Beef Shin braised with Orange Juice, Cinnamon & Star Anise

I recently read a post on the BBC Food blog chiding the rise of the ‘quick and easy’ meal and found myself getting rather annoyed with it. “What’s wrong with trying to make your tea in 30 minutes?” I found myself asking no one in particular (as you may have gathered by now, I’m quite fond of shouting at the people inside my computer, thinking that somehow they can hear me). “Seriously, by the time I’ve worked an eight hour day, gone for a run and battled with the delightful Merseyrail, I just don’t have the time left to whip up a delightful Beef Daubé.” 

Like many other food writers, I do feel that there’s an over reliance on convenience foods in this country – ready chopped vegetables, horrible plastic pre-grated cheese, expensive over-salted jars of sauce with a celebrity chef’s grinning face on the label. But at the same time, I refuse to feel guilty because sometimes all I want at the end of a long day is a big bowl of something nourishing that I can throw together during the Channel 4 news.  And while I’d love to pretend that everyone reading this blog lives in a fantasy world where they can spend their afternoons wandering around artisan markets gazing at perfectly ripe peaches, before coming home to cook Coq au Vin, I’m well aware that the person reading this probably doesn’t because, well, I don’t. And hell, if the average food blogger (a person who – after all – has a vested interest in food) can’t be arsed sometimes, this means that the average person definitely doesn’t.

So, allow me to introduce you to my secret weapon. THE SLOW COOKER. In the great tradition I have of naming all of my household objects, he is called ‘Mr. Steamy’ and I love him with all of the affection that most people devote towards their household pets. I use this bad boy to cook pretty much everything – stews, tagines, sauces, stocks, even the occasional dal. So, on Sunday, when my mind was taken up with higher pursuits (such as screaming at my television when my beloved Manchester City won the premier league), it seemed only natural that I’d drag it out of the cupboard beneath the stairs to make dinner.

This Beef shin braised with Orange Juice, Cinnamon and Star Anise is a Vietnamese-ish dish inspired by what I just found in my cupboards. Beef shin is a relatively cheap cut of beef, which becomes deliciously tender when braised slowly for five hours, whilst its fat turns the sauce wonderfully silky and glossy. The orange juice, soy sauce and beef stock provides it all with a delicious tang, helped in no small part by warmth of the star anise and cinnamon. I served this with toothsome rice noodles and candy pink pickled radishes (which might just be my new favourite garnish).

OK, while it’s a push to say that a slow cooked stew is ‘quick’, it is the kind of thing that you can throw into a crock pot before you go to work, and shovel up in a huge bowl twenty minutes after you walk through your front door. Which, I have to say, is my favourite interpretation of ‘quick and easy’.

BEEF SHIN BRAISED WITH ORANGE JUICE, CINNAMON & STAR ANISE (Serves Two)

You will need:

• 500g beef shin
• 300ml orange juice
• 200ml beef stock (I used Bovril)
• 2 tbsp ginger cordial/a thumb sized knob of fresh ginger, minced
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• The zest of an orange
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 2 star anise
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 fat garlic cloves, crushed
• 5 black peppercorns

To serve:

• 120g rice noodles
• A handful of mint leaves, julienned
• 2 shallots, sliced and cooked until crispy
• 1 tbsp of pickled radishes (I like David Lebovitz’s recipe)/pickled carrots 

Make It!

1. Season your beef shin with salt and pepper, slice it into cubes, and brown.
2. Put this into your slow cooker with 150ml of orange juice, the beef stock, soy sauce, ginger cordial (or minced ginger if you’re using it), orange zest, garlic and spices. Cook on a medium-high heat, checking on it occasionally.
3. After three hours, add the rest of the orange juice to the pot and give the mixture a good stir. Cook for another two hours.
4. Once the meat is fork tender (feel free to take a piece out of the pot and ‘test it’ by eating it), strain the mixture, discarding the spices. Add the beef back to the braising sauce and heat until it turns thick and glossy.
5. Prepare your rice noodles by submerging them in boiling water. Drain, and toss with a teaspoon of chilli oil so they don’t stick together as they cool.
6. Toss the beef with the rice noodles, and garnish with the mint leaves, crispy shallots and pickled vegetables. This also goes well with an ice cold lager (e.g. Singha or Chang).

Meatballs in a fresh herb and tomato sauce

This post is kindly sponsored by Le Creuset Cookware

I’ve been joking on Twitter recently that I should rename this blog ‘Cake, Meatballs and Ranting.com’ as that’s all I ever appear to talk about on here of late. And today is no different because – oh look! – here’s a recipe for some meatballs. But hey, as my Bubbie says, it’s good for a person to have a shtick. And I’m sure there are worse ones to have than a love of cakes and small round meat products.

You see, here’s the thing. Meatballs make perfect comfort food. And I’ve found myself to be in need of a bit of comfort of late. Take yesterday for example. I spent my day wandering around my house waiting for some news which – if it had been good – could have changed my life for the foreseeable future. Now, I’m not good with waiting, especially if I’m on my own. I have one of those one-track minds which locks into an idea and will not let go. Nothing could distract me – not a bike ride to the shops, not a walk around Liverpool City Centre, not even my beloved America’s Next Top Model could do the trick (although, lets be honest, this most recent cycle is bloody awful). I needed salvation and the ultimate displacement method. Something which would require me to be up to my elbows in something so I couldn’t check my phone every 30 seconds. The answer was plain. I needed meatballs.

I’ve mentioned before that I find the whole process of making meatballs utterly soothing. It’s the kind of thing you can just lose yourself in – the mashing together of ingredients with your fingers, the process of rolling each little ball into a perfect sphere, that whole lovely ritual of stirring and chopping to create something wonderful. The trick to these meatballs is to use the best beef mince you can afford (if you can get to a butcher to buy some decent steak mince, do. A pound of mince cost me a mere £2.20 from my favourite meat counter – both cheaper and better than the stuff you find in my local supermarket) and to let them rest. If you cook them too soon after making them, you’ll be left with a giant pan of meat paste. I have inadvertently done this more times than I’d like to admit, so LEARN FROM MY FAIL.

Eventually, the news I’d been waiting a day for came, and it turned out to be bad. But hey, these things happen I suppose. So, I did what any sensible person would have done in my situation – I turned the darts on, made myself a large gin and tonic and stuffed my face full of meatballs and cheesy polenta. And immediately felt better.

MEATBALLS IN A FRESH HERB AND TOMATO SAUCE (Serves four)

You will need:

Meatballs

• 300g beef steak mince
• 1 egg
• 40g fresh breadcrumbs
• 1 small red onion finely chopped
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• Small fistful of  fresh parsley, finely chopped

To Sear

• 10ml vegetable oil

Tomato Sauce

• 10ml olive oil
• 1 medium onion finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic – chopped
• 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon tomato purée
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 100ml strong beef stock (such as Bovril) or 1 stock cube dissolved in 100ml water

To finish

• 20g butter
• Basil leaves

Make It!

1. Mix together all the meatball ingredients and form into small balls (Makes 20). Leave to rest in the fridge for an hour or so before use.
2. Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and in batches sear the meatballs well on all sides.
3. To make the sauce heat the olive oil in the saucepan and fry the onion and garlic till softened but not brown.
4. Add the remaining sauce ingredients and simmer for about 10 minutes until the consistency has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon.
5. Stir in the meatballs and cook with the lid on over a low heat for 20 minutes. (If you like, you can do this part in the oven. I put the meatballs and sauce into the Le Creuset Cookware pot that I got for Christmas. Thanks Mum Cay!)
6. Stir in the butter and serve with the fresh basil leaves.
7. Serve with either spaghetti, rice or cheesy polenta.

A Simple Tomato Sauce

I am notoriously terrible with money. Always have been, and (probably) always will be. Back when I was a student, I practically had a hotline to my bank manager who would often tut at me when I asked to extend my overdraft.  Somehow there was always too much month left at the end of my money – and who wants to spending their last tenner on sensible things like food when it could be used to go out dancing ?

In my younger days, I’d regularly go shopping with the loose change that I found down the back of my sofa. Indeed, back in 2003, I spent most of the Summer surviving on a diet of 15p ramen noodles which were pimped up with a bit of soy sauce, the bagels my housemate would bring home from the café she worked in at the time, packs of dried spaghetti and tins of tomatoes. As a result, I still can’t look at a pack of instant noodles without shuddering. However, there is a lot to be said for being thrifty. Mainly because it makes you inventive. And hey, what is cooking without a bit of invention?

I remember my Bubbie telling me about Marcella Hazan’s simple tomato sauce back when I was eighteen and preparing to leave home and move to big bad London. Although she’s not so well known in this country, Marcella Hazan is a bit of a phenomenon in the USA, and is deemed to be largely responsible for introducing the American public with many of the cooking methods that so many of us take for granted nowadays. She’s also been credited with starting the craze for balsamic vinegar – rather a poisoned chalice when you think of all the times you’ve been to an Italian restaurant and found your food smothered in the stuff. (If you’d like to find out more about this very inspiring woman, be sure to check out Steamy Kitchen’s excellent post detailing her meeting with Marcella, and her very suave wine writer husband, Victor).

Hazan’s methods emphasise the benefits of simplicity. All of her recipes are a celebration of how you only need a few store cupboard ingredients to create something satisfying. You don’t have to spend a lot of money, but you should always use the best ingredients that you can afford. And hey – is anyone really going to notice if you make one of her recipes out of some wilted basil you find at the back of your fridge, or some overripe tomatoes you find being sold for 5p in Sainsbury’s  at the end of the day?

This recipe is so easy to make, it feels almost shameful to write it down – it being more a combination of common sense and knowing what works together rather than any mastery of tastes and textures. If you’re using fresh tomatoes, you’ll need to skin them first by popping them into a bowl of very hot water for ten seconds before leaving them to cool off in a bowl of iced water for another five seconds. Then, the skins should easily slip off the flesh. Once you’ve done this, chop your tomatoes finely, making sure to remove any seeds which you feel might get stuck between your teeth at an inopportune moment. (Of course, if you’re using tinned tomatoes you can skip this bit altogether). Next, place your tomatoes in a medium sized saucepan with a whole onion and five tablespoons of butter (I used Lurpak Sea Salt Butter which is officially my new favourite ingredient. No, I’m not being paid to say that, Yes, I am open to all offers), and simmer the whole lot together for about 45 minutes, until the drops of fat from the butter start to float on the surface. Then, you can take the onion out (I like eating it with a knob of butter and some salt and pepper, because I’m strange like that) and stir the sauce through some cooked pasta.

I like to adulterate the sauce slightly with some fresh basil and a teaspoon of oregano, but, to tell you the truth, it’s just perfect as it is. Comforting, delicious and ever so slightly creamy (that’ll be the butter), you can feast like a king, safe in the knowledge that no one need ever know that you only spent a quid on ingredients. If my student self was reading this, I know she’d approve.

Scallops and Grits

OK, so I know what you’re thinking. Jesus CHRIST McDermott, what in the hell is that bowl of crap? And why are you incapable of taking a good picture of a bowl of food? Well, these are both good questions. And the answer simply lies in the fact that I had a bit of a stroke of genius in the kitchen this evening and – before I lost this rare and wonderful spark of culinary creativity by passing out on my laptop during Newsnight – decided to take a photograph of my dinner before I ate it. As you do. And WHOOO BOY was it good. I mean really good. In a stick-to-your-ribs-feels-like-a-big-comforting-hug-at-the-end-of-an-incredibly-long-day good. As in I might very well have the seconds of this for breakfast tomorrow good. You get the picture.

The catalyst for this little bowl of glory came (as it so often does) via one of my favourite food blogs, The Kitchn. I came home after a long day slaving away at the coal face of my chosen profession and their recipe for Shrimp and Grits was the first thing which appeared in my RSS feed. But, alas, whilst I had the grits, I lacked a key ingredient you need to make Shrimp and Grits. Namely, shrimp (aka prawns if you’re one of those British types).

However, I still had a job lot of Isle of Man Queenie Scallops which needed to be used up, so, I decided to improvise, hoping that their light fresh taste could stand up to some good old fashioned Southern style cooking. I fried up some bacon, I caramelised some onions, I basted some scallops in butter, lemon juice and tabasco. And then I cooked myself up a portion of grits.

Grits are the kind of ingredient which baffles people when you first tell them about it. Grits? As in gravel? Are you a goose? Are you now scoffing ballast so you can keep yourself grounded like a ship? Well, no. Grits are actually ground cornmeal, much like polenta. If you ever go to the South of the USA, you’ll usually find them in any good diner cooked up with lots of cheese and cream and smothered in collard greens. Whilst this recipe doesn’t contain any greens, I do recommend that you add cheese to your ‘grits’. LOTS of cheese. Otherwise, they’ll just end up bland and tasteless and you’ll have wasted a lot of time and energy on creating a pot of bright yellow wallpaper paste.

The finished product was amazing – rich, warming, and packed full of flavour without being overwhelming. As quick Monday night suppers go, you could do a lot worse. Just don’t make this recipe with actual grit. OK?

SCALLOPS WITH GRITS

You will need (all measurements are approximate):

For the grits
150 g polenta meal (don’t get the ready cooked stuff which comes in a brick – it won’t work here)
200 ml boiling water (you want enough to cover the polenta)
1 tablespoon butter
A healthy grating of strong cheddar cheese (use as much as you’d like – they should have a nice cheesy flavour to them)
Salt and Pepper (to taste)

For the scallops
2 large handfuls of scallops
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
A large slug of tabasco
1 lemon, cut in half

For the gravy
2 thick slices of bacon, diced
2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
A large glug of white wine
150ml chicken stock, preferably homemade
Salt, to taste
Thinly sliced spring onions, for garnish (optional)

Make It!

1. For the grits, bring the water to a gentle boil in a heavy sauce pan. Add the polenta meal and reduce the heat to medium low. Whisk occasionally at first, then whisk more frequently as the grits begin to thicken, watching carefully to make sure the bottom of the pot does not scald. Cook until the grits are thick and creamy, about 45 minutes to an hour. Add salt, butter and grated cheddar, adjusting to personal taste. Meanwhile, prepare the scallops and gravy.
2. For the scallops, sprinkle them with the smoked paprika, tabasco sauce and the juice of one half a lemon. Set aside.
3. For the gravy, heat a large fry pan over a medium-high heat. Cook until bacon is brown and almost crispy (but not quite). Remove the bacon from the pan and set aside. Drain all of the bacon grease except for 2 tablespoons, and add a tablespoon of butter to the pan. Lower the heat to medium, add the scallops  (in batches if necessary) and baste with melted butter, flipping once, until they begin to turn brown and caramelise slightly at the edges. Remove the scallops with their cooking liquids. Squeeze with the juice of the remaining lemon half and set aside.
4. Heat another tablespoon of  butter in the same pan over medium to medium-high until melted. Add onions and saute for five minutes until they turn brown and tender. Throw in garlic and cook for another minute. Sprinkle flour over the onions and cook until it is absorbed, for around one more minute. Deglaze the pan with a good slug of white wine and reduce until the mixture is thickened. Add chicken stock and continue cooking for around five minutes or so  until the gravy reaches your desired consistency. Season with r salt, to taste. Return the bacon and scallops with their juices to the pan and reheat scallops. Adjust seasoning as necessary.
5. To serve, spoon the grits into bowls. Pour scallops and gravy on top and garnish with sliced spring onions.
6. To reheat, add a little chicken stock to the grits and/or gravy and warm over medium-low heat.

Chinese Broccoli Beef

Hello January, Hello good intentions.I spent most of December in a booze-and-paté induced haze, where it was perfectly normal to me to brush my teeth with Port, eat Pork Pies as a bedtime snack and sit around in my pyjamas watching the Darts for days on end.  Needless to say, my return to work on Tuesday was not a pleasant experience. How my employer expects me to work without indulging in daily afternoon naps is beyond me. And let’s not mention my frustration at the fact that apparently it’s not the ‘done thing’ to sit around your office in your dressing gown and slippers.

With the start of a New Year comes the formation of numerous goals and resolutions. Like most people, I do make a few few every year and inevitably break them within the space of a week. For example, last January, I attempted to quit drinking for a whole month. I lasted four days. Needless to say, I have not attempted anything so grandiose this year. Well, if you don’t view losing a bit of weight as being grandiose that is.

As a rule, I tend not to believe in diets. A bad experience with Slimming World last year and their exhortations that nothing tastes as good as slim feels has made me look upon them as the work of devils, charlatans and people who don’t appreciate the sheer unbridled meaty joy of a good steak. However, seeing as I am a) getting married next year and b) decidedly lardy, something has got to give.  So, I have decided to take up running again, only indulge in booze at the weekends and attempt to eat a healthier diet. For now anyway.

This Chinese Broccoli Beef is my first concession to my new-and-improved healthy lifestyle. It’s simple, it’s tasty, it contains vegetables and – unlike a lot of the recipes I’ve been concocting of late, it doesn’t contain massive amounts of butter, cheese or powdered sugar. Whilst the ingredients contain cornstarch, this is only for the marinade rather than the sauce which simply enrobes each of the ingredients rather than turning the whole meal into a big lump of overcooked, overly sweet gloop. The end result leaves you with crisp broccoli, tender beef, and…I’ll stop now as I’m starting to sound like Greg from Masterchef. I’m sure you all get the picture.

Salt, Sweet, Meat and one of your five a day. Who could ask for more? The leftovers of this also make a cracking lunch too, and brought a scant smile to my face when I opened it up and took little nibbles of it whilst awaiting the clock to strike 12.30 yesterday. With meals like this on my plate, perhaps I could get used to this healthy eating lark after all. Although I wouldn’t hold your breath.

CHINESE BROCCOLI BEEF (Makes two good sized portions)
Adapted from New Asian Cuisine

You Will Need:

• 460g  of good quality beef, sliced into thin strips

For the marinade

• 1½ tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp Chinese rice wine (or dry sherry)
• ½ tsp vegetable oil

For the Stir-fry Sauce

• 3 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 tsp Chinese rice wine (or dry sherry)
• 2 tsp black vinegar (although you can substitute this for a good quality balsamic vinegar at a push)

For the Broccoli

• 1 large stem of broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• A handful of sesame seeds for garnish (this is optional – I put some on mine because I had some lying around in my cupboards)

Make It!

1. Marinate the beef in soy sauce, cornstarch, Chinese rice wine and the ½ teaspoon of oil for 10 minutes.
2. In a small bowl, mix together all of the stir-fry sauce ingredients.
3. Add 1 inch (2.5 cm) of water and salt to a wok or large frying pan, and bring to the boil. You want just enough to cover the broccoli. Add the broccoli and cover to steam for 3 minutes. The broccoli should be bright green, crisp tender and you should be able to pierce the stem with a fork. Drain.
4. Discard the water in the pan and dry the pan well. Heat the pan over high heat and when hot, add the 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and swirl it around until it fully coats the sides. Add the garlic and fry for 15 to 30 seconds, until fragrant. Add the steak strips, keeping them in one layer and fry 30 seconds. Flip the strips and fry the other side.
5. Pour in the stir-fry sauce and stir to combine. Simmer until the sauce is nice and thick – you want it to coat a back of a spoon. Add the cooked broccoli back into the pan and toss to coat well.
6. Serve with steamed white rice, and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.

Oriental-style Steamed Salmon

Having a bar in your office can be a dangerous thing. As time has gone on, I’ve learned not to walk through it when I’m in a hurry to get somewhere, as I inevitably get pulled into the kind of drunken debauchery that only ever appears when you have £1.50 pints of Grolsch at your disposal. But sometimes – just sometimes – I forget. Like tonight for example. I did have the best of intentions when I left my desk to head into town to buy Christmas cards and wrapping paper, really I did. But my new Doc Martens were pinching my heels, it had been a long day and, well, the call of warmth, friends, laughter and cheap booze was strong.

Nights like this are always dangerous. After a few drinks, I have a horrible habit of putting all of my healthy-eating-everything-in-moderation tendencies to one side and indulging in all of the kinds of deliciously fatty foods which will inevitably lead me to be hospitalised with gout by the time I’m 40.  I remember on one memorable occasion coming home from the pub and eating a load of paté and a loaf of bread with my bare hands in the moonlight in my pyjamas. Which makes me sound a bit sad – and a bit mental – when written down, but take my word for it, it was bliss.

Post pub food is an art form. OK, you can just settle for Alphabetti Spaghetti on Toast, but, if you’ve still managed to have your wits about you after a few pints of the hard stuff, you can whip up something relatively delicious without burning your house down. Like, for example, this Oriental-style Steamed Salmon.

As a rule, I hate the term ‘Oriental style’. I’d prefer to use the term ‘Chinese-esque’ but I doubt that would be particularly SEO friendly. But, this is definitely filled with many of the delicious ingredients which are so ubiquitous in Chinese cooking. All you need to do is chop them, pop them over some salmon, wrap the whole lot in a little foil blanket and pop it into a steamer. Add rice, a handful of sesame seeds and some steamed vegetables and hey presto. Fifteen minutes later,  you have dinner. OK, so it’s no Chip Naan, or Paté in the moonlight, but – after two pints of Grolsch and a walk back from Bootle New Strand station with a worryingly full bladder, it hit the spot. And it was certainly tastier than a Sainsbury’s microwave meal.

ORIENTAL-STYLE STEAMED SALMON

You will need:

1 medium sized salmon fillet

a small knob of fresh root ginger , peeled and chopped

1 plump garlic clove , chopped

1 small red chilli , seeded and finely chopped

grated zest and juice of 1 lime

2 tbsp soy sauce

A handful of sesame seeds for garnish

 

Make It!

1. Pop the salmon onto a large square of foil and scatter the ginger, garlic, chilli and lime zest over it. Drizzle the lime juice and soy sauce over the fish, and loosely seal the foil to make a package, making sure you leave space at the top for the steam to circulate as the salmon cooks.
2. Steam for 15 minutes. (If you haven’t got a steamer, put the parcel on a heatproof plate over a pan of gently simmering water, cover with a lid and steam.)
3. Serve your salmon with steamed vegetables, rice and the sesame seeds scattered over the top.