The Philosophy of Food, Issue #008: Sweet and Spicy Beef and Potatoes

This is a further product of my experimentation with the techniques I learned making stoofvlees or 'Flemish beef stew.'  I think it might be my best original recipe yet.

The Ingredients
-1 1/4 pound steak, chopped into bite-size pieces.
-1 medium russet potato.
-1/2 medium yellow onion, chopped.
-roughly 3 inches andouille sausage, chopped into tiny pieces.
-3 cloves garlic, diced.
-1/4 cup beef stock.
-1/4 cup brown or amber beer.  I used the lowest intensity of my home-brewed pumpkin ale, but I recommend using either Newcastle or Abita Amber.  Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan Ale might also be an interesting addition, although I've never used it for cooking.
-Brown sugar.  I didn't use exact measurements, but I'm guessing it was between 1/2 and 1/3 tsp.
-All-purpose flour.  Roughly 1/2 to 1/3 tsp.
-Tony Chacherie's Spicy Creole Seasoning.  Use a liberal amount for best results.

The Process

The ubiquitous starting out picture.  This was actually after it had been on the stove for a couple minutes.  If I ever make this at true stew scale, maybe I should swap out the russet potatoes for quartered red potatoes. . .

First, grease up a frying pan with butter.  Toss in your yellow onions and garlic and cook them until the onions start to turn a golden color.  At this point add in the brown sugar and keep cooking.  Once the onions are fully caramelized, toss in the steak chunks and cook them until they're browned.  Then add the potatoes, andouille, beef stock, and beer.  Lastly toss in the flour.  Once the flour is stirred in, shake on the creole seasoning.  I recommend using a little more than you think is enough.  You want the spice to be able to come out over the sweetness of the caramelized onion and beer.  Cover and cook until the liquid is more or less a gravy, stirring occasionally.

And here is the completed product.

The Results

You can tell it's going to be a bit sweet by how sticky the juice is.  I think I'm slowly starting to understand the appeal of BBQ sauce.

As I said before, I think this might be my best original recipe yet.  This dish maintains most of the original sweetness of the stoofvlees without the sour notes introduced by the allspice.  The added garlic, andouille, and creole seasoning nicely substitutes the original sourness with a delightful Southeast Louisiana spiciness.  As per my last experiment, the potatoes soaked in the beef and beer taste admirably.  It might be interesting trying this dish more in the full style of the stoofvlees, using stew meat instead of steak, with a far greater volume of beef stock and beer.  If I did that, however, I'd want to use home made seasoning rather than store bought.  Or maybe a dash of crawfish boil. . .

The Philosophy of Food, Issue #007: Steak and Potatoes

This dish and my chicken and potatoes dish are really one and the same.  It's a basic formula that I've learned works rather well: meat + potato + onion + booze = delicious.  Sometimes the meat is steak.  Sometimes it is chicken.  I've become fond of tossing andouille sausage into the mix, but I don't always.  Today I decided to be a little adventurous and try out some things I learned from the last dish I shared with ya'll: Flemish beef stew.

The Ingredients
-Approximately 1/4 pound of steak, chopped into bite-size pieces.
-1 medium yellow onion, chopped.
-2 slices of bacon.  I used thick cut, but feel free to use your favorite variety.
-1 medium Idaho potato.
-1 tsp brown sugar.
-Roughly 1/8 tsp thyme.
-Roughly 1/8 tsp allspice.
-1/3 cup beef stock
-1/3 cup Leffe Blonde.
-Parsley.

The Process
First, fry up that bacon.  Once it is cooked to your desired crispiness crumble one piece and eat the other.  Then dump the chopped onion straight into the grease.  When it's been in for a little and is starting to change color, drop in the tsp of brown sugar.  Continue cooking until the onion has turned a sort of deep golden color.  Actually, with the bacon grease and all it's more likely to be a burnt gold color.  At this point drop in the potatoes and meat (including the 1 crumbled piece of bacon), pour over the beef stock and beer, and tap in the thyme and allspice.  Cover and cook until the liquid has evaporated mostly away.  At this point, sprinkle on some parsley and chow down.

Double trouble boil and bubble. . .

Here's how it looked once I pulled it off the stove.  The potato really took in a lot of the beer and beef stock color.  Mmmmm.

The Results

I seriously need to get some bell peppers next time I go out. . .

First off, I had planned to toss in some flour too, but by the time I remembered it was too late.

While the allspice worked great with the stew, it was a bit much for this dish.  I'm guessing because the volume of liquid that went into this is a lot less and the quantity I used today wasn't that much less than before.  The potatoes took in a lot of color and taste from the beer and beef stock, but there was something missing.  Maybe salt. . .  It also might help to add in some mustard.  I feel like that contributed a lot to the stew.  Maybe 1 or 1/2 teaspoon.

Next time I make this I think I might go a little more classic.  Ditch the bacon and use butter to caramelize the onions instead.  Use my trusty Tony Chacherie's instead of allspice and thyme.  Toss in some chopped andouille.  I bet that would be divine.

Enjoy!

The Philosophy of Food, Issue #006: Flemish Beef Stew with German Noodles

Tonight's entry may be my most ambitious yet.  Mainly because I'm homemaking two different dishes to be served together, rather than just producing an all-in-one meal.  This has got me running in circles in the kitchen and worrying like an idiot.  Because these are dishes I've never made, I'm using external recipes.  Instead of listing the exact ingredients I'm using, I'm going to discuss how my own technique varied from what's listed.

Spaetzle

Here's how the dough looked once I'd had my say.

I'm not sure if it's because I used big chunks of dough, but these really seem less like noodles and more like little dumplings.

Spaetzle is one spelling of a type of noodle native to southern Germany (the other spelling involves umlauts, which I don't care to fish around for at this moment).  Really, they're more like small, thin dumplings.  Tonight they'll be my side starch and general gravy sponges.  I list them first of the two dishes I'm making tonight because the first thing I did is prepare the dough.

Following the directions exactly, the dough came out a little too clumpy, by my estimation.  So, I added another 1/4 cup of water and about 1/3 cup of flour to even it out.  After that the dough was nice and smooth.

Flemish Beef Stew

Once all the ingredients are dumped in.  Sadly, I wasn't able to get pics of the beef or bacon cooking or the onions sizzling away due to technical issues.  The camera was grumpy.

I cooked it down for about 1 hour 45 minutes.  Here it is after I stirred in the mustard and parsley.

First of all, I refuse to call a Flemish dish by a French name.  I'm relatively ignorant of what they call it in Flanders, but I'm hesitant to believe that it is anything in French.  Not that I have any political opinions regarding Belgium regionalism one way or the other, but it just seems disrespectful.

Now first off this recipe recommends using a darker Belgian beer.  Specifically Chimay Blue.  If you want to use the same style of beer but can't find Chimay, any Belgian dubbel should do.  I'm trying it with a lighter beer, however: Leffe Blonde.  In addition, I pulled out all the bells and whistles.  Allspice, thyme, parsley, mustard: it's all in there.

Results

Candlelight.  Beer in a goblet.  Rich food.  It says something about our society when a poor student can eat like a king.  It says even more that most people would rather eat fast food than cook for themselves.

 Well.  I have found something tastier than my step-dad's beer stew.  Surprise, surprise, it is also a beer stew.  The lengthy cooking time ensures that the liquid boils down to what is basically a beef-and-beer gravy, with a sweet tang to it no doubt gained through the incorporation of the Leffe Blonde.  It might be fun to try this basic recipe with an unusual craft beef.  Maybe make it with chipotle ale and serve it with rice and beans.

The spaetzle doesn't have much of it's own presence, which makes it perfect for a dish like this.  It fulfills its role as gravy sponge admirably.  When serving, I recommend laying the spaetzle out in a serving dish and heaping the stew on top of it directly.  Give it some time to soak in the gravy before it gets to your plate.

As a side note, Both recipes produce about two me-size portions. . . but I am a six-and-a-half foot tall bipedal black hole.  I suspect this could serve three or four mere mortals easily.  An ideal dish for a dinner for two.

Once more I have made something that is fugly and delicious!

The Philosophy of Food, Issue #005: Two-For Tuesday

The main fare today will be last night's dinner.  I didn't post last night because, well, I was busy watching Stargate SG-1 on Hulu.  I know the blog isn't on a set schedule or anything, but I still feel bad for delaying, so I'm going to toss in a little something extra or picayune as they call it in Louisiana.

Dish One: Chicken-Andouille Dish with White Wine

The Ingredients

-1 chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces.

-1 brat-sized andouille sausage, chopped into tiny pieces.

-1 Idaho potato, cubed.

-1/4 to 1/2 yellow onion, chopped.

-2 cloves garlic, chopped.

-Tony Chacherie's spicy creole seasoning.

-Oliver Winery Gewurtztraminer (white wine).

-extra virgin olive oil.

The Process

Here's how it looks once all the ingredients are added to the pan.  Hopefully this gives some insight into exactly how much white wine I used.

The frying pan I use did not come with a lid.  Thankfully, the lid to my stew pot fits on it snugly.

Once it looks like this, it's done.  Actually, this might be a little drier than I usually finish at.  Oh!  If you don't feel that it's cooked enough at this point, just add more wine and cover it again.

Grease a frying pan with the extra virgin olive oil.  I use an olive oil mister for this.  Toss in the chicken, andouille, onions, potato, garlic, and seasoning.  Add a few dashes of white wine.  Maybe 1/4 to 1/3 cup (I don't measure).  Cover and cook until the liquid mostly cooks off, checking and moving around the food every couple minutes so it all cooks evenly.

The Results

A theme I'm noticing in my cooking: it doesn't present well visually, but boy is it tasty!

I'm not going to lie.  I prefer this sort of dish with beer rather than wine (a brown ale or a Munich-style lager work fabulously.  White wine does produce a taste that others might very well prefer.  I feel that it leaves less behind in the dish than beer, giving the dish a taste that I characterize as 'cleaner.'  The creole seasoning and the andouille spiciness also comes out a little bit more.  The particular type of white I used, Gewurtztraminer, did leave a little something of itself in the onions: a little sweetness that I think complimented the andouille very well.  Sauvignon Blanc doesn't have this effect, which may or may not be preferable in your own kitchen.

One last thing before we move on to our picayune.  Is there a culinary term for this sort of meat-and-potato dish?

Dish Two: Apple Smoked Cheddar Omelet

The Ingredients

-2 slices of bacon.

-2 eggs.

-Shredded Apple Smoked Cheddar.

The Process

Fry up the bacon in a frying pan.  Cook it to whatever crispiness you prefer and pour off most of the excess grease.  Add the eggs, which you should have scrambled/mixed up/whatever, then add the cheese.  Wait until the bottom layer of the egg is fairly solid then fold it over into a half-moon shape.  Continue to cook until done.  I'm honestly not sure on timing. . . I just sort of know when it's done.  If  raw egg is running out onto the pan, you should probably keep cooking.  If melted cheese is running out onto the pan, you might be done.  Serve on a plate with your bacon.

The Results

Taken a moment before the bacon committed suicide. . . took a leap off my plate :(

Hm.  Not the most exciting dish I've made, but it wasn't bad either.  I might add some chopped onions and creole seasoning to the mix, or crumble the bacon and add it straight into the omelet.  To be honest, this was my first attempt at an omelet in a long time, so I'm just glad it came out at all.

The Philosophy of Food, Issue #004: Chicken-Andouille Casserole Thing

When I moved into my new apartment here in Bloomington my mother gave me a set of dishes, mostly plates and bowels, that I had grown up with.  Among these treasures was a small casserole dish.  In recent weeks this has prompted me to experiment, to mixed results.  Invariably, I tend to overcook whatever is on top.  A friend suggested that I add chicken stock or some kind of juice to the mix to add in some more moisture, so that's what we're going to attempt tonight.

The Ingredients

The casserole dish I'm using, along with a few of the ingredients.

-1 Idaho Potato, chopped into small-ish pieces.
-1/4 yellow onion, chopped.
-3 small cloves of garlic, chopped.
-1 andouille sausage, chopped into little pieces.
-1 boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces.
-1 cup chicken stock.
-Shredded cheddar cheese.
-Tony Chacherie's Spicy Creole Seasoning.

The Process
This is a relatively simple dish.  Basically you put everything in the casserole dish in layers.  First the potatoes, then the onions and garlic, then the anouille and so on.  I added a liberal amount of creole seasoning once the dish had been filled up to the meat, then slowly poured in the chicken stock, hoping to wash some of the seasoning into the lower layers.  Then I added the shredded cheese and a little bit more creole seasoning for garnish.  Cook in your oven for one hour at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

One potato. . .

To achieve my desired anouille size I cut the sausage like so and then quarter the individual pieces.

The Holy Trinity: potatoes, onions, and meat.

Mainly so you have an idea of how much cheese I'm using.  I didn't bother to actually measure it out.

Now, I have to admit two major fears for this recipe.  Firstly, I'm terrified that I used to much chicken stock and that my result will be soggy.  Secondly, I'm afraid that the cheese will burn.  We'll see if my fears were justified or not. . .

The Results

Bow to your meaty god!

Well, my fears of the cheese burning were entirely unfounded.  On the other hand, there was entirely too much liquid left in the dish.

I have to admit, I'm tempted to drink the remaining chicken stock.  I bet it tastes divine!

Also, the spices didn't make their way down to the lower levels of the dish, so I have spicy chicken and andouille and kind of bland potatoes.  It is still tasty and edible, mind you, it could just use improving.  And really, isn't that the purpose of this entire exercise?

In the future, I'm definitely using less chicken stock.  Maybe 1/3 or 1/4 cup.  I'll also add creole seasoning to each layer individually, to make sure it gets around.  I might use more cheese, too.  Enough so it's a real layer in and of itself, and not just a topping.

Enjoy!  And if you enjoy then, by all means, become an official follower of the blog.

Sweet Nostalgia, Issue #001: Into the Frying Pan (Kraut and Wurst)

First off, a bit of housekeeping.  As you've no doubt caught on, anything titled "The Philosophy of Food" will be a new recipe.  I've decided to use a different title for articles that revisit old recipes: "Sweet Nostalgia."

"Fry that shit up!"  Authentic American wisdom.

The first entry in Sweet Nostalgia comes back to the Apple Sauerkraut and Bratwurst recipe I shared a few days ago.  Four bratwursts is a lot for a guy toe at in one meal, so I had leftovers.  Today I decided to do away with said leftovers.  I'm not a barbarian who eats cold sausage straight out of the fridge, so I tossed the leftover wurst and kraut in a frying pan with some extra virgin olive oil (one spray over with my trusty olive oil mister) and sizzled it up.  To reproduce my process as closely as possible, cover the frying pan until the juices start to really get sizzling, then continue cooking the kraut and wurst until the wurst is slightly browned on each side.  I served it up on a small plate with a glop of spicy brown mustard for the wurst.

It still needs a starch.  Maybe I'll try making some homemade German noodles next time?

Something about frying this dish up really adds to it.  Or maybe the effect was produced by letting it sit in the fridge for a few days.  The sweetness of the apple cider and kraut was toned down a lot, and I feel like some of the greasy smokiness of the bacon crumble came out.  Next time I make this dish I'll certainly transfer it straight from saucepan to frying pan to see whether it was the method or the age that enhanced the dish.

Philosophy of Food, Issue #003: Sweet-Tooth Mexican Fried Rice

This dish is an old favorite, and perhaps a Great Old One.  It is one of the few dishes I started making in undergrad that I haven't yet found a way to improve upon.  Being a product of my earliest forays into the culinary arts, of course, it is a little hard to reproduce in recipe form with accurate amounts for each ingredient.  But. . . in the name of Science (yes, with a capital 'S') I will make the attempt.

The Ingredients
-2 strips maple bacon.
-Cooked white rice.  I figure I used maybe 1-ish cups.
-Salsa or picante sauce, whatever strength you prefer.
-1 egg.

The Process
This dish is perhaps unique in my repertoire in that there is a very specific order in which the ingredients must be added.  It's not just "toss it in a pot/pan and let it cook."

The first step is to cook the bacon.  I prefer it slightly blackened, but you're free to cook it to whatever crispiness you prefer.  I've never tried this, but if you can't find maple bacon you might try adding a little dab of maple syrup to the bacon grease once the bacon is done cooking.  On that note, don't throw out the grease!

The next step is to fry up that white rice.  It is absolutely essential to the integrity of this dish that you do so in the maple bacon grease.  Once the rice is sizzling away, crumble the bacon and add it to the pan.

Now comes the salsa!  Add just enough that it saturates the rice once it's been mixed around.  This dish relies on the balance of flavor between the spiciness of the salsa and the sweetness of the maple bacon grease-saturated rice, so too much salsa can ruin it (well, as much as you can ruin anything involving bacon).

Now you add in the egg.  I prefer to just crack it right in and scramble it directly into the rice, but feel free to mix up the yolk and white before you add it.  Whatever floats your proverbial boat.

The Results

Pictured: the sins of my youth.

A little bit sweet.  A little bit spicy.  All delicious.  It's also relatively cheap to make.  I think the most expensive item that goes into it is the salsa or bacon, and one package of either will last you a couple weeks or longer, depending on how often you use them.  It's also worth noting that salsa keeps very well.

Now for a few little notes.  First off, this is really best with Black Label maple bacon.  Sadly, I haven't been able to find it up here in Indiana (Winn-Dixie carried it back in New Orleans) so I went with Oscar Meyer.  While Oscar Meyer bacon seems to produce more grease, which makes cooking the rice a little easier, it also doesn't cook out to having as strong of a maple taste.  I might have to pick up some name brand faux-maple syrup and try adding a dab to see how it affects the taste.  Also, back in New Orleans I used picante sauce rather than salsa.  I made the switch because I can't find picante sauce in the right sized container here.  Honestly though, there's no discernible difference in taste.

Anyhow, enjoy!

The Philosophy of Food, Issue #002: Apple Sauerkraut and Bratwursts (New Recipe)

So, I spent about a month of my summer in 2009 in Europe.  While I was there I spent a day in Cologne, Germany and had a glorious dish called a "meat platter."

Pictured: the manliest dish your eyes will ever taste.

Now, included with this glorious dish was something I had never tried before (at least not knowingly): sauerkraut. As a child I was extremely picky about what I ate and somehow in my extreme pickiness I never tried this glorious side-dish.  Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when I see a two pound bag of the stuff sitting next to the sausages at my local supermarket.  Without thinking, I snatched it up.  I say without thinking, because I had absolutely no idea what to do with the stuff.  After Google-ing around for recipe ideas, I came up with this:

The Ingredients
-4 bratwursts
-Roughly 2/3 pounds sauerkraut.  I used 1/3 of a two pound bag. . .
-3 pieces of maple bacon, cooked and crumbled
-1/2 yellow onion, chopped
-2 cloves of garlic, diced
-1 tsp caraway seeds
-1 cup Oliver Winery hard apple cider
-1 cup chicken stock

The Process
I'm not going to lie.  My methodology for this dish isn't that complicated: toss everything in a saucepan, cover, and cook until the juices go down enough for the dish to not be too soupy. 

Here's how it looked once it started cooking.

And, here it is at the point where I took it off the heat and started to chow down.

The Results

And here's how it looked on my plate.

If you want something really spicy, this isn't the dish for you.  I tend to put creole seasoning in just about everything I make, so for me this was a bit of a breath of fresh air.  Most of the taste experience of this dish seems to come from the sauerkraut and the apple cider.  The recipes I looked at for guidance in constructing this dish all called for actual whole apples.  The whole thing tastes a little bit sweet and a little bit salty, with the bratwursts making a mostly textural contribution.  The dish isn't bland, but it's also not jump out of your pants exciting either.

Now, there are a few things I would do differently next time.  First off, I'd cook the bacon longer.  Until it's a little bit black and crispy.  As it is, it's not contributing very much to the taste or texture of the dish.  I also might use more, but I'd try a couple other things out first.  Namely, I'd use less sauerkraut.  One of the issues formulating this recipe was that other recipes call for sauerkraut by weight rather than by volume, which makes it difficult to measure out if your package has more than the recipe calls for.  So. . . maybe cut down to 1/3 or 1/2 pound of sauerkraut.  I'd also cut down the amount of chicken stock and apple cider to 1/2 cup each.  I meant to only use 3/4 cup of each, but realized to late that I was using the 1/3 cup measuring cup not the 1/4 cup measuring cup.  My last suggestion has less to do with the recipe itself and more on how to serve it.  This dish desperately needs a starch to accompany it.  Mashed potatoes should do, or maybe some fresh rye bread.

Update: Food Blog!

So, given that it's been a couple months since my last update, and I've made relatively little progress on anything I said I'd post. . . I think it's time to re-purpose That Than Which Nothing Greater Can Be Conceived.  Namely, I'm going to turn it into a cooking blog.  I experiment with my cooking a lot, and often post my ingredients and a rough outline of my process on Facebook.  Some friends and family suggested I start a blog about it and I already have this, so. . .

. . . and honestly, can you conceive of anything greater than a tasty, home-cooked meal?  I thought not.

So, here's how it's going to work.  Whenever I try out a new recipe or a new twist on an old one I'll post it up here, with pictures when I can.  Sounds like fun?  Good.  It does to me too.

So, lets get cooking!