Stew stew stew

It's winter tiem and that means one thing to me: stew, a new sketchbook, stew, cookies, stew, liberal amounts of alcohol, and stew, of course. So, here's how to stew.

Vegetable oil (or any light colored flavorless oil will do I'm sure)

*Flour

1 1/4 pounds stew beef, cut into 1-inch pieces

6 large garlic cloves, minced

8 cups beef stock or canned beef broth 2 cartons beef stock plus

half a pint of beer(it's not Miller time)

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon sugar(might need more sugar depending on how bitter

your beer is)

1 tablespoon dried thyme

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

*1 tbs brown mustard

2 bay leaves

*Scant teaspoon hickory liquid smoke

• Butter
• 3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 7 cups)
• *Instead of carrots and potatoes only, I gathered parsnips, a turnip, and some yukon golds(russet would be better in stew, though, methinks, but what ever pratties you have kicking about. Little fingerlings whole would be niiiice).
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 cups 1/2-inch pieces peeled carrots 
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

The recipe I used as my skeleton is from Epicurious which is a site I haven't explored much, but they appear to have a bomb ass app for smart phones and since my girl has an android, I imagine I'll be referencing them more in future. I 1 1/2ed the recipe because I had 2 3/4 pounds of stew beef chunks. 

Coat your beef(or pork or lamb or a combination of any of the above) with flour. It'll pro'lly take half a cup, but fuck measuring. Coat the meat with the flour and let it sit for a minute to ensure it sticks, but don't let it sit for too long or it'll get all gummy and nasty. Pour a couple tablespoons of oil in the bottom of the pot you plan to make your stew in and heat until it's shimmering. Add the floury meats, 


BUT 

only add one layer and brown them on every side. Don't cook them for very long, you're only browning them. Take them out after they're browned nicely, set them on a plate, and season them(while they're still hot) while your oil comes back up to temperature for batch two. This would be an excellent time to add more oil if need be btw. Repeat until you run out of chunks and have a pile of browned meat that your brother tries to jack pieces of, but is then rewarded by a mostly raw interior. That's what you get bitch.

This much beer.

Pour the dried thyme in your hand and rub it between your fingey bones to get it's oils flowin' before adding it to the hot oil to bloom it. Then add the garlic, saute for a minute (your nose will know) and add the tomato paste. Then dump in the beer and stir, scraping the bottom of the pot(a whisk or wooden spoon is good). This deglazes the pan making the usage of the stew pot for browning the meat an important step. You're missing out on a fatty layer of flavor and the thickening power of a roux if you skip  that step. So don't. Or I'll cut you. Next add the sugar, mustard, and worchestershiredickinmyass sauce and then add the meat. You can also pour in  a little more beer to just barely cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Simmering the meat in the spice-y, tomato-y, beer not only infuses the flavors into the meat, but it breaks down the beef making the meat unbelievably tender. Like melt on your tongue tender. 

It is now time to add the stock. Pour it in and add the liquid smoke and bay leaves. Stir everybody up(make sure you scrape the bottom of the pot to make sure no tomato paste or flour is hiding under the meat) and taste it. Does it need salt or pepper? Pro'lly. Add them to taste, cover, and bring up to a boil. Then the cut the heat down to a simmer and fuck off for an hour.

Or, if you for some reason are lacking a sous chef to peel and chop your roots/onions now would be a good time. Melt butter in a large saute pan and add the potatoes, turnips, parsnips(which are treated like carrots) and onions in one layer increments in the pan until the sides are all browned and caramelized(like the beef :O). I ended up being able to fit the potatoes and turnips together and the parsnips and the onions together. Add extra butter as needed and I even sprinkled a little sugar on the onions to encourage caramelization. This step adds a welcome layer of delicious and speeds up the cooking of the veg in the stew. When everything is done browning add it at once to the stew and simmer uncovered until the potatoes are fork tender.

Taste for seasoning again, it pro'lly needs more salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls, sprinkle chopped fresh parsley on top, and nom heartily.

Thanksgiving pt 2: What could go wrong?

As promised, here's the rest of my epic adventure making my family's Thanksgiving meal. 


I decided to brine my turkey, because that's what all the cool kids are doing. I stole Alex Guarnaschelli's recipe because she promised it was awesome, but I honestly found the soy sauce to be a bit overpowering as it was about all I could taste. I was still very good and incredibly moist which is miraculous because as I mentioned before, my oven's thermometer is off. So when I turn the little knob to temperature X, my oven heats to temperature Y. As it turned out temperature Y was "broil" and my oven CAUGHT ON FIRE. I found out that when something catches on fire at my house my family responds by looking at the fire and asking each other(in totally calm, nonchalant, indoor voices) what do we do? Water? No. Call 911? Hell no(hide the bong, put out the blunt, where's the clear eyes?!?!). Baking soda. Yes, my one reader, baking soda. So my girlfriend, Jenny, killed the fire with a mere sprinkling of baking soda and we continued as if nothing ever happened 'cos that's how we roll.


After the fire was under control and my mother laid out the appetizers with care Kaiser called her in to work. So I set about dragging ass making the rest of dinner.


For the mashed potatoes I boiled yukon golds in salted water(put potatoes in cold water, covered, bring them up to a boil, uncover, keep simmering) with a bay leaf until they were fork tender. I mashed them up with butter AND cream cheese AND a herb(thyme, rosemary(very little), sage, fresh bayleaf, garlic) infused half and half which I had the joy of making twice as a my first batch decorated the kitchen floor and was enjoyed by the dogs. 


*Don't give dogs garlic or onions beeteedubz, a small amount is okay for a large dog(I have a pit bull mix and a... well... we're not sure about Odin...I digress), but it's toxic to them. Like chocolate. Or grapes/raisins. :C*


Anyway, back to the potatoes. I didn't whip them super smooth since they were so rich, I left them slightly chunky for..uh...Toothsomeness? I dunno, it works out well for me. I made gravy with the turkey drippings and the neck. I boiled it down with apple cider and chicken stock. Also some fresh herbs which escape me. Thyme and sage fosho.


To go with my starch I prepared moar starch in the form of stuffing. I ripped up a fresh french loaf and added maple bacon(crisped in a pan and cut up first), dried cherries, chopped pecans, onions, apples, and carrots (the latter three sauteed in olive oil with salt+pepper+poultry seasoning), three eggs, and some cream. Squished it all together and dished it into muffin tins with a ice cream scooper to make a brilliant idea I shamelessly ripped off of Rachel Ray: Stuffin' Muffins!! Yaaay!!! They're like muffins made of stuffing and who the hell doesn't love muffins?


*ahem*


Got a bit carried away, but really, I urge you to not stuff your bird. This is definitely a soap box of mine. I once patiently tried to bestow this knowledge upon my white bread ex's feed animal mother. She just mooed over me bellowing something about stuffing her turkey with box stuffing and never getting sick. Of course you wouldn't get sick if you cooked the shit out of your turkey like I'm sure my example does. If your stuffing was sawdust reconstituted with tap water lacking anything to bring it richness, there's no need to make sure it's cooked evenly. If you used your oven like a heat ray blasting all the juiciness out of the turkey until all that is left is a chalky husk of what could've been delicate, tender, absolutely silken on the tongue. Then, no, you have no worries. Stuff your bird. But if you use eggs in your stuffing, if your turkey is raw, don't mix the two. By the time the external temperature of the turkey meat reaches the correct doneness, the middle of the stuffing will still likely be undercooked. You don't want a soggy mess do you, you nasty bitch? On top of all these other sparkling prizes, not stuffing the bird cuts the cooking time down dramatically. Any way; in a pan, in a casserole, in a muffin tin, just not in a turkey crevice DD;


There was my tangent. Anyway, after all this starch I decided we needed one more: sweet potato yam casserole. I peeled and cut my yams, actually, they were yams...I cut them into thinnish, half inch slices and par steamed them over a bath of hot water with a cinnamon stick in it. After about 15 minutes of this I put them in a pan and tossed them with butter, pumpkin pie spice(the same one from the pudding), brown sugar, salt and pepper, and roasted them with pecans and homemade marshmallow at I-wish-I-could-tell-you-degrees. Hot, 400 or so I was hoping for. They were done after the marshmallows and melted and became golden on top. I used Alton Brown's green bean casserole recipe. Do it faggots, it's good. 


Annnd what does that leave? Ah, cranberry sawce. Cranberry sauce goes like this:
1 bag cranberries
1 cup sugar
The juice of 1 orange + 1 lime
Also the zest(zest them first)
1 stick cinnamon
1 jalapeño pepper(seeded, we want fruity, not fire. The cinnamon adds warmth)


Put everything together, boil until cranberries start to pop. Let sit at room temperature for a bit so let everyone get to know eachother.

So that was my Thanksgiving. We were all so ravenous that we only took a moment to snap a picture of my plate before we dug in. There will be more pictures in future entries. I promise B:

Thanksgiving pt 1: Dessert with Dysentery

I'm a wind bag so I'll do Thanksgiving in parts so maybe someone will read this shit instead of TLDRing it. 


As Thanksgiving just passed I feel it's only appropriate that I make my first real post about the feast I so lovingly prepared. So let me set the stage: there I was, sick with dysentery in my bullshit little kitchen. 
It's 2 in the morning when I make the desserts as is tradition at this point. The biggest difference between this year and previous ones is that I'd been battling a decently high grade fever most of the evening. At any rate a fever of 102.7 can't stop me from making marshmallows and pie:{DD


So that's what I did. 


I prepared a pretty standard mixed berry pie(plus black cherries): I tossed frozen berries in flour and sugar. About a cup of sugar and just enough flour to coat everything, then I dumped it all in a store bought pie crust(I don't have a food processor which seems to be the "fail safe" part of many pie crust recipes) and squeezed a lemon plus about a tsp and a half of vanilla extract(excellent quality cold pressed shit stolen from my far less ghetto girlfriend's house) all over. 
To top it all off I made a lattice top because it's purdy/a good way to make sure everybody is having a vent. No egg wash, at my girlfriend's very eloquent persuasion of "Fuck shiney pies". And I baked the shit out of it at I think 375, but I can't be sure as my oven's thermometer is off(moar on that later :DD). It took about an hour. I ended up serving it with vanilla whipped cream and a dusting of powdered sugar.


Pie number two, or the second pie, since pie number two makes it sound subordinate was a pumpkin pudding pie with a cinnamon graham cracker crust. It was the shit. I'll tell you how to make it 'cos I'm that nice. 


First find a graham cracker crust recipe. I don't care which one, the ingredients should be graham cracker crumbs and melted butter. Follow it. If you don't have a food processor make your girl/boyfriend, younger brother, gramma/other extraneous relative that's chilling for the holidays make the crumbs for you 'cos you're the goddamn chef and you have more important things to attend to (slave labor ftw). Press your shit into a pan and blind bake, that is V. important. I used cinnamon graham crackers. It was an excellent choice. 
Here's your more important thing M. Chef de Cuisine. It's time to make pumpkin pudding from scratch. I jacked the spooky ghost pumpkin pudding recipe from food network(which belongs to them, not me), but made my own adjustments, the recipe is:

1 package gelatin
 2 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
6 large egg yolks *4 large egg yolks plus 2 whole eggs(This is crucial if you want your filling to be filling. Do not add extra gelatin, it will only result in rubbery filling)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon *1 Tablespoon homemade pumpkin pie spice(cloves, all spice, cinnamon, nutmeg all ground up fresh in my coffee grinder. To clean up grind a piece of bread that's been torn up for a few seconds.)
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
*1 teaspoon vanilla
1 (15-ounce) can pure pumpkin puree(I eyeballed half a 28 oz can and think I added a little more than 15 oz, it was welcome.)


Bloom the gelatin by sprinkling it over a tablespoon of cold water. Make sure this is in a bowl large enough to accommodate all of your puddin'. Don't touch it, let it do it's thing. Turn your attention to setting up a double boiler. In the top of the double boiler mix everything except the pumpkin and vanilla together and cook until it coats the back of a spoon(10-12 mins). Add the vanilla at the last second on the heat and then add it to the gelatin stirring constantly to combine. After your gelatin is all groovy and distributed add your pumpkin and repeat. Pour this loveliness into your (blind baked!!!!) crust and refrigerate over night. You will have extra. Let it set up and eat it. It's good.

I served this with just plain sweetened whipped cream and praline pecans (pecans + 1 T heavy cream + brown sugar + 350 degree oven for some amount of time don'twalkawayb*tch) for some crunch. 


I also made marshmallows from scratch, but I took the recipe from someone else's blog and that person used Martha Stewart's recipe. Alton Brown's is pretty fail safe too. I forgot the salt and compensated by sprinkling pink Himalayan salt on top. 


There's more where that came from.