Beef Stew

Stews are one of those foods that I have always admired.  I love big pots full of slowly simmering food whose aroma fills the whole house.  Stew is easy, affordable, and feeds the whole house; it is really just a matter of tossing things in a pot and giving them time to mellow together.

I don’t recall really caring for stew as a child.  I imagine I ate the beef out of it, maybe the potatoes, and then tried to ignore any of the vegetables that may have ended up in my bowl.  I do remember liking the smell.

As a child I couldn’t appreciate that the aroma of stew is the result of all of the ingredients coming together.  I couldn’t appreciate that the flavor of the beef or the potatoes was really determined by all of those vegetables I was dutifully ignoring.

In my opinion, stew is really a food for a brisk fall or cold winter.  The steaming bowl helps warm you inside and makes you feel cozy even as it pours or gusts outside.  So the weather in Hawaii is pretty terrible; at least as it relates to stew.

Hawaii tends to be pretty sunny, warm, and generally pleasant for most of the year.  This gives us a really limited window with which to enjoy stews and other cold weather foods.  It is really hard to enjoy a hot bowl of beef stew when it is bright and sunny outside.

With that said, we are getting into the colder months here (relatively speaking).  It gets cold enough for blankets at night, hoodies appear in the mornings, rain comes more frequently and energetically, and we can finally enjoy a warm cup of stew, a glass of wine, and feel cozy inside our homes buttressed against the weather.

Stew is really just about tossing stuff in a pot and letting it have plenty of time to simmer.  Everything starts with a mirepoix- celery, carrots, onions and butter all go in low heat and have plenty of time to soften.

After the mirepoix has had some time the mushrooms go in and the heat goes up, they cook for a little bit, and wine joins the party.  As the wine begins to simmer or boil a couple cups of beef broth follow.

Once the beef broth begins to simmer the potatoes can go in the pot, they need to be submerged so they can cook thoroughly and get to that point where they just about fall apart.  Toss in a bay leaf, some pepper, some salt, and let the flavors mingle.

The beef I like to do separately.  Take a pan and turn the heat up high.  Add a little oil and then toss in the beef to the preheated pan.  The beef just needs to brown on each side.  Before it is done I like to add a cup of wine and braise the beef in that for a little bit before dumping the whole pan into the stew.

Now everything can just simmer together for a few hours, or even longer.  Sometimes I will add a quick roux (an equal parts fat (butter) and flour mixture that is done on low heat) to the pot to help things thicken up a little bit.  Otherwise the stew is ready when you are; I like having it over a bed of rice or bread, but it is just fine all by itself!

Stuffed Red Peppers and Broccoli Risotto

Sometimes you know what you want to cook; sometimes you haven’t got a clue.  This is the result of one of those clueless occasions.  Sometimes you know what to write; sometimes you type, delete, type, delete, and give up.

When you write on paper people can see your eraser marks, see where you crossed things out; on the computer there is no record of the different directions you started going and walked back.  You don’t get a feel for how long I stared at a word and wondered if I should change it, nor can you see the times when the words flew down my finger tips faster than I could type them.

I always wondered if teachers could tell the papers I loved writing from those that I labored over.  How much of that enthusiasm bleeds onto the page?  Do I have better grammar when I struggle over every sentence, rereading, and rewriting them; or do I make too many little mistakes when I burn through writing a paper I genuinely enjoy?

I guess a meal is a similar thing.  Sometimes you labor over them for long periods of time, first figuring out what you are going to cook, collecting ingredients, prepping them, the actual cooking, plating, and then dishes; yet sometimes you know what you want to do and none of those steps seems so arduous.

I have no idea how much my frustration, joy, or mix of both come across on the plate.  Some meals take forever to cook, but only minutes to consume; you have to wonder what kinds of pay off you are really getting there.

I guess really it is the satisfied tummy pats, the sighs, the kanak attacks, and the ‘you should cook this again.’  After all, every Thursday night for over a year now I have been cooking these diners, I don’t think me or anyone else would keep doing this if it weren’t fun.

As to the Stuffed Peppers… In the past I have always stuffed Peppers with rice or Couscous, some kind of starch.  This time I really didn’t want to do that, it always sounds like a way better idea to me than it really is.  So, I went for what I figured would be a savory, spicy beef mixture.  I couldn’t just do beef though.  I needed vegetables and peppers.

It all started with some diced celery, garlic, and onion cooking in a bit of butter on low heat.  Once they were all nice and soft I tossed in some diced, de-seeded tomatoes, and finally the diced sweet chili peppers.  Once those are nice and cooked I put dumped it out of the pan into a big bowl to relax for a minute.  Then the heat in the pan went way up and the beef went in, along with some choice spices; pepper, salt, and a little paprika.

Once the beef was nice and browned, I drained off most of the fat and tossed it into the big bowl with the vegetables so that could mix together and mingle and then back into the pan altogether with the heat on very low.

As to the peppers, they were halved, roasted face down for seven or eight minutes, and then turned over and stuffed with the beef mixture, topped with a bit of parmesan cheese and then popped back in for another seven or eight minutes.

They turned out nicely.  The beef was spicy and sweet, from both the peppers and the vegetable mixture, the peppers were sweet and tender, mixing in with the stuffing as they were cut.  Definitely a recipe to do again sometime.

So... what about the risotto?  I think we will save that for another time.  Risotto is wonderful and easy, if not a little time consuming.  It is certainly worth highlighting alone as it makes a great starch, as seen used it here, or makes for a fantastic meal by itself.

Paella - Chicken & Sausage

Sometimes I do watch cooking shows.  One of my favorites was always the “Naked Chef”, which Food Network used to play at one or two in the morning after a few episodes of the original Iron Chef.  I don’t think they play either of those any more, but they both left lasting impressions on me.  I always wanted to have the creativity of the Iron Chefs, but cook with the ease and simplicity of ingredients of Jamie Oliver, aka The Naked Chef  (known as such for simple obvious ingredients and not food cooking naked; that would have been dangerous…)

So when Netflix put up a bunch of Jamie Oliver’s other TV show Oliver’s Twist, I started watching them every once in a while.  Mostly when I am looking for something new to cook.  I was already aware of Paellas and thought they looked absolutely delectable, but just figured they were something else that was too complicated for my amateur kitchen skills.

After seeing Jamie Oliver make Paella, I realized how easy it really was, and thus grabbed my giant recipe book, found a good recipe, made a few changes to the ingredients.  I honestly don’t know where to buy rabbit, nor am I certain that my roommates and friends would even eat rabbit, but I do know where to buy Portuguese Sausage!  Also, being a poor post secondary degree college student, spices like saffron are out of my price range.  So changes were made.

Paella, like most things I like cook is simple and delicious.  The only draw back, is the time it takes to make.  Usually cooking time doesn’t bother me too much, in fact the longer something takes, often times the better, more complex the flavors will be, but other meals you just don’t have the time for a dish to take hours to come together.

Paella starts off quickly, browning chicken and sausage in pan, then taking them out and setting them aside to rest.  Using all that delicious fat left in the pan you then cook the peeled, de-seeded, and diced tomatoes and onions on low heat for a half hour.  This is where things slow down a little.

After those have cooked down, thus becoming soft and translucent, the chicken and sausage come back, everything gets stirred together, nicely mixed, then the heat goes back up and in goes the chicken stock for ten minutes or so.

The beans go in next for a spell, followed by the rice.  At this point, once everything is stirred together, you are no longer allowed to touch the Paella, with the exception of maybe adding a little bit more more hot chicken stock if it is boiling out of the pan before the rice is done.  You don’t want to move anything around because you are looking for the rice at the bottom to brown and form a nice crust.  If you start stirring you are going to end up with something that it half Paella, half Risotto.  This waiting game takes anywhere from 25-40 minutes depends on the size of Paella and amount of rice.

The first time I made Paella, my roommate and I ate the whole thing within twenty-four hours.  It does make great leftovers.  Otherwise I find it usually serves 7-8, with a little bit left over for seconds; which everyone always wants.

Probably the most important thing I have learned cooking, is that nothing is ever quite as hard or intimidating as it seems at first.  Paella is one of those nice, forgiving foods.