A Delectable Christmas Main Dish

In a normal year, right now I’d not only be baking cookies but also planning out a Christmas feast for about 3,000 folks coming over for the big family party. While I don’t do all the cooking for the Christmas dinner — people usually bring a dish, and my mom also pitches in — I’ve been slowly taking over much of the meal in the past few years.

Because I enjoy it, gorsh durn it.

Last year’s entrée came to us courtesy of the show Good Eats, which has to be the most entertaining and educational of all the cooking shows out there. Rachael Ray has her word coining, America’s Test Kitchen has its thoroughness, and Julia Child has her flying food, but Good Eats — Good Eats has puppets.

Anyway, I’d actually seen several recipes for braciole in the lead up to Christmas (including an apparently delicious rendition by Debra on Everybody Loves Raymond), but I settled on the Alton Brown version as it had the most detailed directions.

Well, it looked tasty, of course, but when it comes to making something new it’s important to have all the information you can at your disposal. Otherwise, you might roll the flank steak up in the wrong direction and end up with your guests spending all of dinner chewing rather than singing your praises.

I can tell you from last year’s experience that two recipes’ worth are enough to feed a crowd when there are ample holiday side dishes — just don’t expect any leftovers. Also, it is possible to leave out the parmesan cheese and still turn out a tasty roast should anyone in said crowd be lactose-intolerant (or should they simply refuse to eat cheese).

The result is a very, very tender beef roll with a highly flavorful stuffing. I did find ours to be on the dry side, but apparently I was the only one who cared as everyone spent the rest of the night telling us how amazing and jaw-droppingly wonderful that beef thing was. Unprompted.

But if it concerns you, plan to pull it out on the shorter end of the time suggested, I suppose. Naturally, I recommend using homemade tomato sauce for the braising liquid, but I doubt anyone will notice if you use canned or jarred sauce. They’ll be too busy wiping up the drool.

Braciole
Source: Alton Brown

• 3 cups tomato sauce
• 1 ¼ cups flavored croutons
• ⅓ cup grated Parmesan
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped thyme
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 lb. flank steak, pounded to 1/4-inch thick
• Olive oil, for brushing
• Salt and pepper
• Vegetable oil, for searing

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the tomato sauce in a 9 by 13-inch baking dish and place in the oven to heat.

In a the bowl of a food processor mix the croutons, cheese, eggs, herbs and garlic until it forms a paste.

Brush the pounded flank steak with the olive oil and season generously with the salt and pepper. Spread the filling evenly over the meat. Roll tightly and tie with butcher’s twine.

In a large saute pan heat 1 to 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and sear all sides of the rolled meat. Remove from the pan.

Add to the hot tomato sauce, cover with a tin foil tent so that the foil is not touching the meat. Braise for 35 minutes or, up to 3 hours.

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Recipe of the Day: 30-Minute Shepherd’s Pie

Love It: Rachael Ray has another version of this recipe in one of her cookbooks that calls for ground turkey, which is the version I have made before. You have to really know what you’re doing to get one of her recipes done in 30 minutes or less, but they generally make for some tasty home cooking. Nice and comforting one here.

Fear It: I imagine part of the comfort in comfort foods is the food coma all the starch and fat sends you into post-dinner. To keep this reasonable, use reduced-fat versions of the dairy (sure to dismay Rachael) and meat, and take Rachael Ray’s suggestion to sub broth for cream. By the way, while you can use ground turkey for your meat, it won’t save you any calories over 95% lean beef unless you look for the ultra-lean ground turkey breast.

Teach It: This recipe uses a classic strategy of the 30-minute meals genre — do most of the cooking on the stovetop then pop the completed dish in a hot oven for just a few minutes to melt or brown the top.

Eat It: With a tall glass of milk and soft dinner rolls. No salad — too light!

30-Minute Shepherd’s Pie
Source: Rachael Ray
Yield: 4 generous servings

• 2 lbs. potatoes, such as russet, peeled and cubed
• 2 tablespoons sour cream or softened cream cheese
• 1 large egg yolk
• ½ cup cream, for a lighter version substitute vegetable or chicken broth
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan
• 1 ¾ lbs. ground beef or ground lamb
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup beef stock or broth
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire, eyeball it
• ½ cup frozen peas, a couple of handfuls
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

Boil potatoes in salted water until tender, about 12 minutes. Drain potatoes and pour them into a bowl. Combine sour cream, egg yolk and cream. Add the cream mixture into potatoes and mash until potatoes are almost smooth.

While potatoes boil, preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add oil to hot pan with beef or lamb. Season meat with salt and pepper. Brown and crumble meat for 3 or 4 minutes. If you are using lamb and the pan is fatty, spoon away some of the drippings. Add chopped carrot and onion to the meat. Cook veggies with meat 5 minutes, stirring frequently. In a second small skillet over medium heat cook butter and flour together 2 minutes. Whisk in broth and Worcestershire sauce. Thicken gravy 1 minute. Add gravy to meat and vegetables. Stir in peas.

Preheat broiler to high. Fill a small rectangular casserole with meat and vegetable mixture. Spoon potatoes over meat evenly. Top potatoes with paprika and broil 6 to 8 inches from the heat until potatoes are evenly browned. Top casserole dish with chopped parsley and serve.

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Steak Bites with Bloody Mary Dipping Sauce

Happy Halloween! Here in Slovakia Land (I made that up), Halloween’s really more an All Hallows Eve; that is, it’s the night before All Saints Day, which is apparently a huge holiday here.

At home, the only sign that it was All Saints Day was that we were whisked off to church the morning after trick-or-treating for the holy day of obligation. Surely the priests and other religious out there were taking special care to pray for the poor children’s souls post-mischief, but otherwise no one seemed to celebrate.

Here, the tradition is closer to how Mexico celebrates Día de los Muertos, with families trekking off to the cemetery to decorate graves, according to Scott, the resident Slovakia expert.

While there were a few bits of Halloween decoration available at Tesco today (it’s an English chain, after all), they were well overshadowed by the bouquets of flowers available for the coming day. The perfume in the air was overwhelming.

Still, Scott and I chose to keep with our American traditions for the night, and I put together a ghoulish meal, soon to be followed by some candy indulgence.

On the menu this evening: Worms and Maggots (soy sauced-spaghetti with white beans), Toilet-Papered Trees (broccoli with strips of white cheese draped artfully about), Vampire-Scaring Garlic Breadsticks (from the Tesco bakery), and some Bloody Steak.

I’ve made Rachael Ray’s Steak Bites with Bloody Mary Sauce in the past, and originally I did cut the beef into cubes. They turned out pretty tough; I don’t know if that was from overcooking (likely with such small pieces) or from ending up with a gristly cut of meat. At any rate, I took no chances this time. I scrupulously removed any white bits and membranes from the steaks and left them whole so I would be less likely to overcook.

I also poked them several times with my knife tip to be extra sure of tenderness as I had no idea what part of the cattle I had ended up with. The only cut we could identify in the beef cooler was the one labeled in English “rump steak.” So we just picked based on what looked decent.

Anyway, here is the recipe for the main course. You can replace the vodka all or in part with water. And after all the holiday celebrations, perhaps I will get caught up with the Recipes of the Day!

Steak Bites with Bloody Mary Sauce
Source: Rachael Ray
Yield: 6 servings

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• ½ cup vodka
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon rounded prepared horseradish
• Salt and pepper
• 1 ⅓ lbs. beef sirloin cut into large bite-sized pieces, 1 by 2 inches
• Steak seasoning blend or coarse salt and black pepper
• 6 to 8 inch bamboo skewers

Heat a small saucepan over medium heat. Add oil and onions and saute 5 minutes. Add vodka and reduce by 1/2. Add Worcestershire, hot sauce, tomato sauce and horseradish. Stir to combine the dipping sauce and return the sauce to a bubble. Add salt and pepper and adjust seasonings.

Heat nonstick skillet over high heat. Coat meat bites lightly in oil. Season with steak seasoning blend or salt and pepper, to taste. Cook the meat until caramelized all over, about 2 minutes on each side. Transfer dipping sauce to a small dish and place at the center of a serving platter. Surround the dip with meat bites and set several bamboo “stakes” or skewers along side meat.

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