered for about 15 to 30 minutes on low, prior to serving.

Serve with Mashed Potatoes and Côtes du Rhône

Please see East Side, East Side, All round the Town

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Papa’s Hearty Beef Stew a la Burgundy

In Beef, For Moms on the Go, Meat, Recipes, Stews on October 27, 2011 at 11:11 AM

Ready to Eat

Makes about 5 quarts-preparation time including stove-top browning is 1½hour. Total oven cooking time is 2½ hours. Please refer to A Hearty Stew for Those Chilly Autumn and Winter Nights for some preparation tips.

Ingredients:

1 cup of flour
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
5-6 lb. roast (bottom round is an excellent choice) cut into cubes of about 1¼ – 1½ inches
½ cup of canola oil
1 head of garlic, cloves peeled and coarsely chopped
5 cups of Pinot Noir or red Burgundy wine
1 quart of beef stock
2 lbs. of Yukon Gold potatoes, cubed to 1½ inches
24 pearl onions (about 1 lb.) outer skin peeled (see step 1 below)
1 16 oz, package of baby carrots
¼ cup of each of coarsely chopped fresh sage and fresh thyme
1 tbsp. whole black peppercorns, crushed
1¼ lbs. cremini mushrooms, stems removed, large caps halved or quartered
1 small (6 oz.) can tomato paste

Preparation:

1.    Prepare the onions – bring small pot of water to boil, blanch onions for 30 seconds, rinse and cool, cut off root end and peel outer skin layer.
2.    In the meantime, peel and cube the potatoes, prepare the mushrooms and chop the herbs and garlic.
3.    Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
4.    Add flour, salt and pepper to a gallon size Ziploc® bag.
5.    Add beef, about 10 pieces at a time, to bag and shake well to coat with flour.
6.    Heat canola oil in a large casserole, preferably enamel coated cast iron French or Dutch Oven.
7.    Add the floured beef cubes to the casserole and brown them in one layer without crowding, for 8 or so minutes on high heat, turning the cubes several times.

Browning the Beef

Fully Browned Beef

8.    Remove browned beef and set aside, add more beef cubes and continuing browning until all the beef is done. If beef sticks to the casserole, or the flour base begins to burn, add a bit more oil.
9.    Add the garlic and lightly brown in the remaining oil and fat.
10.    Add one cup of wine and with a spatula, deglaze the pot. Add a second cup of wine and continue deglazing.
11.    When the second cup of wine has boiled down for about 1 minute, return all of the meat to the casserole to coat it well. Reduce heat to medium.
12.    Add beef broth and stir well, cover and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes, stir well, cover and place in the pre-heated oven for ½ hour.
13.    Add the remaining three cups of wine and the onions, stir well and return to oven covered for another ½ hour.
14.    Add the carrots, herbs and black pepper, stir well and return covered to the oven, for a third ½ hour.
15.    Add the mushrooms and return covered to the oven an additional ½ hour.
16.    Add the tomato paste and return to oven uncovered for a final half hour ½ hour.

The Finished Product

When ready to serve the stew, serve it with a crust baguette and a good red wine, such as a Brunello de Montalcino.

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A Hearty Stew for Those Chilly Autumn and Winter Nights

In General Articles on October 27, 2011 at 11:09 AM

As the leafs cascade onto the lawn in a profusion of yellow, red and brown and the outdoor thermometer dips below 60 degrees, it is time to resurrect the cast iron Le Creuset Oval French Oven  from the basement and cook up a batch of stew. We invested in our 8 quart French Oven a number of years ago and it has served us very well over many years of stew making.

Although there are smaller French and Dutch ovens, we find that this size is right because if you are expending the time and effort to prepare a stew, you might as well make a big one. That way you can break it down into small portions, freeze them and have dinner made in advance for several wintry nights. This should appeal to ‘Moms on the Go’, as well as working singles and couples. Also, for some unfathomable reason, stews always seem to taste better after being re-heated. So go for the big French or Dutch oven.

Making a stew requires a fair amount of preparation time, as well as cooking time, so obviously should not be attempted for that evening’s meal. When my wife and I were both working outside of the home and raising our two daughters, we made our stews on a fall or winter weekend afternoon. Now that we both work from home, we can create one practically any day of the week.

There are a number of steps involved in preparing a stew, so it is a good idea to perform these up front, in order to keep the process moving right along. Of course if you have a sous chef nearby, dividing the labor will be even more expeditious. Steps such as: chopping the garlic and herbs, washing and quartering the potatoes, cleaning the mushrooms, and par-boiling and peeling the onions in advance, will serve to ease the job of making a stew.

Another labor saving step would be to buy the meat already cubed, but that usually is more expensive and you may not get the freshest and best cut of meat, which is we why we prefer to buy the whole piece and cut it ourselves. As the season progresses, we will be adding more stews to the recipe list. In the meantime, good cooking and good eating with Papa’s Hearty Beef Stew a la Burgundy.

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