Winter's journey and braised beef shanks

Virginia in winter is subtly beautiful. Delicate, blackened bone trees. Raw, sweeping curves of hills. A colorbox of strange halftones: olive green, bleached orange, gray-brown, salt white. Sometimes hard to perceive, the beauty is always there if you look for it: the eerie, lonely noise of geese ringing through cold, bell-clear air; the hazy bluish-purple of a certain kind of shrub; a splendid sunset.

  

Virginia's winter beauty wasn't really on my mind yesterday when I set off on a little trip to The Whole Ox, a wonderful artisanal butcher shop in an old railway station in the Plains. I just needed a respite from being stuck at home for a week, first because of school closings due to snow and bitter cold and then due to sickness. I also wanted to find an excuse to have the oven running all day to dispel some of the chill. But as I sailed along the roads, rising and falling with the curves, that beauty took hold of me again and reminded me why I love Virginia.

Coming back, stocked with a meaty pair of beef shanks and some other odds and ends (The Whole Ox is a lot like a treasure cave; I can never leave with just what's on the list), I passed a pair of foxes in a field. Their red bodies echoed the reddish-orange grasses that stuck up through the snow. Robin's egg sky and tumbledown wooden fence framed the scene. The foxes ignored me as I slowed to watch them--a pair of teenagers getting into trouble: one the instigator and the other slightly hesitant, hanging back. I longed to take a picture of them, but the stretch of road was too dangerous to stop for long. And so I've turned the image over and over in mind like a smooth stone, polishing and holding on to it. Maybe it was just as well I didn't get the picture. It wouldn't have been as good as the one in my mind. 

Once home with my goodies, I quickly started the braise. After three hours of slow cooking in the oven, we had a gorgeous meal of braised beef shanks (so tender the meat fell off the bones), mashed potatoes, and Brussels sprouts slaw. A wonderful meal that made a cold and ordinary Saturday into a special occasion.

Ingredients

• 3 lbs (or thereabouts) beef shanks (preferably big meaty ones with big bones)
• 1-1 1/2 cups orange juice
• 1/2-1 cup soy sauce
• 3 Tbsps vegetable oil (for searing)
• 3-4 Tbsps flour (for dredging)
• salt, pepper
• smoked paprika (optional but oh so nice)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 whole head of garlic, individual cloves peeled
• 5-6 whole medium carrots, peeled and ends trimmed

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Pat the beef shanks dry with paper towels and very liberally sprinkle salt, pepper, and smoked paprika all over them. Rub the seasonings into the meat.  Then dredge the meat with flour.
3. Heat the vegetable oil to medium-high heat in a frying pan. Sear the meat on all sides, for about 1-2 minutes per side. (You should have a nice golden brown crust on the meat.)
4. Transfer the meat to a Dutch oven. Arrange the garlic cloves and carrots around the meat. 
5. Add the orange juice, soy sauce, cumin, and coriander to the hot frying pan. Scrape at the browned bits that are stuck to the bottom of the pan. Let the mixture cook for a minute or two, just enough to bring all the ingredients together. Taste the braising liquid. It should be quite strong. Make any tweaks you like at this point (such as add a touch of honey, a splash of vinegar, more spice) and then pour the braising liquid over the meat and vegetables. Then slide it into the oven for about 3 hours. 
6. Take the meat out of the oven about 20-30 minutes before serving to let it cool down a little before eating. Use the braising liquid as a sauce over mashed potatoes or something that will soak up the juices. And do not forget to suck the marrow out of the bones, for that is truly one of life's pleasures (if you're an omnivore, at least). 

Now, I also promised my friend Clythie at Run Cook Eat Repeat to share the recipe for the Brussels sprouts slaw, so here it is:

Brussels Sprouts Slaw

• Rinse and grate 1 to 1 1/2 lbs Brussels sprouts that are brilliant green without brown blemishes on a coarse grater. Use the hard whitish ends to hold onto the sprout and then discard that part. I highly recommend getting a protective glove for doing this job. Alternatively, you could shred the sprouts in a food processor. If you do it this way, trim the hard white stem ends first. Add the shredded Brussels sprouts to a medium salad bowl.
• Coarsely grate about 1/2 cup of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Mix with the shredded sprouts.
• In another bowl, whisk together
• 6 Tbsps good quality oil (I used avocado oil, but a good quality extra virgin olive oil or walnut oil would be wonderful too)
• 4 Tbsps red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp honey (ish, more or less to taste)
• 1/4 tsp (or so) salt
• pinch of pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• Taste the vinaigrette for seasoning and adjust according to your taste.  
• Pour the vinaigrette over the sprouts and cheese and mix it all together. Eat! 

 

Snow day chili with beans and a hint of cocoa

Yesterday it snowed--the first significant snow in a few years here in Northern Virginia. On the tail of the snowstorm came the polar vortex--a mass of cold, hard air as inexorable and weighty as a glacier. Warmth flees before it. And the cold wind blows snow devils into the air, glittering in the sun. It's beautiful, stark, and harsh.

Cold days are good days to make chili. Filling chili, with a touch of warming spice (or a lot, depending on your taste) that satisfies hunger and banishes the cold. Serve it on rice with sour cream, a sprinkling of cheese, and some chopped onion (or any combination that you like).

What's a little different about this chili is the addition of unsweetened cocoa powder. Not to worry, it doesn't make the chili taste like chocolate, but it adds depth to the flavor and a beautiful dark color. And yes, this chili has beans, which I know  is sacrilege in some food circles, but I will gladly offend in this case, ha ha. Beans are incredibly nutritious, full of protein and fiber that will make you feel full for a long time. In this recipe I've used canned beans (organic, of course) for convenience (I know, I'm slipping), but if you are in the mood to cook your own beans, use this no-soak method, which works well for me.

Another nice thing about this chili is that you can switch up the protein: Use ground pork, ground beef, ground turkey, or ground lamb, whatever you have handy. The same is true of the beans. I like a two-to-one combination of white and pinto beans, but you can use any combination of beans.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef or pork or turkey or lamb (or a combination?)
• 3 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 2 15-oz cans of white beans (such as cannelini or Great Northern), rinsed and drained
• 1 15-oz can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 28-oz can of ground tomatoes
• 2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1-3 Tbsps chili powder
• 2 tsps unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp salt (or to taste)

 

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat (or other large-ish, heavy pot with a thick bottom). Add the onions and cook them until they are soft and slightly brown, about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally and adjust the heat as needed so that the onions don't burn.  
2. Add the ground beef/pork/turkey/lamb and cook through.
3. Add crushed garlic and stir until you can smell it, about a minute. 
4. Add tomatoes, beans, chili powder, cocoa powder, brown sugar, and about half of the salt. Stir everything together and let it simmer for at least 40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Longer is fine if you want to start it early in the day and just let it stew. If so, keep the heat on the lowest setting, keep the lid on, and stir from time to time.
5. Before it's time to serve, have a taste and add salt as needed. Then sever it over rice and with any additions that you like. I prefer sour cream and sometimes some chopped onion. Also, if you like it hot, you could always add some sliced jalapenos.   

 Now enjoy the cold weather and keep warm.

Reflections on winter and a bowl of beef stew with Guinness and bacon

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'

hierarchies? and even if one of them pressed me

suddenly against his heart: I would be consumed

in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing

but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure,

and we are so awed because it serenely disdains

to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, The Duino Elegies (1)

Snow came down last night, leaving pretty patterns on the brick patio in the back yard. A cold, raking wind also scoured the world, now alternately lit too brightly to bear or cast in gray gloom, under scudding clouds. A winter day to burrow into the soul and reflect.

Rilke's poem calls beauty the beginning of terror that we are just able to bear; this terrible beauty is like winter. Winter is the country of sorrow and cold, silent magic. Winter flays us bare as it does the trees. Cold winds scour the soul, exposing rock, snapped branches, the bones of our architecture. 

A deep, cold, and savage beauty exists only in winter, but we must have courage to stop and look at it, to let the blinding light fill up the cavities of our eyes and brains, to take in the bleak landscape, stripped to its wild, naked, indifferent truth. We can only bear to look at it for a short time, to allow the terror of beauty to howl over us like a wild windstorm, until it's time to come inside, into the warmth of home and family, and have a bowl of stew.

Beef stew with Guinness and bacon

 

This stew is perfect for a cold winter day. I've slightly adapted the recipe from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook's (2) recipe for carbonnades a la flamande. It is rich and hearty and exactly what you want when you are cold and hungry. I served it with some kale-mashed potatoes, but you can serve it over rice, or with noodles, as long as it's something that can soak up the incrediblly rich and delicious gravy. I definitely recommend using grass-fed beef. To find sources, check out Eat Wild, a fantastic source for information about grass-fed meats all over the country. 

Ingredients

• 4 slices bacon, sliced thinly
• 3 large onions, sliced thinly
• 3 pounds stew beef, preferably grass fed, cut into 2-inch cubes
• 2 Tbsps flour
• olive oil as needed
• 16 oz. Guinness beer (most of one large bottle, either drink the rest or save it for another day)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon beef bouillon
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tsps sugar
• 3/4 tsps salt
• 1 tsp dried thyme leaves
• 1/2 tsp ground pepper
• 2 Tbsps red wine vinegar 

Instructions

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit). In a large frying pan, cook the bacon until it's crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan and put it in a Dutch oven.

Add the thinly sliced onions to the pan and let them cook until they are softened and a bit browned. Add the onions to the Dutch oven. Add some olive oil to the pan and brown the beef cubes in batches. (Be sure to give the beef plenty of room to brown all the way around. Add more olive oil to the pan as needed.) Add the browned beef cubes to the onions and bacon in the Dutch oven. 

   

Add two tablespoons olive oil and two tablespoons flour to the pan. Let the mix cook until a bit brown. Slowly add beer, water, bouillon, bay leaf, sugar, salt, thyme, and pepper to the pan. Let the mixture cook until it thickens slightly. Add it to the meat and onions in the Dutch oven. Stir it all together, cover, and let it cook for 1.5-2 hours, stirring occasionally. After removing it from the oven, stir in two tablespoons red wine vinegar. Taste for seasoning and serve. 

(1) Rilke, Rainer Maria. (1989). "The First Elegy." The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. Edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell. New York: Vintage International. 

(2) Carter, John Mack, Minda W. Mulvey, and Mary E. Powers, eds. (1989). The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, revised edition. New York: Hearst Books.   

Lomo saltado: First leg on the Grand Tour

So, my son's last day of school for the summer was Friday. Months of summer stretch out before us.

Sounds great, doesn't it? It sounds great... No, not so much really. To be truthful, I doubt my parenting skills (every day). I really doubt my patience. How do I keep this five-and-a-half year old from getting bored (and worse, getting into trouble)? How do I keep from tearing my hair out? How do we keep the boy from losing all the progress he made in his Montessori school this spring? And how do I keep him from watching TV and playing video games all summer while I try to work? 

Then I got the idea. I was inspired by this Washington Post story about the Spanish-themed buffet at the Garden Cafe of the National Gallery of Art and the Joan Miro exhibit. I liked the idea of the food connecting with the exhibit. That could be cool. Each week, we have a different country as the theme: We try the food. We go to relevant exhibits. We learn about the country: the history, the geography. We use all that as a basis for regular lessons in writing, reading, math, and science. We make art in the style of the country. We listen to the music! Hey, this could be kind of fun! 

So I let my son pick the first country on our "Grand Tour." He picked Peru (where one of his teachers, Miss Rosy, is from). Eek, I thought, I know next to nothing about Peru. But now I am so incredibly happy and grateful he picked Peru. I've learned so much! What a fascinating country! When can we go? Incas, Nazca lines, a coastal desert, the root of all potatodom and all tomatodom, Machu Picchu, Andes, and the Amazonian rain forest. 

It turns out Peruvian food is at least as diverse as its landscape. Thousands of varieties of potatoes, tomato species that exist nowhere else, fish, fruit, not to mention the variety of ethnic influences on the cuisine from all over the globe. What do I pick to make and eat?

Ceviche, which may be the dish most associated with Peru, is intriguing but not necessarily a dish you want to introduce to a five-year old. Furthermore, because it requires such extreme freshness of seafood and such a deft hand with acid and spices, it didn't seem like a good place to start as a beginner. I wanted something traditional, somewhat easy, definitely Peruvian, but not so far out there I wouldn't be able to get my son to try it. A friend suggested lomo saltado, a beef stir-fry dish with fried potatoes. So I started looking into what makes the dish. From a few different sources,* I gathered these basic features of the dish:

• It's a stirfry, reflecting the fact that Peru boasts one of the larger ethnic Chinese communities outside China in the world. 
• It includes potatoes and is typically served with rice. So yes, that's two, let me say it again, two starches in one dish. 
• The main ingredients are almost always beef strips, onion, tomatoes, fried potatoes, soy sauce, and vinegar. Often included are either parsley or cilantro. Sometimes cumin is included, sometimes not.  
• Aji amarillo, a yellow Peruvian pepper is often included, but sadly I couldn't find one. 

So based on these general ideas about the dish, here's how I made it, and I must say it was pretty delicious:

Ingredients

• 1/2 bag of frozen French fries (I know, I totally cheated on this, but at least they were organic and included very few ingredients)
• 3 Tbsps vegetable oil  
• 1 lb of grass-fed stir-fry beef in thin strips
• 1 red onion, sliced thinly
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 3 tomatoes, seeded and cut into bite-size pieces
• 2-3 Tbsps soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 Tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• salt and pepper

Instructions:

Before we get into the specifics, here's a general tip about any stirfry: Always make sure that all your ingredients are prepared and ready to go. Stirfrys are one kind of dish where mise en place is critical. So, assuming your ingredients are all chopped and measured and peeled and sliced and ready, here are the instructions:

1. Cook the French fries according to package instructions. 
2. Heat the oil in a wok or another thick-bottomed pot on high heat. The oil should be very hot. 
3. Add the meat to the oil (be careful about getting splattered!). Stirring quickly, let it cook for 1 minute. 
4. Add the onions to the pan. Let it cook for 2 minutes. 
5. Add the tomatoes, garlic, cumin, garlic, soy sauce, vinegar, and parsley to the wok, stir quickly and let it all cook for about 2 minutes. 
6. Taste the sauce, add more soy sauce, salt, and pepper to taste.
7. Serve the stirfried meat over the French fries with white rice on the side. Sprinkle a little fresh parsley over the top. 

Is it completely authentic? Probably not. Is it good? Oh yes. I think I just added a new dish to the dinner repertoire. (And it would probably be good with pork too.) 

* Some sources to learn more about Peruvian food are My Life in Peru, Peru Food, www.southamerica.cl, and About.com's list of traditional Peruvian dishes.