Yesterday someone set up a gas-fired roaster in front of the local Safeway and started roasting fresh green chiles. It smelled so good I couldn’t resist buying a bag and rushing home to make a pot of New Mexico green chile stew. I know, there’s another green chile stew recipe here at Crouton’s Kitchen, but this one is the more authentic of the two and the ingredients are slightly different, so I’m adding it to the recipe index.
Except for the roasted peppers & Serrano chiles, I had everything else on hand
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 lb boneless pork shoulder or tenderloin
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large onion, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried Mexican oregano
2 lbs roasted New Mexico green chiles
2 Serrano chile peppers, sliced
1 Russet potato, peeled & cubed
3 Roma tomatoes, chopped
1 can vegetable broth
Directions
Heat olive oil over medium heat, then brown the meat, garlic, onion, cumin, and oregano. Add vegetable broth, reduce heat to low, simmer for 30 minutes. Add cubed potato to the stew and simmer another 45 minutes. While this is going on, cut your roasted peppers in half, rinse out the seeds, and lay them flat on paper towels. You can also seed the Serranos at this time (remember to wash your hands really well after handling the Serranos).
Chop up the roasted peppers and Serranos and add to the stew. Add water to the broth if it cooks down too much. Continue to cook over low heat another 20 minutes or so, until the potatoes are soft and the meat is tender. Add the tomatoes and cook another 10 minutes. Serve with good crusty bread, as shown.
New Mexico green chile stew
Notes
New Mexico green chile stew should be made with pork. I thought I had a pork tenderloin in the freezer but when it thawed it turned out to be the unused half of a beef roast, so I used that instead. It’s great with beef, but I wish I’d had the pork, if only for authenticity’s sake. I was going to use a can of diced tomatoes but decided at the last minute to chop up fresh Roma tomatoes out of deference to the wonderful fresh roasted chiles. The smell of this dish cooking will draw people from miles around, so it’s a good thing this cooks up enough for four to six people.
Finally … is it “chili” or “chile”? You’ll notice I spell it both ways here on the blog. Properly, the peppers are chiles, and if you’re making New Mexico green chile stew … at least to my half a mind … it gets the e. If, on the other hand, you’re making Tex-Mex chili beans or chili con carne, then it’s spelled with the i, at least in Crouton’s kitchen!
This is the Czech version of goulash, as served at the Tábor Restaurant in Portland, Oregon, modified by Ditalini. Traditionally it is served with dumplings, which I’ll include in the recipe, but we serve it with pasta, as shown. The recipe will serve four.
Ingredients
Dumplings
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp dry yeast
1 cup whole milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp salt
Goulash
5 tbsp vegetable oil
4 onions, sliced
2 lbs beef chuck roast, cut into 2″ cubes
12 cloves garlic, crushed
4 tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika
2 tbsp tomato paste
3 cups beef stock
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup water
Directions
Dumplings:
In a large bowl mix 1 cup flour with yeast, whisk in milk, let rest 1 hour.
Mix in beaten eggs and gradually add remaining flour. Knead, adding flour or milk if needed. Dough is ready when it’s elastic and doesn’t stick to your hands. Roll dough into two 10″ long, 2″ thick loaves. Let rest 1 1/2 hours, until doubled in size.
Fill a large stockpot 3/4 full of water, add 1 tsp salt, bring to boil. Place both loaves in the pot, bring to boil again, reduce heat to medium, cover and cook about 13 minutes. Take dumpling loaves from pot, pierce sides a few times to keep them from ballooning up, slice into 1/2″ wide dumplings.
Goulash:
Heat 3 tbsp oil over medium heat in a large Dutch oven. Add onions and cook about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Increase heat to medium high, add 2 tbsp oil, brown meat. Return onions to pot, add the garlic, and cook for a minute. Stir in paprika and tomato paste, cook for 30 seconds, add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until beef is tender, about 2 1/2 hours. When cooked, thicken to desired consistency by whisking in small amounts of pre-mixed water and flour, then simmer 5 more minutes.
Notes
As you can see, preparing dumplings is a lot of work. Since goulash is traditionally served either with dumplings or pasta, we chose the easier option. We also served it with bread, the better for mopping up the delicious gravy. I think the goulash would be very good with beer substituting for half the beef stock, and Ditalini thinks it would lend itself to crockpot cooking. One last thing: be sure to cut the meat into large chunks, a technique we learned from Julia Child, who said when you cut your meat too small and it cooks down, visually you may as well be eating cat food … cut your beef so that it shows!
Lately I’ve kept the cupboard stocked with coconut milk and a supply of red, green, and Penang curry paste. Because if you have those basics — and some rice — you can make a nice Thai curry out of whatever other ingredients you have laying around.
Until last night, I’d used chicken or shrimp in my Thai curry experiments. This time I decided to use beef. The peanuts were for crunch, the red bell pepper and green beans were for color, and the grapes were to add a contrasting sweet taste. The flavors and textures went together remarkably well, and I’ll certainly make this dish again.
Ingredients
Ingredients
2 tbsp peanut oil
beef, sliced thin
1/2 onion, sliced
2 carrots, peeled & sliced
green beans
red or green bell pepper, seeded & sliced
peanuts
grapes
1 can coconut milk
2 tbsp Thai red curry paste
zest of 1 lime
fish sauce, to taste
Directions
Heat peanut oil in large frying pan on a medium burner. Add the beef and brown it. About halfway through browning, add onions and carrots. Remove the browned beef, onion, and carrots and drain, set aside. Wipe excess oil from the frying pan with paper towels. Add half the coconut milk and the curry paste, mix well, then heat over a medium burner. Add the browned meat, onions, and carrot. Add the green beans. Add the rest of the coconut milk and stir gently with a rubber spatula. Cover the pan and let cook for 10-15 minutes over medium low heat.
Use a fine scraper to get the zest off the lime, add to the pan, along with a handful of peanuts and the sliced bell pepper. Cover and cook another 5 minutes. Add the grapes and test the taste, adding fish sauce as desired.
Serve with rice.
Crouton's red curry with beef
Notes
You won’t need nearly the amount beef shown in the top photo. I used only about a third of that small roast, cutting 1/4″ slices from it, then cutting the slices into 1″ lengths. I used half the onion and half the bell pepper. Otherwise, ingredients as shown.
If you find yourself with some catfish, you can’t go wrong dredging them in cornmeal and frying them. Served up with dirty rice and sautéed spinach, catfish makes a great dinner.
Ingredients
Catfish
catfish filets (1 per person)
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1 tbsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp paprika
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp butter
lemon slices
Dirty Rice
1 package dirty rice
1/4 lb ground hot sausage
Sautéed Spinach
large container of fresh spinach, cleaned with stems removed
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, sliced
Directions
Rinse the catfish and pat dry with paper towels. Lightly score each filet on both sides with a sharp knife, making very shallow diagonal cuts about two inches apart (this will keep them from curling up when fried). I dipped each filet in beaten egg and milk, then dredged each filet in a mixture of flour and cornmeal, seasoned with ground black pepper and paprika. Place the breaded filets aside on waxed paper.
In a large frying pan heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat until the mixture stops sputtering. Fry the catfish filets, three to four minutes per side, turning carefully so they don’t break. They should be golden brown when done, as in the photo. Serve with lemon, and tartar sauce if desired.
Prepare dirty rice per package instructions (we used Zatarain’s, which you can find in most supermarkets), but add browned crumbled sausage to it (we use Jimmy Dean’s hot sausage).
Heat olive oil in a large frying pan and then add sliced garlic and spinach. There’ll be a huge pile of spinach at first, and as you sauté and turn it, it will reduce considerably. When it looks tender it’s done.
Notes on preparation
Browning the sausage and preparing the dirty rice can be done ahead. You want the catfish and the sautéed spinach right out of the pan, however, so if you have someone to help you with the cooking it’ll be much easier. I cooked the catfish outside on the side burner of a gas grill while Ditalini sautéed the spinach indoors on the stove.
When Ditalini told me she’d picked up Jerusalem artichokes at the co-op last Saturday, I pictured something … well, artichokey, maybe a smaller version of the California artichokes I was familiar with. But Ditalini’s Jerusalem artichokes turned out to be something else entirely: potato-like root vegetables that look like ginger root.
Jerusalem artichokes (photo: Gourmet Heartbeat)
This was my first experiment with Jerusalem artichokes, so I picked an easy-looking recipe:
Ingredients
5 or 6 Jerusalem artichokes
salt & pepper
butter
grated Parmesan cheese
Directions
Scrub the Jerusalem artichokes and boil them for 10 minutes in salted water. Remove and drain. Smear the bottom of a baking dish with butter. After the artichokes have cooled, slice them, and layer them in the baking dish. Sprinkle on salt and freshly ground pepper, dot with more butter, and sprinkle grated cheese over the top. Bake in a 400 degree oven until the cheese on top turns golden brown. Serve.
Jerusalem Artichokes Gratin (photo by Barb Gertz)
What are they like? A bit crunchier than potatoes, a bit mushroomy in taste. This gratin recipe could easily include bacon or ham, and I may try it that way next time … more like scalloped potatoes. It’s a nice alternative to plain old potatoes.
I finally tackled a long put-off project, the famous boeuf bourguignon (beef stew in red wine with bacon, onions, and mushrooms) from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
This is a recipe you’ll need to study and understand before you start, especially if you’re going to prepare it by yourself. You’ll need a plan: mine was to prepare the dish in stages, making sure I had all the ingredients to hand, as well as the pots, pans, strainers, and utensils I’d need.
A well-stocked kitchen is a must, and with that in mind I’m including a list of equipment. The items listed are the ones I used, not necessarily what Julia would have used.
Though the ingredients and cooking methods I describe here are Julia’s, I’ll organize my directions around the stages I used during its preparation. I’ll also describe a few important cooking techniques that aren’t necessarily included in Julia’s recipe: some come from watching PBS tapes of Julia’s TV shows, some come from elsewhere in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, some come from my own addled mind.
Ingredients
3 lbs lean chuck roast
6 oz bacon, unsliced, with rind
1 carrot, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
2 tbsp flour
3 cups red wine
2-3 cups beef stock
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 cloves garlic
½ tsp thyme
bay leaf
24 white pearl onions
1 lb fresh mushrooms
unsalted butter
olive oil
fresh parsley
Equipment
large frying pan, with lid
medium size pot
large pot
large deep casserole or Dutch oven, with lid (Le Creuset or similar)
large colander
large and medium bowls (for keeping pre-cooked and prepared items)
large tongs
slotted spoon
good knives and a cutting board
paper towels
Directions
Organizing yourself
Study the recipe first and mentally map out how you’re going to get it done. You’re actually cooking three things here: the beef stew, the pearl onions, and the mushrooms (in fact, if you use Mastering the Art of French Cooking, you’ll be flipping between three separate recipes in different parts of the book).
You can blanch, peel, and sauté the pearl onions early and set them aside; likewise the mushrooms. You can prep the bacon and beef early. If you’re going to serve the beef bourguignon with potatoes and broccoli, as I did, you can cook those during the last half-hour, while the stew is still in the oven. With that, I’ll describe how I organized and prepared my cooking, and how it all came together.
Preparing the bacon and beef
Cut off the bacon rind and then cut the bacon into lardons: little French fry-like sticks about ¼ inch thick and 1½ inches long. Bring 1½ quarts of water to a boil in a pot and reduce heat to simmer. Throw the bacon rind and lardons into the water and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain, dry, set aside.
Prepare your beef by cutting off excess fat, then slicing it into large chunks (2 to 2½ inches in size). Put the beef chunks on paper towels and pat them down with more paper towels until they’re dry.
Peel and slice the carrot and onion, set aside.
Heat some olive oil in the frying pan. Sauté the bacon lardons and rind over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes, browning lightly. Remove to a bowl with a slotted spoon. Heat the remaining oil until it’s almost smoking, then sauté the beef to brown it (it won’t really brown unless it’s dry). Don’t crowd the beef; brown just a few chunks at a time. Remove the browned beef to a bowl with a slotted spoon.
In the same oil, sauté the carrot and onion slices, set aside.
Preparing the stew
Preheat oven to 450° F. Using tongs, place browned beef chunks in casserole or Dutch oven. Add bacon lardons and toss with the salt and pepper. Sprinkle on the flour and toss again. Put casserole on middle rack of oven, uncovered, for 4 minutes. Remove and toss the meat again, return to oven for another 4 minutes. Remove and turn oven down to 325° F.
Stir the wine and about 2 cups of the beef broth into the casserole with the meat, enough so that the meat is barely covered. Add the tomato paste, garlic, bay leaf and thyme, and the sautéed carrot and onion slices from before. Stir it all together and bring to a simmer on top of the stove. Cover the casserole or Dutch oven and place on the bottom rack of the preheated 325° F oven. Cook for 2½ to 3 hours. Check it after about an hour to make sure the liquid isn’t boiling away like crazy; if it is, reduce the heat a little. The beef is done when you can pierce it easily with a fork.
Preparing the pearl onions
Boil the pearl onions for 1 to 2 minutes. Drain them and plunge them into a bowl of iced water to stop the cooking. On the cutting board, slice off the root end of each onion. Grasp the other end of the onion firmly with thumb and finger and squeeze it to pop the onion out of its skin. Throw the skins away. Pierce the cut end of each onion with a sharp knife twice crossways, going in just a little way. This will keep the inside parts of the onion from poking out when you cook them.
Heat a little butter and olive oil in the frying pan. Add the pearl onions and sauté them over moderate heat for about 10 minutes to brown them, rolling them around. Add some beef stock, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Preparing the mushrooms
Rinse, drain, and dry the mushrooms. I used baby portabellas, about 1½ to 2½ inches in diameter. Quarter the mushrooms lengthwise. Heat butter and olive oil in the frying pan and sauté the mushrooms for 4 to 5 minutes to brown them, shaking and tossing the pan to turn them. Just do a few pieces at a time so as not to crowd the mushrooms. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Putting it together
Remove the beef stew from the oven and carefully drain it through a colander or strainer positioned atop a large pot. Wash out the casserole (or just use another if you have two) and return the beef and bacon to it. You can pick the beef and bacon lardons out of the colander with tongs, shaking each piece to get the bits of cooked onion and carrot off. Toss the beef and bacon to mix it, then layer the pearl onions and mushrooms on top.
Skim the fat off the sauce you drained into the pot, then simmer it in the pot for 1 to 2 minutes, skimming off any addition fat that rises. There should be about 2½ cups of sauce, and it should be thick. If there’s not enough sauce, add more wine and stock. If the sauce is too thin, boil it down to thicken it.
Pour the sauce over the meat, pearl onions, and mushrooms in the casserole. Baste the sauce over any uncovered parts if necessary. Sprinkle with fresh parsley as a garnish. Serve it as shown with potatoes and broccoli (you can also serve the stew over noodles). I boiled unskinned new potatoes in salted water for 20 minutes and sautéed the broccoli in butter for about 10 minutes). I also put crusty bread on the table (you’ll want something to mop up the sauce with).
If you want to serve the stew later, you can refrigerate the casserole, covered, then bring it back to a simmer for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.
This recipe serves 6. Even though there are only 3 of us, I didn’t even think about reducing the ingredients … leftover stew is just as good the next day!
Notes
Interestingly, there’s an error in the book version of Julia’s recipe. While she mentions peeling, slicing, and browning a carrot and onion, she never does tell you what to do with them. In the TV episode, she skips the onion and carrot altogether. I was certain the carrot and onion were meant to bake in the oven with the meat and sauce, so I went online and found a Food Channel beef bourguignon recipe “based on” Julia Child’s recipe. There, I finally found confirmation: the sliced carrot and onion go into the pot and get strained out later. I wonder if Julia was ever made aware of the oversight? I also wonder, based on the TV show, whether Julia ever used the carrot and onion at all?
Though not complex, beef bourguignon the Julia Child way is a fair amount of work (but oh so worth it!), and you’ll be busy for a few hours. I posted an entry about my day with Julia on my other blog, Paul’s Thing, if you’re interested.
Saturday night Poulet en Crote, a long-time friend of Crouton’s Kitchen and the deMenthes, threw a birthday party for me and our mutual friends Osso Bucco and Pomme Frites. I can’t resist posting a photo of the dinner she prepared for us (try not to slaver):
Twice now, I’ve smoked beef briskets, describing the process here and here. Each time I used a slightly different approach: first with a dry-rubbed brisket, second with a combination of dry rub and mop.
On the Friday after Thanksgiving at my son Baguette’s house, I went back to the first technique: dry-rubbing the brisket and smoking it slowly, leaving out the mop. Based on the results, this is now my method of choice.
Thanksgiving morning, I made a cup of dry rub and spread it liberally to the brisket. The brisket, wrapped in aluminum foil, then went into the fridge. Friday morning, Baguette and I prepared the smoker. Baguette has a Weber bullet smoker like the one I use at home. We filled the water reservoir to keep the heat moist and were careful to keep the amount of charcoal on the burner grill to one layer, replenishing it with 12 to 16 briquettes every hour and a half. We used hickory for the smoke.
Total cooking time, at about 220-230°F, was seven hours. At the end, Baguette added a few hot links. We served the brisket and hot links with beans, corn on the cob, potato salad, and our home-made barbecue sauce. It was the best!
