Steak Tartare

My second "real job" (not including baby-sitting or cleaning my neighbor's house, but after being a "sandwich artist" at the local Subway) was busing tables at the Hotel Sofitel in Bloomington. I filled in at two of the three restaurants, and piled plates high on my tray and occasionally dropped them all. I learned about all kinds of french food while working there, including bouillabaise and coq au vin. I also learned about steak tartare, which I assumed was extremely fancy because it was one of the priciest items on the menu. I was fascinated by how it was served - all the ingredients looked so pretty, but also so strange to think of eating raw meat with raw egg yolk.

I have eaten raw beef before - sliced thinly and dipped in butter, but up until last weekend had not tried, or even thought much about steak tartare. But then I had some, and it was really good, and now I can't wait to try a bunch of different raw beef dishes from different cuisine traditions. Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions includes several, and she also writes a bunch in the margins about the possible health benefits of raw versus cooked meat.

Anyhow - it's a fun way to eat something familiar and have it taste totally different. Tartare is almost pate like, but more fresh and less creamy. I used Sally Fallon's recipe (which I am writing below, though I didn't have everything so mine was modified a bit). The big thing with raw meat is that it needs to be frozen for at least 14 days so that you can safely eat it. Any bacteria will be killed in that amount of time. So - if you buy some fresh meat, make sure it is grass fed and finished and from a farm you know, and freeze it for 2 weeks before you eat it! I used some of the venison burger I helped grind last fall, but you could also use nicer cuts of meat. Hilltop Family Farms at the Midtown Farmer's Market (starts tomorrow!) sells a "Gourmet burger" that uses the whole animal for the burger, not just left over bits - it would be a good tartare option. I read something that said the flavor of raw beef in tartare is superior when you mince the meat by hand (use a sharp knife on slightly still frozen meat) as opposed to grind/food process, so that might be worth an experiment!

Steak Tartare
1 pound ground sirloin or filet, frozen 14 days and thawed, ground or minced
1 medium onion, finely minced
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped (I used fresh chives from the garden instead)
3 tablespoons Dijon-type mustard
2 egg yolks
sea salt, pepper and cayenne pepper (to taste)
1 cup small capers, drained, rinsed and dried (I didn't have those)

If you want to go the fancy Hotel Sofitel way, you can serve everything as is, without being mixed yet but in divided portions (I'd just go with extra egg yolks in that case - it will only make it more creamy). Otherwise, mix everything together and divide to serve. This stuff is on the rich side, so a pound of meat will likely yield 4 servings.

I ate mine with hard boiled eggs and sauerkraut, but it would be good with salad greens, almond crackers, fried taro (the Sofitel served it with a big side of pommes frites), or pretty much anything!

Chou Farci (Cabbage Cake)

The Smitten Kitchen had a lovely post about stuffed cabbage recently - and it inspired me to do a bit more research into some of them. I now have a long list of stuffed cabbage items to make - including Sarma, an eastern European roll that is made using fermented cabbage leaves. Sauerkraut as a whole cabbage?! I have never heard of this, but have hopes to try fermenting some cabbage heads this summer.

What I did settle on immediately (though all the local cabbage is finally depleted at the co-op, so it is California stuff from here until July) is Chou Farci, a French cabbage roll that is actually more like a cabbage cake. Or maybe sausage pie. It is beautiful, and uses savoy cabbage, which I have never had the pleasure of meeting in any intimate terms until now.

The ingredients are simple, so you want a solid, good tasting sausage of any variety. I used my homemade Bangers, but you could use anything that you like - just remove the meat from the casing. The Seward seems to be making some pretty amazing sausages lately, so that might be worth a try. I modified the original recipe to be in American measuring terms, but didn't change it other than to add just a bit more meat. This was SO stunning to serve on a plate - I wished I had company to eat it with!

Chou Farci (serves 4)

 Blanched savoy leaves

1 large savoy cabbage
1 1/4 lb. sausage (you could easily do more or less here)
1/2 t fennel seed
2 T butter or ghee
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Set a LARGE pot of salted water on high heat to boil and preheat the oven to 350.
2. Remove 7 outer leaves from the cabbage - these should be the largest, most handsome ones of the bunch. Discard any outer leaves that are damaged or wilted. Once the water is boiling, submerge all 7 leaves in it for a 2 minute blanch. Pull leaves out with a slotted spoon or tongs, and lay on a surface flat to dry.
3. Cut the remaining cabbage head/core into quarters. Put them in the boiling water for 5 minutes. Drain, rinse with cold water, and drain again. Squeeze out excess water, then remove the tough core part from each quarter. Chop what is left, or just pull the leaves apart. Toss them in a bowl with olive oil, fennel, and salt and pepper.
4. Using 1 T of butter or ghee, cover the surface of a rounded oven-proof pot about 8" wide and 3" tall (or something slightly larger in diameter and shorter - you just want the largest cabbage leaf to fit in the bottom with overlap up the sides). Lay the largest, prettiest cabbage leaf in the bottom so that the edges curve up the sides. Then lay the remaining 6 leaves, stem side down, overlapping one another around the dish. (I forgot to take a photo of this step, but there is a nice one in the original recipe.)
5. Place 1/3 of the cabbage filling at the bottom of the pan on top of the cabbage leaves. Top with half the sausage. Repeat so that you end with the cabbage filling on top, and then fold the leaves over so that they create a "tidy parcel." Dot with last Tablespoon of butter/ghee. Bake in the 350 degree oven for one hour.

Before going in the oven

After the oven!

6. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes to set. Over the sink (due to hot juices), invert the Chou Farci onto a plate and behold the beauty of the savoy cabbage leaf! Serve with cauliflower potatoes for the ultimate comfort meal.

5 Ingredient French Onion Soup (paleo)

The local onions have been very nice at the co-op lately - most notably that they are very LARGE! One of my staples of late is French Onion soup. I posted a GF version about two years ago (my first FO soup ever) and I have since simplified things down to this very basic, but delicious recipe.  I do think that part of why this soup tastes so good is due to the venison Bone Broth. I have not done a post about bone broth, but fellow Minneapolitan blogger at Sustainable Paleo has, and really, bone broth tastes about 10 times better than anything you can buy (and is really good for you and your bod). So, I cannot vouch for this soup if you are having it with store bought broth, but with bone broth, it is super good and very easy and you don't need any other herbs/spicing.

5 Ingredient French Onion Soup (serves 4)
4 T. butter or ghee
3 large onions
2-3 pints Venison/Beef Bone Broth
3/4 c. dry wine (either white or red seems to work fine - but dryer is better)
celtic sea salt (in my experience this salt makes soup more flavorful than any other)

1. Slice onions as thinly as you feel motivated to go for - the thinner the better to carmelize and be silky in your soup.
2. In a heavy pot, turn heat on medium heat and melt the butter. Add onions. Stir every so often and keep your eye on the onions. This is the carmelizing stage, and it takes a bit of time. You want the onions to turn nice and brown, so keep plodding along until they get there.
3. Pour in wine and stir/scrape the bottom of the pan to deglaze any buttery-onion bits that might have stuck there. Add broth (2 pints will be a thicker soup, 3 will be more broth-y! Both are good). Bring to a boil and let simmer for a few-10 minutes.
4. Salt to taste - it generally takes more than I think - a Tablespoon or two. Serve!
(Sometimes, depending on the wine, I do want a little acid in there, in which case it becomes 6 ingredients and I add a splash of cider vinegar...)

Paleo Crackers and Escargots

I had a lovely dinner last night that included oyster stew (post forthcoming), herring roe, crackers, and escargots. I had not made any of these things before (or eaten roe, except one time at my uncle's sprinkled on a bit of deviled egg.) The herring roe was from lake superior, and was $10, and was really fishy and lovely and pink! It felt like such a treat (though really the whole meal did).

Some time recently I became curious about making escargots. Do you buy live snails I wondered? I remembered the escargots from the french restaurant I used to work at, and how they were served in a bubbling garlic, parsely butter that smelled amazing. Upon looking it up, I learned that you actually buy snails in cans (though you can cook them in their shell too - this is just the way most snails are sold). I also learned that all snails with shells are edible - just not the slug like things without a shell. So if you live somewhere where snails are plentiful, you can just go harvest your own after a rain storm (they will be much smaller and do require a "cleansing" step and some longer pre-cooking).

Anyway, I bought some snails at Coastal Seafoods - they were $5 for 2 dozen, though there was another kind that were $15 for 2 dozen (I have been trying to learn about escargots farming, and it seems that the practices are pretty sustainable just by nature of how snails live). I am not sure the difference between the two prices - I will ask next time. In any case, the cheaper ones were delicious. Having no fancy escargots dish, I made them in a muffin tin. I will totally make them again because they tasted so good.

Snails in an escargots dish - not muffin tin

Escargots
2 dozen snails
6 T butter
1 T minced onion
(garlic is de rigueur, but I skipped it)
1 T minced parsley
1 t lemon rind
1 t sea salt
fresh pepper

1. Mix everything but the snails together to form a buttery-paste. I used a large wooden spoon to spread the butter and get the herbs mixed in evenly.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. Put 4 snails in each muffin cup, then divide the butter mix evenly between the 6 cups to top the snails. You want the snails to sort of marinate under the butter as it melts.
4. Put in oven until butter is bubbling - about 5 minutes.
5. Serve with rosemary almond crackers out of the tin, or you can pile them all in a bowl for a slightly more aesthetic experience. : )

*I was sad to leave any of the buttery goodness at the bottom of each muffin cup (usually french bread would dip this up), so I moved all remaining butter to 4 muffin cups and the next morning I cracked an egg into each one. I topped each egg with a splash of cream, and then baked them at 350 degrees until the yolk set. I didn't time them (and mine got a bit overdone) - but remove them when just set and still a little jiggly. Eat with any remaining crackers or a bit of ham or bacon. Yum!

Almond Rosemary Crackers (from Elena's Pantry)
1 3/4 c almond flour
1/2 t sea salt
2 T fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 T olive oil
1 egg

1. Mix flour, salt and rosemary together - make sure almond flour is nut clumped up. (My rosemary is miraculously still doing just fine in its garden bed outside - it is a little green tree surrounded by snow!)
2. Whisk oil and egg in a small bowl, then add to almond flour mix and stir until combined. The mixture will be wet and quite thick.
3. Roll the dough into a ball and press it between two sheets of parchment paper (this is very useful - I am not sure you can get the crackers thin enough without the parchment without tearing things up). Roll to about 1/8" thick.
4. Remove top parchment layer and cut crackers with a pizza roller or knife into desired size. Transfer the bottom piece of parchment (with cracker dough) to a baking sheet, and bake 12-15 minutes at 350. Let cool for about 30 minutes before serving.
*These are relatively unsalty. You may want to up the salt a bit, or sprinkle salt on before baking. I splurged and got a bit of Herring Roe to eat on these along with the snails - so they were perfect with the low salt crackers.

Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon (gone paleo)

Have you seen the most delightful auto-tunes ever? It is of Julia Child, and I watch it regularly because it makes me feel very happy.

I recently happened across a Julia Child cookbook at the library that listed all of the recipes from her PBS series. Rather than be organized by meal or category, the whole cookbook is organized by show. Boeuf Bourguignon was show # 96, and I made it last week. It is actually my first Julia Child recipe ever, and I found it easy, although lengthy, and absolutely delicious. This is a recipe you need to be around for - so make it on a day when you want to feel toasty with the oven on and putzy around the house. (Incidentally,  I thought about making Coq Au Vin, and after reading that recipe, realized it is basically the SAME as Boeuf Bourguignon, but with chicken.) I actually didn't totally know what either of these recipes were, even though I spent three years working at a French restaurant where we served both (my past vegetarianism kept me from actually eating them). But essentially, Boeuf Bourguignon combines slow cooked beef (or venison in my case), lots of red wine, onions, broth and mushrooms. It sounds so simple and not too exquisite, but how these simple things come together = totally delicious.

Part 1: Beef
6 oz bacon (not smoked)
olive oil
3 lbs. lean stewing beef cut into 2-3" chunks
3 c. "full bodied, young red wine such as Macon, Burgandy, or Mountain Red" (I used what I had, which was not any of those and it still was good!)
2 c. beef broth
1 T tomato paste
2-3 cloves mashed garlic
1/2 t thyme
1 bay leaf
salt

1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Cut the bacon into sticks 1 x 1/4". Brown the sticks in a large skillet with a little oil and render out the fat. When browned, remove the bacon.
3. Set heat moderately high under skillet with oil/fat. When almost smoking, brown the beef a few pieces at a time - turning frequently to brown all sides. Place the beef, as it is browned, in a casserole or baking dish.
4. Pour browning fat out of skillet (I had used up all mine), pour in the red wine, and scrape up all the flavorful brown bits, then pour wine into casserole. Add the bacon and enough beef broth to almost cover the meat; stir in the rest of the ingredients and bring casserole to a simmer on top of the stove. Cover the casserole and set it in the lower third of the oven. Regulate heat (I had to turn mine down to 275) so the liquid simmers slowly for 2 1/2 to 3 hours or longer, until beef is tender when pierced with a fork.

Part 2: Onion and Mushrooms
1 lb. fresh mushrooms
1/2 T olive oil
1 1/2 T butter
1/4 t salt
18-24 small white onions 1" in diameter (I just used two large onions, chopped)
1 T butter
1/2 t salt
water

1. Trim mushroom stems. Cut the caps into quarters and the stems on the bias. Heat oil and butter in a skillet until butter foam begins to subside, add the mushrooms and toss over high heat for 3-4 minutes to brown the mushrooms very lightly. Remove to a side dish until needed, then toss with the salt.
2. Because I used chopped onions instead of whole ones I skipped some steps. She has you boil and peel the onions. For chopped onions: place chopped onions in a heavy saucepan; add the butter and salt and enough water to come halfway up the onions. Cover and simmer very slowly for 20-30 minutes, or until onions are tender. Set aside, saving cooking liquid.

Part 3: Sauce
3 T Butter
1 Onion, diced and boiled in water/butter*

*This onion is functioning as the thickener here instead of flour.
1. Boil a diced onion in a little bit of water and the butter so that the onion becomes translucent and the water boils off. It will take about 15 minutes. Blend it in the food processor until smooth.
2. When the beef is done, set the cover "askew" and drain the cooking liquid in a saucepan. You should have about 2 1/2 cups (I did not- way less for me!); if liquid has boiled down, add more beef broth. Skim off any fat and bring liquid to a simmer. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper as necessary. Add pureed onion and butter to broth, as well as onion water from earlier. This is the sauce!
3. Add onions and mushrooms to the beef, pour on the sauce, cover and simmer slowly for 5 minutes to blend flavors. The dish is now done! (If you are not serving immediately, let cool and refrigerate to reheat later.)
4. Serve the boeuf bourguignon in its casserole, or, if you wish, arrange on a hot platter surrounded by roasted cauliflower, on top of mashed cauliflower, or decorated with parsely.