My Boss's Goulash

I am blessed with some excellent bosses at the Telegraph, and one of them (that I know of) happens to also be a pretty good cook, if what he brought to our Christmas party is any indication. We had our Xmas shindig at the local cross country ski...place...(it's not really a hill...) where there is a big cabin groups can book for events. There was a big wood stove and an outhouse, and that night we got a huge dump of snow, so the kids were happy (and some adults, too, though I was not one of them). Everyone brought something for dinner; I brought a cake for dessert, Boss A brought sangria and mulled cider, Boss D's wife made homemade bread, which she makes professionally at a local coffee shop; and Boss AB brought Hungarian Goulash and some egg noodles. The picture above is of that meal, served on fancy paper plates!

I have always enjoyed goulash, and indeed my next article in Bread 'n Molasses Magazine will be about the goulash I enjoyed as a kid, made by my mom. That recipe, however, came from an old edition of Betty Crackpot's (AKA Crocker) definitive cookbook and is a highly Americanized version of the traditional Hungarian dish. AB's is different, and it was so good when we chowed down on it at the ski cabin in the middle of a snowstorm. During a my recent big batch freezing spree, I asked AB for his recipe so I could make a crock pot full of it to freeze, and he very nicely shared the recipe with me.

I quote:

Fry up stew meat and onions in quite a lot of butter until browned on the outside. Then I put enough cans of pureed tomatoes in the crock pot with the meat that it looks 'stewy'. Then I cook it for a whole day, adding some salt and a fair bit of paprika (I like the smoked). I'll add carrots and mushrooms, though some say this is a sin! I may even splash in some hot sauce to bring it up to the level of tangy-ness I like. Finally, if it feels too watery I'll add some cornstarch to thicken it a little. Oh, I also put garlic in because I put garlic in almost everything.

So, using this as a template, I got a family pack of stewing meat at Safeway that was about 1.2kg in weight. I had most of a bottle of passata left over from the quinoa salad recipe, so I dumped that in, along with a partial can of leftover diced tomatoes from the borscht I made last week. I have two kinds of paprika on hand, Spanish and Hungarian. I used a few tablespoons of both. After letting the goulash cook on high for several hours in the crock pot, I added some Worcestershire sauce to make it a bit tangy, but when I tasted the broth, I found it lacking. It needed something to cut the acidity of the tomatoes, so I added a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar.

It was fantabulous. Not as fantabulous as AB's, but fantabulous enough for me. I may not even freeze any; I might just spend a week eating this. For the initial meal I had, I served the goulash with what my mom used to serve her goulash with, Noodles Romanoff. A sinful side dish indeed - but wonderful, and nostalgic. It was perfect!


Awesomeness!

Stock 101

My dear friend S revealed to me in a recent phone conversation that she'd taken it upon herself to roast two chickens. She was very proud of herself, and I was proud of her, too. But, when I asked her what she did with the bones, she said they looked so gross to her that she just chucked them out.

I was shocked!

I told S that bones make great soup, but she said she hasn't the time to make homemade soup. When I told her she could do it in her crock pot (an appliance I know she has because I was at the bridal shower where she received it from our friend J), she was still skeptical that it would be worthwhile. After I continued to razz her about this total waste of a great resource, she said that if I did a blog post spelling out in easy steps how to make chicken soup in one day, she'd give it a try. So, here is that post.

Stock 101





Step One: Put bones in pot and cover with water. Same deal if you're using a slow cooker. Just put the bones in the crockery and cover with water. Turn the crock pot on to high at this point because it needs more time to heat up.






Step two: Add aromatics and flavourings. Aromatics typically mean carrots, celery, and onion. No need to spend a lot of time chopping; large chunks are OK. For additional flavour, I added half a bunch of cilantro (just chuck it in whole), a couple of teaspoons of whole peppercorns, several whole cloves of garlic, and some salt. Adjust the amount of salt to your own tastes. I have often added a lemon, quartered, to my chicken stock, as it makes for a really nice flavour.



Step Three: Simmer the crap out of all this. Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to simmer. You basically want to cook this until the veggies have nothing else to give the stock: you are transferring all of their flavour to the stock. The veggies should be beyond tender but not total mush. On the stovetop, this can take 3 -4 hours, depending on the size you cut your veggies and the size of your pot. If using a crock pot, just keep the temperature set to high all day, or about 6 - 8 hours.



Step Four: Strain the stock. Using a colander, pour the stock into either another pot or a bowl. If using a crock pot, strain the stock into a large soup pot. Pick the carcass and its detached parts (this inevitably happens during the simmering; it's annoying, but deal with it). Discard all the veggies and flavouring stuff. Pick the meat off the bones. Discard the bones and add the meat back to the stock.




Step Five: This is the point where I cool my stock and refrigerate it overnight so I can skim the fat off the next day, but this is supposed to be an all-in-one-day lesson, so now you want to add to the stock whatever you want to put in your soup. This time, chop the veggies small but evenly. I used carrots, onion, a can of baby corn chopped up, a large jar of my home-canned tomatoes, and more garlic. If you want to put potatoes in, now's the time. Bring the soup - for it is now soup, not merely a stock! - to a boil, then bring it down to a simmer. Simmer until the veggies are almost tender.




Step Six: Add pasta. Fresh is best - less starchy and it takes less time to cook. I like using fresh tortellini or even smaller ravioli. In the case of this soup, I used a porcini mushroom and ricotta tortelloni. It was fab. Cook until desired doneness.









Step Seven: Serve & eat. This is the best step of all, of course!









All right - how was that? Let me know if you have any questions or if I wasn't clear about something.

So, S, are you going to try it now?

Magazine Monday #9: Braised Beef Ribs

Strange things are tickling my fancy these days. I think this is because I'm in a period of recovery after 2.5 years of being quite ill (for those of you who don't know, I live with something called Major Depressive Disorder, along with BPD, and dysthymia). Now that my brain seems to be able to handle more and now that I seem to have more energy and enthusiasm about life, I feel inspired to do new things in the kitchen. When I got the October issue of Bon Appetit (the one with the controversial, yucky cover), I saw a recipe in there for these braised beef short ribs and thought they looked easy enough to make. I'd never prepared beef ribs before and this seemed like a cool challenge to take on.

My local overpriced grocery store sells beef back ribs that were actually reasonably priced - but they also looked like something Fred Flintstone might munch on while at the drive in, so I had the butcher halve the package for me. For $10 I got 4.5lbs of beef ribs, which I didn't think was that bad. I borrowed some wine from my SIL, who makes her own, and I was set.

Nothing can be simpler than sticking a bunch of ingredients into a slow cooker and forgetting about the whole thing for 8 hours - and that's exactly what I did.

My dad came over for dinner to help me try out this new dish. He's a bit of a fat freak, so to keep him calm I strained off a bunch of the fat before he arrived, and I'll save it for another use (I have something in mind to make from Fat).

The verdict: It looked great, as you can see from the pictures. The flavour was OK, but you had to look really hard to find much meat. There was some, and it was succulent, but frankly, not my cup of tea. The meat was tasty, but I don't want that much work to actually get at it. I served the ribs with nugget potatoes and roasted asparagus, and that was very good.

The recipe for the dish can be found here. I accidentally bought back ribs instead of short ribs, and I'm not sure what the difference would have been. Ah well. It was a nice change and a good challenge, but I'm not sure I'll be keeping this recipe around.