Beef Stew - Keto

There are so many beef stew recipes, at least a few on this blog alone. This NomNomPaleo one is lower carb & keto - no potatoes and limited carrots, and includes a good number of mushrooms. It was delicious, aided by the fact of cooking it on a wood stove amidst snow flurries up north after having hiked some miles. What would not be delicious under such circumstances?! I love something cooking on the woodstove, wafting up the house with good smells, especially after a walk or ski or whatever, requiring no other heat or energy source than what is already happening.

Here is a photo of an all important protective orange hat ("I am not a grouse!") with me underneath it. (The hunters I talked with were empty-handed. The grouse, presumably, were staying put with the snow.) This stew was SO good - lots of umami - the cremini mushrooms were a perfect texture/flavor addition, the turnips were creamy, and the meat melted in my mouth. I had two big bowls, where the broth was nice and shimmery with the fat. It was so satisfying.

This recipe is also easy. I didn't brown the meat, I didn't chop up tomatoes, or use wine. I followed the NomNomPaleo recipe, but she makes hers in an InstaPot. I used some broth in mine to compensate for the longer cooking time and need for more liquid; I also added some apple cider vinegar. With weather like today in Minneapolis (5 or 6 inches of snow!), this stew is all I want. 

*Note part of why I think this was so good is that I did use Michelle Tam's magic mushroom powder (that I also use on chicken). I highly recommend it - it adds an extra boost of mushroomy/umami goodness. 

Ingredients: serves 6-8

• 3 pounds beef chuck roast, boneless short ribs, or beef brisket cut into 1½- to 2-inch cubes
• Kosher salt or Magic Mushroom Powder
• 1 tablespoon ghee, avocado oil, or fat of choice
• 2 medium onions, thinly sliced
• 1 pound cremini mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed, and quartered
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 6 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
• 2 tablespoons tamari
• 1 teaspoon (Red Boat) Fish Sauce (I did a long pour on this tsp!)
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 fresh thyme sprigs
• 1 dried bay leaf
• freshly ground black pepper
• 2 c beef/venison bone broth
• 2 turnips, diced (or daikon radish/sunchokes/any combo)
  
• 2 large carrots, diced
• ¼ cup Italian parsley, roughly chopped for serving
  

1. Toss beef cubes in salt (or magic mushroom powder) and set aside. 

2. Melt ghee/fat in a dutch oven or large pot. Add onions, and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and saute another 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste and garlic, cook for several more minutes.

3. Add to the pot: the salted beef, tamari, fish sauce, apple cider vinegar, thyme, bay leaf, pepper, and bone broth. Bring to a boil, then set the heat to low and let simmer 2-3 hours, until beef is tender. You could also put it in a slow cooker, or move your pot to the wood stove, if you have one. 

4. 30 or so minutes before serving, add diced turnips and carrots to the stew. Continue simmering until they are soft. Taste for salt, and add more (or magic mushroom powder) until delicious. Ladle heaping chunks of meat and veggies into bowls, with just enough broth to sip at the end. Top with chopped parsley. Or sauerkraut. Or eat as is. 

Winter Stew

I was craving a good, hearty stew, and found a package of brisket in my freezer. It was quite a fatty piece of brisket (is that always the case? I'm not sure), which I opted to cook with all the fat intact and keep in the stew. It was my first time using my wood stove as a cook top (other than for heating water or to melt butter or toast seeds) - why have I not done this before?? It was so perfect! I set my dutch oven on top and it simmered away all day as if it were a crock pot.

I followed this recipe for root veggie stew, with barely a tweak. I added rosemary because I have an enormous pot of it next to the counter, which means I put rosemary in just about everything right now. I also served it with sauerkraut, adding it just when I am ready to eat to try and preserve some of the ferment benefits. This stew, particularly, is delicious with the kraut. Maybe it's all the root veggies, or the extra fat, I don't know. But the tangy kraut with the soft veggies and hunks of beef is perfect.

Winter Stew (makes 6-8 servings)
2+ lbs beef stew meat, cut into 1-2″ pieces
2 rutabagas, chopped
4 turnips, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
3 small potatoes, chopped
3 stalks celery, diced
1 large onion, diced
3 tomatoes, diced
Olive Oil or butter
1+ cup red wine
2 cups beef bone broth
sea salt
crushed pepper to taste
sprig of rosemary
*sauerkraut to serve (opt)

1. In a cast iron skillet or pan, heat 2-3 tbs olive oil or butter.  Add the onion, celery and carrots.  Saute until the onions are translucent and the celery has cooked through.  Set Aside.
2. In a heavy bottomed dutch oven, heat 2 tbls olive oil (unless your meat is extra fatty like mine, in which case just use the fat on the beef). Brown the stew meat.
3. Add the onion, celery, carrot mixture and tomatoes to the beef stew meat and saute for an additional 3-5 minutes.
4. Incorporate the beef stock, red wine, turnips and rutabagas.
5. Season with sea salt and crushed pepper. Throw in a rosemary twig or two.
6. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 2-3 hours. (I actually simmered mine for about 5 hours until the beef was really tender.)
7. 20 minutes before serving, add the potatoes and simmer until they are soft.
8. Serve with sauerkraut on top.

Resplendent Rosemary plant!

Roasted Chicken w/ Preserved Lemon and Root Veggies

Parks' "American Gothic"

I recently read the "One Read One Minneapolis" book, A Choice of Weapons, a memoir by Gordon Parks. Do you know Gordon Parks? I didn't. He is most famous for his photography, specifically American Gothic (at right), and he grew up in St. Paul. He grew up in the 30s and it is a really interesting read about race at that time in the Twin Cities (and elsewhere), and about all the crazy ways Parks survived, found ways to use his numerous talents, and create social critiques. His book actually has a forward by Wing Young Huie, the photographer who did the exhibitions of Frogtown, Lake Street, and University Ave. I thought the book was excellent. There is going to be an exhibit of Parks' work at the Mill City Museum, alongside photographs by Minneapolis high school students, in connection with the book. The exhibit opens tomorrow and will be there until spring.

The book has nothing to do with the recipe, but I do love reading while something is roasting in the oven, and I have been reading like a fiend lately. My curriculum seems to be "recent books by African American Authors." Other titles I highly recommend are Buck by MK Asante, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, and Long Division by Kiese Laymon.

I love roasting chickens in this cold weather. It's nice to have the oven on, and it tastes so much more delicious than the rotisserie chickens at the co-op. This chicken was a bit of an experiment. I wanted to use the preserved lemons I made last spring, and I had some random root veggies I wanted to cook in the chicken juices. The preserved lemon on the chicken and veggies was Ah-Mazing - it added such a nice lemony/savory touch, and the drippings/sauce was incredible. The photo here is not mine (I am in denial about the loss of my camera), but is from Martha Stewart's recipe for roast chicken with preserved lemon. She does not pre-make the preserved lemon, but makes them in the brine for the chicken. I'm sure it's good - just more fussy.

Chicken (mine was 3.8 lbs)
1 preserved lemon (or a bit more)
salt
pepper
fresh thyme sprigs
root veggies - I used carrots, turnips, and sweet potatoes
onions
ghee/butter (room temp)
olive oil

I rubbed some salt all over my chicken the night before I was going to cook it - it was my replacement for brining. No need to be sparing, I did a nice Tablespoon or two and rubbed it on all sides, and put on a good few cranks from the pepper grinder too. I then left the chicken uncovered in the fridge overnight (or a couple of hours would be fine, or not at all).

I was making my bird in the morning before work, so I took the chicken out of the fridge first thing to bring it up to room temp. I am not sure why this helps, but many of the good recipes suggest it, so I followed suit. While it was acclimating, I chopped up the root veggies and an onion into coarse, larger pieces. (I cut the carrots lengthwise down the middle and then chopped them into 2" long pieces, and cut the onion into 6ths. The sweet potato cooks fastest, whereas the turnip was the slowest cooker, so cut the turnips smaller than the carrot, and the sweet potato bigger!) Throw the veggies in the bottom of a roasting pan and toss with some olive oil and several sprigs of thyme. I only lightly salted the veggies since they'll get the drippings from the salted bird.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees and prep the chicken. My preserved lemons still had rind and innards intact, so I cut the rinds off (that is the really tasty part), reserving the rinds in one pile and the (somewhat slimy) lemon innards in another. I sliced the rinds so that I could tuck them in the chicken skin. Using my fingers, I separated the skin from the meat of the chicken - it pulls away and becomes like a pocket. Tuck in the sliced lemon rinds here. Next, rub some ghee all over the chicken. I rubbed the lemon innards all over the outside of the chicken too. I stuffed the cavity of the chicken with 1/2 an onion, some big sprigs of thyme, and the rest of the lemon innards. Tie the legs together and set the chicken (breast side up) on top of your veggies. If you have one of those fancy racks that suspends your chicken over the roasting pan and veggies underneath, great.

Tie those legs together; this is breast up!

Stick the roasting pan full of veggies and chicken into the oven. I cooked it for 20 minutes at 425 (the higher heat browns the skin and makes it crispy), and then turned the heat down to 350 and cooked for another 60 minutes or so. Cooking time will vary depending on the size of your chicken, but you want the temp of the thick part of a thigh to come out to at least 160. (I was rushing and accidentally temp checked the drumstick, which was at the right temp, so I took out the chicken. Later I realized that the inner thigh was definitely not done and had to put the whole thing back in the oven - so be sure you check the right spot!!) Once the thigh is hot enough, remove the roasting pan from the oven and let it rest for 20 minutes before you dig in. It will finish cooking all the way through and all the juices will set and it will get really tasty. During the 20 minute rest, I took the opportunity to stir the veggies around in all the juices, and also added some minced preserved lemon. Parsley would be great stirred in there too - though I did not have any.

Finally - SERVE! The meat is delicious, and I loved getting bites of preserved lemon rind in there. The veggies were soft and sweet and also great with the preserved lemon. All in all the preserved lemon was the star of the meal because it made everything else so extra special.

*If you are without preserved lemon, just slice up a regular lemon and stick the slices in the chicken cavity with the thyme (no onion is needed in that case). I'd also rub a little lemon juice on the outer skin too, and squeeze a bit onto the veggies.

Roasted Fennel, Turnip, Leek Salad with Horseradish

Pre-dressed roasted veggies

While at the Seward this weekend I one, bought a half hog (!?), and two, bought some really random veggies with no plan of what to do with them. I was trying to get things grown more locally than not, and the last hangers-on as purely local that are still in stock at the co-op are beets and turnips. There might be a few watermelon radishes left too. (I just came across a really nice roasted radish recipe that looks super delicious for the upcoming radish season!) So I got some of the WI root veggies and a few California sourced veggies too, including fennel and leeks.

I was browsing the magazines at My Charming Companion's parent's house yesterday at Easter dinner, most particularly Bon Appetit (which includes aforementioned roasted radish ideas). So tonight I came home in search of something I could do with these random veggies in my fridge - and thought of Bon Appetit's recipe collection online. There I came across the inspiration for this AMAZING salad (that they pair with trout). Their recipe uses fingerling potatoes and shallots, mine uses turnips and leeks, but is otherwise the same. Turnips, incidentally, have less carbs than beets or carrots, and I think they are delicious when roasted. I forgot about how good they are - sort of sweet and earthy at the same time.

This recipe seems pretty flexible to what you have - I tried the dressing with beets, and that was tasty, and I think carrots would be nice in here too. Play around and adjust as you want - the horseradish-mustard dressing is so nice, and the fennel and leeks are such a springy change! Yum. I ate mine with some venison steak, but I am sure fish would be nice with some of the dressing poured on top.

Fennel, Turnip, Leek Salad with Horseradish

4 medium sized turnips, unpeeled, cut into 1/2-inch wedges

1 medium fennel bulbs, cut lengthwise into 1/2-inch wedges with some core intact 

2 leeks, sliced about 1-inch thick 

4 tablespoons olive oil, divided 

2 teaspoons Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper 

1 tablespoons prepared horseradish 

1 tablespoons red wine vinegar 

1 1/2 teaspoon whole grain mustard 

1/4 cup coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Here they are before they went in the oven

1. Preheat oven to 450°. Toss turnips, fennel, and shallots with 2 tablespoons oil on a large rimmed baking sheet; season with salt and pepper and arrange vegetables cut side down. Roast on low rack of oven until beginning to brown, about 20 minutes. 

2. Toss vegetables on a baking sheet and continue to roast until vegetables are tender 5-8 minutes longer. 

3. Whisk horseradish, vinegar, and mustard in a medium bowl. Gradually whisk in remaining 2 tablespoons oil and season vinaigrette with salt and pepper. 

4. Drizzle vinaigrette over vegetables, add parsley, and toss to combine. I also put a few fennel fronds in there. Serve warm or at room temperature.