Western Barbecue Steak

Alright, I know I'm a day late for Memorial Day/Bank Holiday celebrations, but I had a friend in town visiting for the last few days, so you'll have to forgive me. I was thinking as I walked around Old Town here in Edinburgh yesterday that the way the holiday is celebrated in the US could not be more different from the way it's celebrated here. In the US, I don't think I was ever taught that Memorial Day was meant to be a day for remembering the soldiers that have served the country. Growing up, it was always just a day that meant pools, staying up late on Sunday night, and eating lots of watermelon... though later, when I spent my summers in Kentucky, many friends treated it as a day for remembering anyone who had passed away, military or not.

So fast forward to living here in Scotland, where there are ceremonies, moments of silence, church services and specific prayer times, and it's a little tough to reconcile the two versions of the holiday as an expat. On my second UK day of memorial, here's a little bit about Wilbur, Eleanor's husband, and my grandfather, who usually gets glossed over on this blog and in my life.

Wilbur died years before I was born, so all I've ever known about him is gleaned from the scant stories my mom rarely tells... but in the process of starting this site, going through old family artifacts, and trying to learn as much as I can about him, I've stumbled upon some interesting facts.

Wilbur was a joker from the start-- his friends thought Eleanor ruined him by taming his wild side, but people always say that about wives and I think it's probably an unfair statement. As I've grown older and learned more about his childhood, it strikes me that his life was hard, and the fact that he can make jokes at all is nothing short of a miracle: Wilbur was the oldest in his family, and when his dad was gassed during World War I and never recovered from the shellshock, it was Wilbur who abandoned the prospects of a full-ride golf scholarship to college and dropped out of high school in 9th grade to take care of his family. His lack of education didn't stop him from providing for his family-- he worked a series of mostly blue-collar jobs throughout his life that put food on the table even if it wasn't a lot. His red hair was a great source of pride for both himself and Eleanor (though I always picture him as a blond because I've only ever seen two colour photos of him).

I picture him having a strong sweet tooth, but I don't know why I think that; the only things I know about his preferences in food are that he only ate apple pie with a slice of cheese on top, and that he always used toast smeared with grape jelly to mop up the runny yolks of his fried eggs. My mom used to tell me those facts when I was a kid and being picky about my food touching, and I would squeal in disgust... though nowadays, the apple pie thing sounds pretty epic.

Wilbur was the inventor of the dad joke. Phrases like “Hi, hungry, I'm Wilbur!” and “If your knee hurts when you rub it, then don't rub it!” were his trademarks, and I grew up with my mom parroting them to me once removed: “I'm hungry,” I'd moan, and she'd reply (every time) “You know what Wilbur would say!” and I'd roll my eyes at her the same way she probably did at him.

Wilbur fought in the Pacific during World War II, which started when he was 24, and he wrote long letters to Eleanor throughout his service. He looked goofy in his uniform and he hated being at sea because he was lonely and hot, and he wrote little rhyming poems about “that ol' Hirohito” that he would send back to Eleanor in crabbed handwriting, written in pencil on his ship before curfew.

Wilbur and Eleanor married in 1942, and were childless until my mom's older brother was born over a decade later. During that time, they lived in Brooklyn where Wilbur worked as a cab driver (my favourite photo of him is his cabbie license). Eventually, he opened a gas station with a friend of his, and left the taxi business for good... until one day when he decided that their car needed a paint job, so he bought himself a can of yellow paint and painted his car with a paintbrush. The resulting paint job was (by all accounts) terrible, and Eleanor threw a fit because people on the sidewalk would try to hail her for a ride everywhere she went... which I'm sure Wilbur found hilarious.

The things I know about him are none of them related to his service in the US Navy, but I can only imagine how that experience must have shaped his own life (as well as Eleanor's, who agreed to marry him via a letter she wrote to him while he was on a ship bound for the Philippines). I'm grateful for the people like him, both in the US and abroad, who fight to make their countries into better places, and I'm proud to have a grandfather like him, even if I never got the chance to know him.

So, in honour of Wilbur, a high-school dropout, a sailor, a husband, a father, and a relocated Yankee, here's a steak recipe. Make it on the grill this summer and be grateful for your family.

The verdict:

The flavour on these steaks is amazing. There's no single ingredient that shines out from the rest, the overall taste is just rich and flavourful without overpowering the steak itself. We made them in the oven, under the broiler because we live in a country that rarely reaches temperatures higher than 16C, but if you have a grill, make these on it and enjoy them with a cold beer as you eat outside on a picnic table... and know that somewhere far away, a couple of Scottish expats are highly jealous.

A sincere question: do any of you have any idea if Heinz still makes chili sauce? It's the only brand that popped up on my Googling, but I've never seen a bottle of it anywhere in the US, much less over here.

The recipe:

Western Barbecue Steak

THE DIRECTIONS:

Mix together all ingredients except steak and let marinade rest for at least 10 minutes.
Place steak in shallow dish and pour marinade over it.
Marinate at least 30 minutes at room temperature, turning steak halfway through to ensure thorough coating on both sides.
Drain excess marinade and grill or broil 6 inches from heat source until just warm throughout.

Yields 6 servings.

the ingredients:

¼ c vegetable oil
½ c sweet onion, chopped
¼ c prepared horseradish
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp chili sauce (I used Tabasco)
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 sirloin steaks, 1-inch thick (½ lb each)

Brioche

My mom always talks about all the 'new' foods that my dad's family introduced her to after she and my dad married. You know, really exotic things like granny smith apples and biscuits. I don't think my mom had ever had either one before the first time she had dinner with my dad's family, and when I was growing up, I never understood why. Now that I'm cooking Eleanor's recipes, though, I'm starting to get it. Eleanor was not a biscuit type of lady. She was a yankee, and as such, she made rolls, brioche (who knew?) and other light, yeasted, risen baked goods... or at least those are the kinds of recipes she saved.

Before starting this project, I was always nervous about making yeasted baked goods. Rolls, breads, even certain types of muffins made me nervous because mine never seemed to work correctly. Either they wouldn't rise at all (looking at you, every pizza crust I've ever made), or they wouldn't taste right if they did (et tu, challah?). But Eleanor seems to have been a specialist at yeasted breads-- since this brioche is maybe the third recipe that I've made from the box that requires a risen dough.

Why, you may be asking, does this matter? Well, here's why: when I set about doing this project, I was dying to know what kind of a cook Eleanor was. Whether she followed directions or did her own thing in the kitchen, whether she even used recipes or if she just made things up as she went along.

I always kind of thought she just did her own thing-- she was no shrinking violet, and she was highly opinionated, so I figured she would have been just as bossy when it came to cooking. But it's starting not to seem that way. She kept meticulous notes on tweaks she made to her recipes-- noting the dishes she used to make certain things, or the time her oven took to cook something. And when it comes to meticulousness, is there anything more fickle than yeast?

Judson helped with the kneading. Those are not my arms.

Making yeast dough requires two things I'm not great at: following directions (just kidding, I'm a total square and great at following directions as long as it's not in the kitchen) and patience (something I am terrible at in all arenas of my life). So maybe the real reason my pizza crusts have always been a bit dense is not due to the foibles of the recipe, but the foibles of the chef. Regardless, on starting this project, I became convinced I would succeed at the recipes, and succeed I (mostly) have.

It turns out, if you just measure out your ingredients in an exact fashion, keep your water as warm as possible without crossing over into 'hot' territory, and set aside enough time for the dough to rise even in your extremely drafty Scottish flat, you can make almost anything. (And when I try to wallow in my self-pity because I live in a drafty flat in Scotland without a 'warm spot' to let my dough rise, I remind myself that Eleanor, too, lived in a house with no air-conditioning, but hers was in central Florida, where the temperature regularly crested 37C/98F before 9am, and so finding a place to get any ingredient down to room temperature would have been just as much of a pain for her.)

So maybe this project is teaching me a couple of things: First of all, Eleanor might have had opinions about everything (remember, she once told my mom I was going to 'grow up spoiled' because my mom was rocking me and singing me a song when I was 6 weeks old), but she knew how to follow directions when the situation warranted it. Secondly, there's not a lot you can't succeed at in the kitchen if you just agree to put aside your smarts, be humble, and follow the directions in the recipe to the letter... or maybe I just got lucky because this is a Better Homes and Gardens recipe from 1978.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. Judson literally ate half of the batch of brioche muffins that we made on the night we made them, because he was so in love with the flavour. I cooked them in a muffin tin because the recipe didn't really advise how to cook them, and I wanted wee brioches like the kind I used to buy in Paris. They were rich and buttery, and didn't even need toppings to be good (though no one would judge if you smeared a wee bit of plum butter on there and took it to work for breakfast every morning for a week). Set aside the time to make these the right way and you definitely won't regret it.

The recipe:

Brioche Rolls

THE DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 176C/350F.
Lightly grease a muffin tin.
Dissolve yeast in warm water.
In a medium-sized bowl, combine eggs, butter, and cooking oil.
Add yeast mixture to egg mixture and stir well.
In a large bowl, stir together sugar, salt, and 1 ½ c flour.
Add yeast mixture and beat well.
Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft, silky dough that doesn't stick to hands.
On a lightly floured surface, knead dough 3-5 minutes or until smooth and elastic.
Grease the bowl with a spritz of cooking spray and put dough in it to rise, turning once to grease all over.
Cover tightly and let rise in warm place for one hour or until double.
Punch down, shape into a ball, and twist off palm-sized pieces.
Roll the pieces into balls gently, and place in muffin tin.

Yields approximately 15 muffins.

the ingredients:

4 ½ tsp active dry yeast
½ c warm water
3 eggs, beaten, at room temperature
1/3 c butter, melted
1/3 c vegetable oil
3 ½-4 ½ c flour, divided
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt

 

Mandarin Barbecued Chicken

'Oh,' you might be thinking, 'mandarin chicken-- this must be a recipe with mandarin juice or mandarin glaze in it.'

But you would be wrong.

'Ok, then it must be an Asian-inspired dish made with miso and scallions and other Chinese flavours.'

But you would be wrong again.

Because this is basically a curry-roasted chicken... with MSG. So, first things first: I've seen MSG at Chinese groceries since moving to Edinburgh. It's sold in bags like powdered sugar, and I get a headache just looking at it. I'm supposed to make each recipe in this box exactly as it's written, but I'm breaking this rule. It's just too gross to include MSG in the year 2015.

Also, I don't know what kind of knives people had in their kitchens in the 1960s, but all of the chicken recipes in this dumb box seem to call for 'broiler-fryer chickens, cut up.' WHO AMONG YOU, dear readers, OWNS A KNIFE THAT CAN CUT A RAW CHICKEN INTO FIFTHS? And before you assume that your knife set will do so, know that I have a pretty sharp set of knives that are relatively high quality, and they can barely cut through any part of a raw chicken. So if you haven't tried it with your knife, go ahead and assume you cannot do so. Maybe chickens back then were made of lesser stuff, or maybe people like my grandmother just kept a sharpened axe in the kitchen for just such an occasion as... making dinner.*

Anyway, this recipe is going to be best if you can figure out a way to cut up your chicken before you cook it, because it'll cook much faster and be much easier to marinate, but I think you could theoretically roast a whole chicken like this-- though you'd probably want to baste it periodically in the oven to make sure it doesn't dry out.

We made this one night when a friend was coming over for dinner, and, although I didn't marinate it all day (it was a Friday, I don't have time for that on a work day, and I seriously doubt Eleanor did either), it was still pretty tasty. The onions on it were definitely the best part, so next time I'd probably chop them a bit more coarsely so they stick to the chicken as it cooks.

Overall, this chicken had a perfect texture-- moist and tender, with a nice flavour combination because of the variety of spices in the marinade. But the flavour was a bit mild, and the skin didn't crisp up in the way that I wanted it to. The recipe is best made on a grill, though, and since we don't have one, we had to settle for the broiler, which is probably at least part of the problem. If you have a grill, this would be a perfect summertime late evening dinner. Paired with a cold beer and a tomato salad (my favourite kind of salad this time of year), you really can't go wrong.

Finally, I haven't figured out how to take very good pictures of meat. It's really tough to take pictures of brown things, you guys. So I'm adding a photo here of Eleanor at some unknown event, with a zillion other people, all in wedding outfits. I can't imagine what this was for, but I like to imagine that it was a giant sextuple wedding, where they were all getting married at the same time (probably this is not accurate). I have other photos of her alone in this dress, so it was clearly an important occasion, but I have no idea what it was. My grandpa isn't in it, and I think it was probably before they met. Eleanor's family didn't have enough money to have sent her to cotillion, so maybe it was someone else's wedding (BUT WHOSE??). I don't know, but it's very glamourous and I imagine that if I was faced with this dress right now, I wouldn't be able to figure out how to put it on... much less fit in it.

Eleanor is at the very far left, with the greatest smirk I've ever seen. (Also I think the two girls in the middle are probably ghosts.)

*I know my mom's cousins have plucked chickens killed on their grandparents' farm before, so maybe this is not so far from the truth. After all, Eleanor did keep chickens for awhile as a result of a science project conducted by my uncle.

The verdict:

3 spoons out of five. The flavour was great and the meat was incredibly tender, but the skin was not crispy or as flavourful as I would have loved for it to be.

The recipe:

Mandarin Barbecued Chicken

THE DIRECTIONS:

Mix together all ingredients except chicken.
Place chicken in a bowl and pour on marinade.
Cover and marinate in the refrigerator at least 2 hours or up to all day, turning occasionally.
Grill (preferably) or broil chicken about 6 inches from heat source, about 15 minutes on each side or until tender and brown.

The ingredients:

½ c soy sauce (I know. That's a lot of soy sauce in an era when we know how bad sodium is for you. In Britain, all the soy sauce is what would be considered 'low sodium' in the US, and it worked fine, so use reduced sodium soy sauce and you'll be doing your body a favour.)
¼ c orange juice
¼ c lemon juice
Scant ¼ c vegetable oil
1 c onion, coarsely chopped
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tbsp chili powder
1 chicken, cut into 6 pieces