Swiss Steak

I decided tonight to make a classic: Swiss steak. I did a little research, looked at several recipes, and came up with my own version. I'd like to share the recipe with you.

Swiss Steak
     Ingredients

• 1 pound round steak
• vegetable oil
• whole wheat flour
• granulated garlic
• onion powder
• ground thyme
• ground marjoram
• paprika
• fresh ground black pepper
• kosher salt
• 1 large or 2 small bell peppers, any color, diced
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 1 T minced garlic
•  1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes
• 1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
• 1/2 can beef broth
• dry leaf thyme
• dry leaf marjoram

     Required Equipment

• oven safe sauce pan or Dutch oven
• meat tenderizer mallet

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Trim the fat from the round steak and cut into 4-ounce portions.
3. Pound the steak on both sides to tenderize.
4. Heat just enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the pan over medium heat.
5. Sprinkle the steaks on both sides with a mixture of equal amounts of the granulated garlic, onion powder, paprika, ground thyme, ground, marjoram, fresh ground black pepper and kosher salt, and rub the spices into the meat. Repeat the process with a couple of pinches of whole wheat flour.
6. One at a time, brown the steaks on both sides in the oil. Add more oil between steaks if needed. Remove the steaks to a platter to rest.
7. If needed, add a little more oil to the pan, then add the bell pepper and onion. Season with the same spices as the steaks and saute until they just start to get tender, scraping up the brown bits from the steaks.
8. Add the minced garlic and saute for a minute.
9. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef broth and the leaf herbs (to taste). Bring to a simmer.
10. Return all of the steaks to the pan, including any drippings on the platter.
11. Cover the pan and place in the oven for 15 minutes.
12. Taste the sauce and add salt or other seasonings if needed.
13. Return to the oven and cook for 30 minutes, then let it sit, covered, for ten minutes
14. Serve with whole grain pasta and steamed green vegetable (green beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, etc.), as in the picture.

There will be quite a lot of the sauce left over. I am going to have some of it tomorrow as a soup with some whole grain toast and a little bit of shredded cheese. It also makes a great pasta sauce.

Happy cooking!

Enchiladas - Day 2

First, by special request, a photo of the pile of shredded beef:

So, today when I got home from work, I took the shredded beef out of the fridge and microwaved it at half power for about five minutes, just to take the chill off.

For the sauce, I started out by sweating half a yellow onion and 1.5 tablespoons of minced garlic in a little oil, then added some kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, and chili powder.

Next, I dumped in a can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, sauted them for a few minutes, then added a big can of tomato puree. Let that heat for a few minutes, then used the immersion blender to chop up the peppers. Let it simmer for a few minutes and tasted. Too spicy. Added a tablespoon of sugar and two tablespoons of vinegar. Simmered another few minutes, still too spicy. Added another two tablespoons of sugar and a little salt. Still too spicy. Added a regular size can of tomato sauce. Still a little on the spicy side, but good enough with sour cream and cheese and lettuce and tortilla and all that. Next time, I'll either use half a can of the peppers, or just strain them out instead of blending everything together. Live and learn.

I mixed a little of the sauce into the meat.

Rolled a good portio of the meat into the tortillas (flour, I don't like the texture of store bought corn tortillas and don't have the proper equipment to make my own), then topped them with sauce.

Baked them for about 15 minutes at 350, then topped them with 2 cups of shredded Mexican cheese blend (cheddar, Monterey jack, queso blanco, and asadero). Back in the oven for about 8 minutes, and this is the result:

Topped each serving with some shredded lettuce and sour cream, and some refried beans on the side (canned, but doctored up with the addition of salt, pepper, granulated garlic, onion powder, chili powder, and a couple of tablespoons of salsa).

Enchiladas - Day 1

Well, here's a first: a dish that takes two days to prepare. (I did season the Spanish pork tenderloin the day before, but this actually involves cooking on two days.)

Today was prep day for the filling: shredded beef.

I dumped a can of chipotle chilis in adobo into the blender, added in half a yellow onion, five cloves of garlic, about a tablespoon of lime juice, a little clump of fresh cilantro, a few drops of hot sauce, and a cup of water. Blended all that, then seasoned the meat.

I used a 4-ish pound rump roast. Seasoned it on every side with fresh ground pepper, granulated garlic, onion powder, chili powder, smoked paprika, and kosher salt, then rubbed everything in. Back to the sauce mixture - I poured about half of it into the bottom of the crock pot, then put the roast in and rolled it around to cover it. I then poured the rest over the top of the roast, then measured three cups of water in the blender pitcher to get all the remants and poured that around the roast and mixed it in. Set the cooker to low, and let it go. I started it around 11 in the morning, and Cheri turned it off around 7 pm.

That's the roast at 11 this morning. I got off work at 9:30, then had to go to Wal Mart (bleh) for a headlight bulb for the car, so by the time I got home a little after10, it had cooled down enough to shred by hand (I wore gloves). So that's in a bag in the fridge, waiting for tomorrow.

Stay tuned. I'll try to post the follow-up tomorrow night. That post will include my first attempt at enchilada sauce from scratch.

Good ol' steak 'n taters

This was a pretty run of the mill steak and potato dinner, but I did have a couple of special twists.

First step was this afternoon, setting the frozen roll dough out the rise. Picked up the kids at school, went to the library, stopped by the grocery store to turn in some bottles for deposit, then came home and baked the rolls. After they came out and went on the cooling rack -

- I turned the oven up to 425 and scrubbed three Russet potatoes and let them air dry while I mixed up a rub for the three New York strips (our local grocery store had a sale on whole stips, so we've got steak for a little while) - fairly simple rub, just granulated garlic, onion powder, fresh ground black pepper, and kosher salt. I rubbed both sides of the steak and let them sit for while I carried on the potato prep. I rubbed the potatoes down with a clean towel to make sure they were dry, then brushed a really thin layer of vegetable oil over them. I then filled a 9-inch square baking dish about a 1/2 inch deep with kosher salt, added the potatoes, rolled them around to cover them with salt, then stuck the whole works in the oven and set the timer for 30 minutes.

Rubbed steaks:

I had put a bag of frozen Brussels sprouts in the fridge the thaw earlier in the day, so I took them out and realized they weren't fully thawed yet - into a bowl of running cold water to quick thaw. Then I got out the cast iron skillets, large and small, and set them on the stove. I cut four pieces of thick sliced hickory smoked bacon into the small skillet, set the burner under it to medium, then waited for the sprouts to thaw. Once they were thawed, I drained them and cut the larger ones in half, then tossed them with what was left of the rub mixture.

Once the bacon was crisp, I removed the pieces to a small platter with some paper towels to drain and added half a yellow onion, diced, and a heaping tsp. of minced garlic to the bacon grease in the pan and sauted until the onion started to get soft, then in went the sprouts.

Stirred the sprouts around into the onion and garlic, then covered the pan. About that time the timer went off for the potatoes, so they came out to be flipped over and punctured, then back into the oven for another 30 minutes.

Stirred the sprouts again and recovered, then turned my attention to the meat. Big cast iron skillet goes back on the front burner, then gets preheated over high heat for about five minutes. Added the steaks (no oil, I didn't trim the fat off the steaks, so that rendered out), turned the heat down to medium high, and let them sear on that side for four minutes then flipped them.

Seared the other side for another four minutes, then removed two (one for me, one for the daughter) and put on a resting rack and tented them with foil. (Meanwhile, the sprouts were finished, so I turned off the heat, mixed the cooked bacon in, and left them covered. Between the residual heat from the cast iron and the insulation from the lid, they were still piping hot when everything was done about 15 minutes later.)  The other steak (for the wife) stayed in the pan for another two minutes, then got transferred to a sheet pan and put in the oven with the potatoes for another four or five minutes (my daughter and I like rare to medium rare, my wife likes medium well to well done). I then deglazed the pan with about 1/3 of a can of beef broth, being sure to scrape up all the yummy brown bits of charred steak from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Added a few drops of Worchestershire sauce, and let the liquid reduce by half, stirring the whole time. I then added in 3 Tbsp. of butter, let that melt, combined it all, then transferred it to a small bowl. Out come the potatoes, and it's time to plate up and dig in!

I had my baked potato with a little butter and some shredded co-jack cheese, and drizzled the pan sauce over the steak. And yes, I ate that whole plate. All I'd had the rest of the day was that little bowl of oatmeal from my previous post and a fried balogna sandwich. I was hungry, and boy, did it taste good!

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain

Here's the meal that was in my profile photo, and is now at the bottom of this post. The side dishes are not my original creations (spinach and garbanzos from a Spanish tapas cookbook, and Vigo brand yellow saffron rice), nor is the bread (Spanish white bread recipe found online and baked by my wife), but the pork and sauce were invented on the fly.

Spanish-inspired rub for pork

This can be made for as much or as little meat as you need. I just eyeballed it, but feel free to use precise measurements.

2 parts Kosher salt
1.5 parts freshly ground black pepper
1 part ground cumin
1 part granulated garlic
1.5 parts coriander
1 part turmeric
2.5 parts Spanish paprika
1 part orange zest (preferably Valencia orange)

Mix the ingredients, then brush the pork lightly with oil, rub the seasoning mixture onto the meat, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. Grill or smoke the meat.

For the plate in the photo, I used two beautiful pieces of pork tenderloin. I seared them over high direct heat on the grill, then moved them to the other side and cooked them indirectly. I spiked the water in the drip pan with some more orange vest, cumin, and coriander, and let it go while I prepared the other components of the meal.

Spanish-inspired tomato viniagrette sauce

One can whole peeled tomatoes, drained
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
3 cloves fresh garlic, peeled
1 tsp. coriander
several grindings black pepper
1 Tbsp. Kosher salt
2 Tpsp. Spanish paprika
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 medium sized bell pepper (any color)


Combine all ingredients except bell pepper in food processor bowl or mixing bowl (with immersion blender), pulse several times until tomatoes are no longer recognizable. Let the mixture rest. Brush the pepper with vegetable oil, then roast it over direct heat on the grill, turning frequently until charred all over. Let it cool for a few minutes, then peel, seed and chop. Add the chopped roasted pepper to the mixture in the bowl, and process for a couple of minutes until smooth. If using the processor, transfer to a bowl and let rest until ready to serve. Stir well just before serving, then spoon over pork.