Brisket Carbonnade

It's the end of February and I'm ready to put away my winter clothes.   I'm tired of winter boots and scarves, I'm ready to swap them out for t-shirts and sandals.  I'm ready for the daffodils in my front yard to burst into bloom.  I'm ready to put away my hearty winter recipes and start making some lighter spring meals.  Before, I retire my winter menu though, I have one more hearty and delicious meal to share with you.  Brisket Carbonnade from Cook's Country was an excellent way to end our season of hearty winter meals. 

Brisket Carbonnade
4 onions
3 1/2 pound beef brisket
2 Tablespoons oil
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
2 cloves garlic
1 Tablespoon flour
1 1/2 cups beer
4 springs thyme
2 bay leaves
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 Tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

 
Slice 3 onions thinly.













Chop remaining onion in food processor.












Pat beef dry with paper towels.  Season with salt and pepper.









Heat 1 Tablespoon oil in skillet until smoking.  Add beef and brown and all sides.

Remove beef from skillet and transfer to a 9x13 baking dish.

Heat 1 Tablespoon oil in skillet again.  Add sliced onions and cook until golden brown.

Stir in tomato paste and garlic.


















Stir in flour and cook 2 minutes.


















Stir in pureed onion and cook until thickened.







Stir in beer, thyme, bay leaves, sugar and vinegar.  Bring to a boil.

Pour over beef and cover pan with foil.

Cook 2 -3 hours at 325 or until its fork tender.  Remove from oven, let rest 1 hour before slicing.







Slice beef and skim fat from sauce.

Whisk mustard into pan sauce and serve with pork.

A super delicious meal for a cold February night.  It was a great winter but I'm looking forward to a some nice warm March days.  Anybody else excited about Spring already or am I jumping the gun?

Ciao!

Hawaiian Marinated Flank Steak

I LOVE February days in the 60's.  It's the glimmer of hope that I cling to that spring is right around the corner.  One sunny afternoon is all is takes for me to pack away my winter sweaters and break out the sandals.  I also love grilling without my winter jacket. 

Apparently, Mia loves warm winter days as well.

And of course, the very first thing that she does on a warm day is to roll around in the grass on top of her rock.

60 degree temperatures + a rock = 1 happy dog.

I would like to say that I plan my grilled meals based on the weather but the truth is, I plan my menu so far in advance that most nights, I just take whatever weather is thrown at me.  (Which is why I end up grilling in the rain quite often.)  Fortunately the weather worked in my favor last week and I had a beautiful, sunny evening to grill my Hawaiian Marinated Flank Steak from theclevercarrot.com.

Hawaiian Marinated Flank Steak
1 1/2 -2 pounds flank steak
1/2 bottle teriyaki
1 cup pineapple juice
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
2 sprigs rosemary






Combine all ingredients in a ziploc bag.   Close and refrigerate at least 24 hours.















Remove from marinade and grill steak.

Let rest 15 minutes before slicing.

Not sure how to describe this steak to do it justice other than to say that it was BY FAR the best flavored flank steak that I have ever had.  Seriously delicious marinade.  

My family ate their steak in taco form.  I served it with whole wheat tortillas, fresh salsa and sliced avocado.  Super yummy.

Ciao!

hawaiian marinated flank steak

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Author: The Clever Carrot

Serves: 6

Ingredients

• 1½- 2 lbs. good quality flank steak*
• 1 bottle Veri Veri Teriyaki marinade (Soy Vay brand)
• 1 c. pineapple juice
• 1 inch piece of ginger, sliced
• 2 large sprigs of rosemary
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

*In addition to flank steak, you can substitute skirt steak or rib-eye.

Instructions

1. In a 9×13 baking dish, add ½ bottle of the marinade (save the rest for another use), pineapple juice, ginger, and rosemary. Whisk to combine. Add the steak, making sure that it is covered with the marinade. Add extra teriyaki and pineapple juice if necessary. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
2. Remove the steak from the refrigerator about 30 minutes prior to cooking. Taking the chill off helps the meat to cook evenly.
3. Heat your grill to high. Remove the steak from the marinade and pat dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
4. For the glaze, pour the remaining marinade into a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and then simmer until slightly thickened and reduced by half.
5. Grill the steak for about 6-8 minutes on each side (medium-rare), brushing them with the glaze in between each turn. Increase cooking time depending on your temperature preference.
6. Remove from the grill and let rest for at least 10 minutes so that all of the juices can evenly distribute. Thinly slice on an angle and serve with desired side dishes.

- See more at: http://www.theclevercarrot.com/2013/08/hawaiian-marinated-flank-steak/#sthash.v8ib9qqV.dpuf

Instructions

1. In a 9×13 baking dish, add ½ bottle of the marinade (save the rest for another use), pineapple juice, ginger, and rosemary. Whisk to combine. Add the steak, making sure that it is covered with the marinade. Add extra teriyaki and pineapple juice if necessary. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate in the fridge for at least 24 hours.
2. Remove the steak from the refrigerator about 30 minutes prior to cooking. Taking the chill off helps the meat to cook evenly.
3. Heat your grill to high. Remove the steak from the marinade and pat dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
4. For the glaze, pour the remaining marinade into a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and then simmer until slightly thickened and reduced by half.
5. Grill the steak for about 6-8 minutes on each side (medium-rare), brushing them with the glaze in between each turn. Increase cooking time depending on your temperature preference.
6. Remove from the grill and let rest for at least 10 minutes so that all of the juices can evenly distribute. Thinly slice on an angle and serve with desired side dishes.

- See more at: http://www.theclevercarrot.com/2013/08/hawaiian-marinated-flank-steak/#sthash.v8ib9qqV.dpuf

Carmelized Salmon

Anything that you add sugar and salt to has got to be good, right?  Take ketchup for instance.  A plain tomato becomes infinitely more appealing with the addition of a little sugar and salt.  Ever tried to convince a small child to eat a tomato?  Ever had any trouble getting a child to dip something in ketchup?  Seriously, salt and sugar are the keys to getting kids (and adults) to eat almost anything.  The trick is in the ratio.  Even a tiny bit of sugar and salt can go a long way in making a vegetable more appealing.

Our adult palettes can get so accustomed to added sugars and salt in our food that we hardly even notice its presence.  Restaurants commonly use the trick of adding extra sugar and salt to their meals to make them more appealing to customers.  I've eaten restaurant meals that I would never have  described as "salty" and yet hours later, I find myself with an unquenchable thirst.  (Not to mention the extra 2 or 3 pounds that show up on the scale the following morning.)

I'm not going to go into the specifics of why we need to limit our sugar and salt intake but I will say that there are a lot of misconceptions out there about their value.  Yes, they do make food taste better - that is not what is up for debate here.  But, they do come with certain health risks if they're consumed in large quantities.  Take for example this recipe that I found on the internet for carmelized salmon.  (I'm choosing not to mention the site because I don't want to point the finger at any one website.)  The recipe was simple.  5 ingredients + 20 minutes = a delicious "healthy" meal.







The recipe started with 2 1/2 Tablespoons of sea salt!















 Ground.














And added to a 1/2 cup of sugar and some fresh ground pepper.








I sprinkled that mixture on my salmon and sauteed it in a skillet.

Once the salmon was cooked in the skillet, the recipe said to sprinkle even more sugar/salt mixture on top and brown it under the broiler until carmelized.

This was more of an experiment than a recipe per se.  I wanted to see if my family would notice the overly sweet and salty fish in comparison to the normally, minimally seasoned fish that I normally serve. 

The scary truth is that neither Ryan or Ben even seemed to notice that the fish had been DRENCHED in sugar and salt - TWICE!  What does that say about our taste buds when we can't even tell when our food has been uber-seasoned?  Have we become so accustomed to the taste of sugar and salt that we don't even realize when we've our food has been overloaded with them? 

We each consumed only a tiny piece of this sugary and salty salmon because I didn't want to cause my family to experience any unnecessary blood pressure issues or other health problems as a result of my experiment.

This little sugar/salt experiment was a wake up call for me.  I think that I'm going to have to revisit some of my other recipes to see where I can start cutting down on sugar and salt.  Time to get our taste buds back into gear and so that we are able to detect even "normal" amounts of salt in our food.

Who's with me?  Anyone else ready to rethink their "healthy" recipes that are loaded with sugar and salt?  We can do this together. 

Ciao!