February 29, 2016

Western Swiss Steak

February 29, 2016/ Blair Cowan

Ok, ok. After my last post about the joys of Spam, everyone is ready for something that actually tastes good and is, ideally, not a chocolate cake. So here we go: Western Swiss Steak.

Is it steak from the western part of Switzerland? Is it made from a Swiss cow? Or is it Swiss steak made in the style of the Old West?

I don’t know, but you guys, this is tasty. So let’s say you live on an island, but you don’t live in a tropical paradise (ahem, Scotland), and so you’re still stuck in the throes of winter, with spring nowhere on the horizon. You’re trying your hardest not to think about spring… or summer… because you know you’ve got another month before the weather is anything less than grey. The days have finally lengthened enough that it’s daylight when you leave work in the evenings (for at least half of the bus ride home), which is worth celebrating, but you’re still trying to temper your excitement because, I mean, it’s at least another month or so before you start getting any real flowers outside or any predictable sunshine. This is the perfect dish for you. This isn’t a steak recipe, but it’s also not a stew. It doesn’t require fresh veggies, in case your grocery, like mine, is currently a minefield of nothing but root vegetables and a few sickly-looking tomatoes. In the vein of coq au vin or cassoulet, this is a hearty dish perfect for noshing after a day out hiking the moors… or, you know, an average weekend. The tomatoes reduce to a sticky, tangy sauce and the onions give the meat an amazing flavour. Plus, the meat comes out so tender and delicious you can cut it with a fork. If you’re trying to add a little more veg to your diet, this would be amazing with a couple of handfuls of mushrooms, or some cippolini onions or a bunch of tiny shallots. You could also easily double or triple the garlic and leave some of the cloves unpeeled to roast really nicely and bulk up the non-meat parts of this meal. It’s definitely a hearty dish, so you’ll want something light to go with it, like a green salad with vinaigrette to help offset the heavier, mellow flavours of the main course. And since it shares all the characteristics of a really amazing stew, it gets even better the second day, when the flavours have continued to meld together.

Best of all, this is super easy—especially if you can get your hands on a giant piece of beef instead of the wee ones like we found. It even gives you a chance to use your meat mallet (the absolute joy of Judson’s life, who always wants to be involved with any recipe that allows for use of a tenderiser). And since it cooks for several hours, you can even get your whole kitchen clean before dinner, then serve this to friends who will be in awe of your homemaking abilities.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. You want something cosy and warm that will make your entire house smell amazing, something to eat while you listen to the rain pattering on your roof and daydream about vacations past (and yet to come)... so make this for dinner ASAP. We’re heading off to Tenerife next week to celebrate our anniversary, but in the meantime, I’m going to be eating this for dinner (and lunch tomorrow) while I anxiously await my next holiday.

New! One Year ago: Crepes!

The recipe:

Western Swiss Steak

The directions:

Pound flour into steak, ½ c on each side if you're using one large piece of meat, or generously on each side of smaller pieces.
Preheat oven to 160C/325F.
Heat oil in a deep, oven-safe casserole on the stove.
When hot, drop steak into pan.
Brown both sides, then add onion, tomatoes, and garlic.
Pour in enough water to barely cover meat (for me, this was only about ¼ c).
Cover with a tight lid and cook in preheated oven about 2-2 ½ hours.
Dish is done when meat is fork-tender but still pink in middle and sauce has thickened and reduced slightly.
Just before serving, add salt and pepper and serve warm.

the ingredients:

2 lbs round, 1-inch thick
1 c flour
3 tbs olive oil
2 large onions, sliced
20 oz can chopped tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
2 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper

See above for other suggestions to jazz this up if you want to (but it's great as-is)!

February 24, 2016

Creative Casserole

February 24, 2016/ Blair Cowan

Judson has been called away to London for a few days for work, so I’ve been home by myself this week. I love London a lot more than Judson does, so while I am jealous, I’m trying to rein in my jealousy and take advantage of this unexpected solo time to make recipes I know he doesn’t like. Our tastes mostly align pretty well, but there are definitely a handful of things I like much more than he does (Tacos! Macaroni cheese! Anything with sriracha! Breakfast-for-Dinner!), and firmly rooted in this category is anything involving cheese. Before we were married, we used to joke about how my go-to meal when I was having dinner alone was ‘Single Girl Surprise,’ basically macaroni and cheese with whatever veggies I happened to have leftover in my fridge (usually peas).*

This was obviously before I knew how to cook things like prime rib, salmon, crab, and other things. Sorry, 20-something Blair, for not learning how to cook sooner.

Anyway, Judson is gone this week and I have been plunged back into the lands of ‘single girl surprise,’ which, this time around, still involves pasta, though I have graduated beyond boxed macaroni cheese. So in honour of being alone for the week, here’s a riff on the OG Single Girl Surprise of my 20s… I give you: Creative Casserole.

This is not actually a casserole at all, but it does involve that most dreaded of ingredients: Spam. I’ve been putting off making this forever, partly because it’s on the reverse of a much tastier recipe, partly because it’s not a super healthy meal, and mostly, let’s not kid ourselves, because it contains Spam and I didn’t want to be known as a person who has ever purchased (let alone cooked with) Spam.

I haven’t actually tasted Spam since I was a kid and we used to take it on camping trips, but it is, to be fair, not nearly as terrible as I assumed it would be. That said… it’s still Spam. Not quite ham, definitely not bacon, and housed in a can. If you can get past the inclusion of Spam, this is basically baked macaroni—a dish to which I am not inherently opposed. However, with the inclusion of Spam, it becomes a Creative Casserole you’ll be too embarrassed to try, but you’ll still want to know what the result was. It’s here that I must disappoint you, dear reader. I thought it would be awful—inedible, in fact! I had the curry takeaway order all ready to go in case we needed a last minute emergency dinner in case this one went predictably awry in a blaze of pinwheeled processed-ham glory, but it turned out…ok.

I’m not saying I’m a fan, but if you ignore the triangles of Spam on top (too much for a single bite, in my humble, ex-vegetarian opinion), this isn’t a terrible dish. I mean, we all know ham and cheese go together like gangbusters, and we’ve already established that I subsisted for most of my early 20s on a diet of macaroni and cheese with frozen peas stirred in, so from there, you only have to adjust yourself to the idea of onions in your macaroni, which is not exactly uncommon, and which, in this instance, definitely adds a nice counterpoint to the salty ‘ham’ and sweet peas.** Plus the extra crunch from the still-al-dente onions was definitely welcomed.

I know this isn’t a cool opinion and if I were ever to make this again, I would 100% make it with pancetta instead of Spam, but for an experimental recipe in the quest to make everything in the Recipe Box, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be (or, for that matter, nearly as bad as some other things I’ve made).

*I have a theory that every woman has a recipe for Single Girl Surprise, and they are all different. For a good friend of mine, it's ramen noodles with peanut butter and sriracha mixed into the sauce for a faux-Thai-style curry. Another friend makes refrigerator pasta, which is just pasta with bread crumbs and whatever groceries she has that need to be used up. I'm fascinated by these 'go-to' recipes and always keen to hear what other people's are.

** After saying this at work one too many times, a co-worker recently asked me what 'gangbusters' means, and after looking up its origins, I discovered that it is an American saying dating back to a radio show from the 1940s. Fitting for this blog, I think!