Showing posts with label beef. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beef. Show all posts

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Beef Wellington Bites

A traditional Beef Wellington is made with whole tenderloin wrapped in puff pastry along with mushrooms duxelles and foie gras. These beef Wellington bites are the finger food version made with choux pastry puffs.

Let me start by saying that this dish was the result of leftovers of the very best kind. I made duxelles for a different dish and ended up sharing it for a group post celebrating mushrooms. And I had frozen choux pastry from a croquembouche challenge. When a weekend barbecue left me with a couple of grilled filet mignon steaks, it suddenly came to me that I had the makings of beef Wellington of a sort and just needed some foie gras or liver paté. Oh, we dined richly that night! I'd been waiting for the ideal time to share them when Sunday Supper announced a Finger Food for Dinner theme. Perfect!

Make sure you scroll down to see all the wonderful fork-free dishes we are sharing today, from appetizers through desserts. Many thanks to our host Christie from A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures and her guiding light, Marion from Life Tastes Good.

Ingredients
For the duxelles:
3 oz or 85g shallots
1/3 cup or 75g butter
12 oz or 340g mushrooms
1 cup or 240ml dry white wine
1 cup or 240ml whipping cream
Sea salt
Black pepper
- Instructions here  You may not use the whole recipe. Stir the rest through some pasta. Or eat it with a spoon.

For the choux pastry:
1 cup or 125g plain flour
1 pinch salt
7 tablespoons or 100g butter
1 cup or 240ml water
4 eggs, at room temperature
- The dough makes about 50 small choux buns. They freeze well before baking!

For assembly: Makes 18 Beef Wellington Bites
6 oz or 170g grilled tenderloin steak
6 oz or 170g smooth duck or pork paté, at room temperature

Method
Make your duxelles ahead of time and store the bowl in the refrigerator. Do not leave it out as you work, because its volume will greatly decrease, spoon by spoon, if it's handy. That stuff is GOOD.

Now we'll make the choux pastry. Preheat your oven to 445°F or 230°C and prepare your baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper stuck down with a little non-stick spray. If you are feeling particularly anal, as I usually am, you can draw some circles to guide you on the underside of the parchment paper.

Sift together your flour and a pinch of salt and put the bowl right next to the stove in readiness.

In a medium pot, combine the butter and water and bring to the boil.



Pour the flour/salt mixture into the boiling water/butter all at once. Stir vigorously until the mixture forms a ball and pulls right away from the sides. This takes just a minute or two.



Now take the pot off of the stove and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well with your wooden spoon in between. With each addition, it looks like the egg won’t mix in and the dough starts to fall apart but keep mixing and after a couple of minutes of hard labor, the dough comes together again in one big lump and it’s time to add the next egg.


After the fourth egg has been thoroughly incorporated, put the dough into a piping bag with a large tip, about 1/2 in or 1 cm wide.

Pipe the soft dough on the parchment paper in 1 inch or 2.5cm circles about an equal measure apart from each other.


Poke down any pointy tops with a damp finger.


Bake in your preheated oven for 10 minutes then turn the temperature down to 400°F or 200°C and bake for a further 25 minutes. (OR you can now pop them in the freezer if you want to keep some for later.  You only need 18 for the Beef Wellington Bites. Once frozen, slip them off the parchment and into a Ziploc bag for storage. They are perfect for sweet or savory fillings and can be taken out of the freezer and baked as you need them.)

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Once they are completely cooled, store them in an airtight container until you are ready to serve.

When you are ready to serve, warm your duxelles and your tenderloin steaks. Slice the steaks thinly.



Split the choux buns open horizontally. Add a good spoon of the duxelles to the bottom. Top with sliced steak and finally, add a small slice of paté.



Put the top of the choux bun back on and repeat the process until all the Beef Wellington Bites are assembled.

Enjoy!



Do you enjoy Finger Foods for Dinner? I think they are great for movie nights but in our house we also always do all appetizers for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve as well.

I want everything on this list!

Pinky Appetizers
Manual Mains
Digit Desserts


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Sunday, September 13, 2015

Gram’s Cajun Rice Dressing

Rice dressing with pork, beef, chicken livers and gizzards, seasoned with onion, bell pepper and garlic, just like my grandmother used to make it, hence the title, Gram's Cajun Rice Dressing! Some Cajun cookbooks call this “dirty rice” but in my family, we just call it dressing.



Many years ago my cousin, Simone, put together a family cookbook of favorites and kindly made copies to share with the rest of us. When the Sunday Supper theme for today was announced – National Grandparents Day – I knew that would be the best place to start looking for one of my grandmother’s recipe that I haven’t already shared. I’ve posted quite a few because those are ones I still cook all the time but I needed fresh inspiration. I’ll be honest, I hadn’t thought about my grandmother’s dressing in quite a while but as soon as I turned to that page, I knew I couldn’t make anything else.

Rice dressing was always a favorite on both of my grandmother’s dinner tables, making an appearance quite regularly not just for Thanksgiving or Christmas but often also on Sundays.

In the old days, they would grind the liver and gizzards at home in a meat grinder or asked the butcher to do it, but nowadays we use a food processor. In fact, to make it even easier, folks living in Louisiana can buy the “dressing mix” pre-made in every grocery store and my mom informs me that it’s even available in Houston.

If you aren’t a liver lover, you can leave it out, but I’d like to reassure you that with only four whole livers in all that rice and ground meat, the flavor is very, very subtle. I think they are essential to get the right flavor.

Gram’s Cajun Rice Dressing


This rice dressing makes me miss my grandmothers but it also brings back wonderful memories of them. This is the taste of home.

Ingredients
For the rice:
2 cups or 400g uncooked long-grained rice
1 1/2 teaspoon fine salt

For the roux:
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon or 42g flour
1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil

For the dressing:
8 chicken gizzards (about 4 oz or 115g)
4 whole chicken livers (about 4 oz or 115g)
3/4 lb or 340g ground pork
1/2 lb or 227g ground beef
1 large onion
1 small green bell pepper (capsicum)
1 small bunch green onions (plus more to garnish, if desired)
2 cloves garlic
Salt, black pepper, cayenne to taste
Roux
8 cups cooked rice

Method
Cook your rice with the salt by your favorite method. I’m not giving water amounts or cooking times since rice varies so widely. My grandmothers would have used a local Louisiana rice that was relatively short-grained but since I can’t get that in Dubai, I’ve used long-grained Indian Basmati. Long-grained rice fluffs up more so my two cups raw made eight cups of cooked rice.

While the rice is cooking, you can make the roux. Using the amount of flour and oil in the ingredients list, follow the instructions here: How to Make Roux. Set the roux pot aside to cool in a sink filled with a little cool water. You don't want it to continue to darken once it's done. Don't get any water in the pot though!

Put your gizzards in the food processor and chop them up finely. Add in the liver and give it another few pulses to chop the liver as well.



Add the oil to a large pot or pan and then tip in the ground pork, ground beef and your chopped liver and gizzards.



Cook over a medium heat, stirring occasionally, breaking the meat into small pieces with your spoon as it cooks.



While the meat is cooking, finely chop your onion, bell pepper, green onions and garlic.

Once the meat is well browned and even a little crispy, add in the chopped vegetables. Stir well.



Cook the mixture over a medium heat, stirring often, until the vegetables are soft and just about disappear.

Add in your roux and a cup or two of water and stir well. Season the mixture with salt, fresh ground black pepper and cayenne to taste. We like ours pretty spicy.



Lower the fire and simmer for a couple of hours, adding water occasionally when the mixture gets a little too dry. You want to end up with a thick meat-filled gravy.



Gently fluff your rice with a fork to separate the grains and then mix the rice in with the meat.



Garnish with some chopped green onions or parsley.

Enjoy!



What special recipes have your grandparents handed down to you? Here’s a list of favorites from my Sunday Supper family.

Sweets that are the Sweetest
Savory Meals with Special Memories



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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Roasted and Stuffed Eggplant #BloggerCLUE


Roasted eggplant filled with a deliciously flavorful stuffing of ground beef, brown rice, olives, artichoke hearts, sunflower seeds and salty Parmesan, is topped with more cheese then baked to golden perfection. This is a great main course that is as attractive as it is tasty.

It’s Blogger C.L.U.E. Society time again and my secretly assigned blog is annaDishes! Anna lives in Florida so her blog is full of lovely fresh recipes with locally grown produce. Our challenge this month was to hunt for and make a recipe that our own grandmothers might have made. While my grandmothers never stuffed eggplant that I am aware off, they certainly did stuff and roast bell peppers – my mom still does so with regularity – and spicy eggplant casserole was a favorite dish whenever we were visiting. I am pretty sure both of my grandmothers would have loved this dish. Aside from the addition of some red pepper and an unavoidable cheese substitution, I’ve made it pretty much exactly as Anna wrote it in her original post, which you can see here. I’ve noted any changes in parentheses and added the metric measures for my readers who use them.

Ingredients
1 cup (dry) or 215g brown rice
2 cups or 480ml chicken broth
1 large eggplant (I used two – weighing 1 1/2 lbs or 665g together)
1 package baby bella mushrooms (One large portabella – weighing 3 1/5 oz or 100g)
1 small onion, chopped (Mine weighed 3 1/2 oz or 100g.)
1/4 cup or 60g kalamata olives, chopped (Mine had pits. Weight before pitting: 3 oz or 85g)
3/4 lb or 340g ground beef
3/4 cup or 110g sunflower seeds
1/2 cup or 100g artichoke hearts, chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
3/4 cup, grated, or 70g Parmesan cheese (I grated from a fresh wedge of Parmesan so the weight measure is probably more accurate than the cup.)
Shredded Monterey Jack cheese (I used 3 1/2 oz or 100g Colby Jack.)
Shredded Gouda cheese
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
(I also added 2 teaspoons crushed red chilies and a few fresh thyme leaves for color when serving.)

Method
First start the rice: Bring the rice and chicken stock to a boil with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. (I stir in the rice in the olive oil first to coat, then add in the stock.)



Reduce to low and cover. Cook rice over low heat for 55 minutes or until tender. (Mine took about 40 minutes, at which point I turned the fire off but left the cover on so the rice could steam gently until I was ready to use it. Then I fluffed it with a fork.)



Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Hollow out the eggplant making sure to leave 1/4 inch or a little more than 1/2cm on all sides. If the walls are too thin they won’t hold up with the stuffing.

Drizzle the baking dish with olive oil and place eggplant halves in center. Drizzle olive oil on eggplant.



 Roast in your preheated oven for 30-40 minutes, until cooked but not too soft.

Here they are roasted.


While the eggplant shells are cooking, chop 1/2 of the meat from the eggplant. (I used all of it.)

Eggplant, olives, artichoke hearts, onion, garlic and mushroom.
Combine the eggplant with onion, mushroom, olives, artichokes and sauté in pan until browned. (I also added a drizzle of olive oil to the pan.)
This is the "after" shot. The pan was almost full when I started but the vegetables cook down considerably. 

Remove from heat and set aside. In another pan, brown the ground beef until cooked through. (Once again, with a drizzle of olive oil for the pan.)

Combine all ingredients in one bowl. Add rice, sunflower seeds and Parmesan cheese.



(Taste your stuffing and add salt and pepper to taste. This is also where I added the crushed red chilies – since we like things spicy. Stir well!)



Transfer a large portion of the stuffing to each 1/2 of the eggplant. (I had stuffing leftover but that is a good thing. It’s delicious just on its own too.)



Cover with cheese and place in oven for 15 minutes.

Turn on broiler to brown the top.



Enjoy! I served each person a whole stuffed eggplant, sprinkled with a little fresh thyme, along with a green salad.



If you’d like to see more of annaDishes, you can follow her on Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest or like her blog page on Facebook.



CLUE logo


Many thanks to Liz from That Skinny Chick Can Bake, Kate from Kate's Kitchen and Christiane from Taking on Magazines for creating this fun challenge.

Here's a link list to all of the intrepid blog detectives in our group! Follow the links to see which blogs they were assigned and the recipes that their grandmothers might have made.

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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Slow Cooker Beef and Guinness Stew - or Pie

When weather turns chilly, my thoughts turn to my slow cooker and a nice beefy stew with Guinness. Serve the warming bowls of deliciousness as is or top the stew with puff pastry and bake for a beautiful beef and Guinness pie. 

Whenever we are traveling and have the chance to eat a pub lunch, my husband almost invariably orders the beef and Guinness pie, if there is one on the menu. He loves the filling and the flaky puff pastry top. When decent pub grub is not available, I make my own. For stew beef to become tender, slow cooking is the way to go, so I like to use my crockpot to make the filling. After browning the meat, everything goes in the pot and I can get on with other projects like baking his favorite apple rhubarb strawberry pie. Pie for dinner and pie for dessert and he’s a happy man.

Ingredients
For the stew:
5 slices streaky smoked bacon
2 lbs or 950g braising or stew meat
1.1 lb or 500g marrow bones (optional)
1 1/2 tablespoons or 15g flour
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1⁄4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 large onion (about 7 oz or 200g)
1 large carrot (about 5 1/2 oz or 155g)
1 large parsnip (about 5 1/2 oz or 155g)
1 can (14 oz or 400g) chopped tomatoes with their juice
1 can (12 oz or 355 ml) Guinness stout
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
Salt
Freshly ground pepper

For the pie:
1 sheet puff pastry (8 oz or 230g)

Method
Cut your meat into bite-sized pieces, removing any gristle you can see.



Lay it out in a single layer on your cutting board and season it with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Sprinkle it with the tablespoon and a half of plain flour and toss it around with your clean hands until well mixed.



Peel and cut the parsnip and carrot into pieces. Cover the parsnip with water in a small bowl until ready to use, to stop it from turning brown. Chop your onion roughly.



Cut the bacon into small pieces and fry until crispy in a non-stick pan. Remove the crispy bits from the rendered bacon fat and set aside.



Fry the meat in the bacon fat until browned on all sides, in two or three lots so that the pan doesn’t get crowded.

If you put too many pieces in at once, it will just steam instead of browning. As the batches get browned, remove them to a bowl.



Now you are ready to put everything in the slow cooker.

Start with the meat, then add the onion, parsnip and carrot. Top with the bacon, thyme and bay leaf. Pour the canned tomatoes in and then the can of Guinness.



Tuck the marrow bones down into the vegetables, if using.



Cook on high for three to four hours or until the beef is tender. Check the seasoning and add more salt and pepper to taste.

This can be served exactly as is or it can be baked as pie topped with puff pastry.

If you cooked your stew with the optional marrow bones, these can be put under the broiler or grill in the oven to brown. They are lovely served as an appetizer with toast on which to spread the marrow.

To make the pie, preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Spoon your beef and Guinness stew into a baking pan and allow it to cool a little while your oven preheats. I like to use a small pan that holds the beef and vegetables with a good amount of the broth that is created while the stew slow cooks. Then I thicken the rest of the broth with a little flour and serve it as extra gravy with the pie.



Slice the outside edges off of your puff pastry sheet and cut a few slits in the middle.



When your oven is up to temperature, cover the filled baking pan with your puff pastry. Fold the sides up so they don't hang over the edges. Press down all around the edges to seal the crust to the pan. You can use the trimmed pieces to decorate the top, if you want.



Pop it in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden.



To serve, cut a piece of the puff pastry off the top and fold it back. Scoop the stew into your bowl and top with the puff pastry.



Enjoy!


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