Man Cooking

 

From my upcoming book "Man Cooking."  (Maybe Caveman Cooking).   All I need is an agent, a publisher, and more time in the kitchen...  All my recipes assume you know NOTHING about cooking, but you do have to have a sense of humor and a few basics on hand, like a frying pan, and things to measure with, and the occasional power tool or blowtorch.  Each recipe stands on its own, so you'll rarely need to flip back and forth hunting for notes on different pages.  Note that most of the advice is based on lessons I've learned after doing stupid things in the past, so please, learn from my mistakes.  I also have “Forever Notes” here and there… advice that applies not only to this recipe, but that you can use forever.  Some of them involve actual pain & suffering, so be sure to check them out.

The goal here is a useful blend of ease of cooking, great taste, impressing your guests, and ease of cooking.  I like using the microwave oven and serving from the same bowl food was cooked in wherever possible.  I try to limit the number of pots & pans you have to clean later.   Where it’s appropriate to use an oven, we use an oven.  A skillet, a skillet.   A can of something, a can of something.  Something you can buy at the store way more easily than making it yourself from scratch… you get the drift.  Ease of cooking.

DO NOT be intimidated by the recipe titles.  Some of them are intentionally snotty-sounding so that you can impress whoever you’re cooking for.  But don’t worry, the recipes are all easy to make, and YOU CAN do them.

Pet Peeve Alert:  In my experience, other recipe books lie on the low side on how much time a recipe takes to put together, I can never seem to do it as quickly as they say.  Maybe they have help.  Who knows.  I’ll give you timings that are accurate from my kitchen, based on cooking a meal by yourself…because I keep track.  It’s the engineer in me, I guess…

When your wife / girlfriend / family’s head (s) is (are) finished exploding that you were actually able to make these meals by yourself, you can score massively extra brownie points by cleaning up.  However, subtract points if after dinner while your wife / girlfriend is cleaning up you flop in a chair and yell “Honey, that beer’s not going to get itself!”

Attention P.C. whiners:  The title of the book is Man Cooking.  Yes, I understand that many men are great chefs.  Yes, I understand that many women are great chefs.  Take a sedative if you must.


Blog Readers… As I add recipes here, try them out and let me know how they work for you.  I’m always willing to tweak, as long as you define tweaking as hitting something with a mallet.

If you want to send me your favorite recipes, great!  I’ll be happy to take them, test them, change them, and claim them as my own.  I’ll probably remember to credit you in the acknowledgements, but maybe not.  Send recipes at your own risk.  But hey, send them!


Steak with Mushroom & Ruby Port Reduction, Saffron Basmati Rice, Fresh Green Beans & Baby Carrots.

 I came up with this recipe because we had a bottle of Ruby Port in the cupboard for who knows how long and I was tired of looking at it and moving it around all the time to see what was behind it and wanted to get rid of it.  Or at least start to get rid of it.  It had dust on it, that’s how old it was.  A lot of dust.  Still worked, though…

If your kids hate mushrooms, they'll hate this gravy.  But if you can convince them to give you the mushrooms, you'll both be really happy.

All good gravy starts with the burnt crud bits at the bottom of the pan.  Let's assume you're making steaks, though I suppose this gravy would work well with other meats too.  Oh, it also tastes good on rice.

This recipe isn’t about slapping a burger on the grill, it will take a little time… around an hour and a half total to get everything together and the cooking time.  (If you’re marinating the steaks, start the marinade the night before or the morning of.)  But the results are oh so worth it!  You’re on your own for cleanup.

 Tools & Ingredients Get all this stuff together and make sure you have everything you need  before you start cooking, then you don't have to run to the store midway or look like an idiot running to the neighbor (unless you’re looking for an excuse to introduce yourself to the neighbor, but that’s a different story…).

Tools

Pan for the meat.  A big heavy iron skillet works great for steaks.  (Forever Note about iron skillets… never NEVER use soap in them.  Soap cleans off the great solid black layer that builds up on the bottom over the course of cooking many steaks.  You want that layer, it makes the pan almost non-stick.  Almost…)

Wooden Spoon.  Do I really need to describe what a wooden spoon is?  Naw, didn’t think so…

Aluminum foil.  For covering the steaks while they stay warm in the oven.

Big glass mixing bowl.  For cooking the rice.

Smaller glass container, bonus points if you can serve from it.  For cooking the green beans & carrots.


Ingredients



Prepare the ingredients in this order… that way everything is done at the same time. You know you’ve arrived when everything for the meal is done at just the right time, that is, the end.  Do the “prep work” (cutting the things you’re going to cook) first.  For this recipe, the only prep work you really need to do is tenderizing the meat and chopping the onions.

Meat.  I like really tender steaks, so I almost always tenderize them.  If you’ve thought ahead, you can marinate the meat in the refrigerator in a store-bought marinade (NO, it’s not cheating) for some hours.  I often exceed the recommended time on the marinade jar by many hours, and they still come out fine. Also, go ahead and check out the “Tenderizing” section for a little background on why marinades work to tenderize.  In this recipe, the gravy you make will be flavorful enough to stand up to almost any marinade, so don’t sweat it.  If you’re out of time you can tenderize the meat by laying it on a cutting board, covering it with plastic wrap, and bashing it with a big heavy iron skillet (see above).  Bash until the steak starts to come apart a little, but don’t bash it to smithereens.  Let the steak come to room temperature before cooking.

Sliced mushrooms.  Buy two packages of fresh sliced white mushrooms at the supermarket.  They’re sold in packages about as big as your hand.  They’re the same price as unsliced, and they’re always clean.  No need to get fancy this or that mushrooms, just the regular el-cheapo sliced white mushrooms in the produce section are fine.  Oh, and again, these are *fresh* mushrooms, not the disgusting canned mushrooms.

A white onion.  Big or small, doesn’t matter.  With a nice sharp knife (if you use a dull knife you’ll get onion juice in your eye and you will cry like a toddler), under running water if you can, chop the top & bottom off the onion, remove the brown skin and first layer of white, then chop the onion into pieces about half as big as the mushrooms.  (Forever Note:  More often than not, people like bigger, identifiable, chunks of food, so keep them on the larger side… definitely do not dice into tiny specks of onion.)

Green Beans.  Buy the fresh ones with the stems still attached on the one side.  Knock any huge leaves or big extra stems off, but leave the stems attached to the bean, attached.  (Forever Note:  If you were thinking of using canned green beans now or at any time in the future for the rest of your life, put that thought straight out of your mind.).  To make the fresh beans really snap, put them in the smaller bowl now and cover them with ice water.  Remember, leave the stems on.

Baby Carrots.  These come peeled, in a bag.  How much easier can it get?

Basmati Rice.  If you buy it at the warehouse club in the big sack with handles, it’s pretty cheap.

Saffron.  A great spice, wicked expensive but adds a little flavor and a cool yellow / orange color to the rice.

Seasoning for the meat.  Salt (grab a big pinch of it) and pepper (if you have a pepper grinder, cool… if not use what’s in the shaker) work fine.  Keeping it simple is usually better.  Pat the salt/pepper into the meat.

Oil.  Even though I hate olives, cooking with Olive Oil is actually OK.  It adds a taste, but it’s not a strong olivey taste.  You can also use another vegetable oil.

Butter.  A generous dollop out of the tub or an inch or so off the stick.

Smart Balance. More healthy for you than butter, and great taste, especially in the green beans.

Vegetable or beef stock.  Buy this in the supermarket… the fancy stock even comes in a box with a resealable flip cap.  Buy a couple cans or boxes at a time because they last forever and you can always use them later.

Ruby Port wine.  Fill a reasonably big wine glass about ¾ of the way with the Port.  Sip a little to ensure quality.

Corn starch.  Unless you’re a crazed cook on an insane thickening mission, a little of this goes a long way.  (Note to self, the two containers of corn starch we already own will last until our grandchildren need them, no need to buy more).


Start Cooking!

Start the rice cooking first.  It takes a while to cook, and will just sit there happily in its bowl for a long time once it’s done.  Rice is very forgiving.  We always make too much rice, and then we have it for leftovers, so don’t sweat it if you don’t eat it all tonight.

Basmati Rice cooks using a handy ratio of 1 to 2… 1 unit of rice to 2 units of water.  We’ll use cups here, but you can use whatever units you want… cups, tins, buckets, dumpsters… whatever.

So, making a double recipe of rice, dump 2 cups of the Basmati Rice in the large glass mixing bowl.  Dump 4 cups of water into the bowl.  Give it a quick stir so all the rice gets wet.  Add a few shakes of salt from the shaker into the water. 

Stir in about 10 strands of the saffron strings.  Like I said, this spice is wicked expensive, but you don’t need much.  Get them wet, but many will still float on top, don’t worry.

Cover the bowl with its own tight lid or with plastic wrap to seal the top.  (Forever Note:  It is important to TIGHTLY seal the top, because the rice doesn’t cook by boiling, it cooks by steaming… and you’ve got to trap the steam in there.  If the steam escapes you end up with dry, horrid rice loaf that looks like it’s having a bad hair day.  Ask me how I know.)  Put in the microwave and set to cook on HIGH for 5 minutes then on 50% for 15 minutes.  Hit the “Start” button and ignore the rice until the beeper goes off.

When the rice is finished, just let it sit.

Important Safety Note:  When you do get around to taking the plastic wrap or lid off… keep your fingers AWAY from the edge.  The steam comes out at 4 billion degrees, you can weld with it.  It WILL burn your fingers, and (believe me) it is no fun at all trying to enjoy a dinner with your fingers stuck in a bowl of ice water.


Now  for the steak… drum roll, please!

Heat the dry iron skillet.  Hot.  How hot?  Not so hot that even the dry pan smokes (see “oil well fire”) but hot enough that when you drop a few drops of water in the pan, they vaporize instantly. If your range has indicators, “Medium-High” should work well.  (Forever Note:  Hot Pan / Cold Oil / Food Never Sticks)

Add the oil.  Pour in enough to easily cover about half the bottom, then swirl it around to cover the rest of the pan.  Do this quickly so the oil heats but doesn’t catch fire.

Add a generous dollop of butter to the oil.  This way the butter won’t burn too much and adds nice flavor.

Look the other way and drop the steaks in.  They will sizzle with a bang, and they will cook in a hurry.  (See “Guide to Doneness of Steaks” below).  It’s OK to cook one steak at a time, cook at most two at once.  If you try to cook too much meat at once, it won’t sear as much as juice all over and you’ll end up with boiled meat, which your dog will love.  If the pan is so crowded that the steaks are touching each other, that’s too crowded. 

Once the steaks are cooked a little way up the side, and before the bottom side is cooked to a cinder, flip the steaks.  (Forever Note:  Only flip steaks once, whether that’s in the pan or on the grill.  There’s no need to abuse the poor steak by flip flip flip flip flipping it.  It’s been through enough already.)  Once the steaks are seared, and are a nice color, and done as much as you want, put them on a plate.  When in doubt, undercook... you can always fix later.  Cover the steaks with aluminum foil, and put them in your oven, which is set to “warm” or 170 degrees F.

… Now it’s time to make that gravy

If you’ve done your searing job well, there should be some great blackened, greasy crud on the bottom of the pan.  Excellent!  This is called “flavor” and “color.”  Despite adding oil before, the original oil has probably cooked off and generally disappeared, so add a little more.  Less than the first time, but enough that you’ve got the bottom covered again.  The pan should still be very warm after cooking the steaks, that’s a good thing, but reduce the heat a bit… not all the way to medium, but less than before.  We’re not looking for a scorch here.

Dump in the chopped onion.

Heat & stir with a wooden spoon until the onions start to change color and cook a little, around a minute.

Dump in the sliced mushrooms.

Stir the whole works around and cook until the mushrooms all start to get brown and start to soften.  Taste one… you shouldn’t be able to snap it, but it should be nowhere near flexible.

Looking the other way, dump in the Port.  It will hit with a bang, and foam, and sizzle.

Dump in the stock, enough that everything is floating easily, but you’re not making soup.

Adjust the heat so that the middle of the stock is bubbling but the outer isn’t.

Stir everything gently, and here’s where you take advantage of all those awesome crud bits on the bottom of the pan.  Scrape them with the wooden spoon, clean off the whole bottom of the pan.  Not only do you get an outstanding gravy, but the pan is easier to clean later, too!

Cook the stock for a while, stirring almost the whole time.  You’ll notice the amount of stock gets reduced as it boils… hence the name “reduction.”  You’ll soon be able to tell your friends that you made a “port wine reduction gravy” because you’re almost finished.

Take a 30-second break from stirring and in a small bowl mix a small spoonful of the corn starch with a little cold water.  Use enough water so the mixture is smooth and about the consistency of buttermilk, and you can pour it out of the bowl.

Back to the skillet… when the level has dropped by about half, so that all the ingredients are still floating but not quite as easily as before, stir in the corn starch mixture.

Now things will happen quickly… the gravy will start to thicken.  As it *just starts* to thicken, stop stirring, remove it from the heat and pour it into another bowl.  It will continue to thicken all by itself, so if you cook it too long you will end up with paste, not gravy.


Green Beans … they’re a snap!

You'll have time at the end to cook these, and serve them hot.  Start cooking them right when the gravy is finished.  While the beans are cooking, you can plate the steaks & rice.

Pour out all but a tablespoon of the water/ice mixture from the smaller mixing bowl.  Add a handful of baby carrots.  Add a spoon of Smart Balance or butter (I prefer the taste of Smart Balance, go figure),  Cover tightly with its own lid or plastic wrap, and microwave on high for 3 minutes.  The beans should still be a bright green, and they should still remember what it was like to be crisp.  The carrots should be the same as the beans, except they’re orange.  If you have to put the mixture in for another minute, well, all right… if you must…

Again, watch those fingers when you remove the lid or wrap.

 
Go time.

Fluff up the rice with a fork, breaking up any clumps and distributing the color around.  Keep it as fluffy as you can, even though you’re going to be scooping it out right away.

Serving…  It’s all about the presentation!  Place the steak toward the side of your dinner plate, add the green beans / carrots on a third of the plate and the Basmati rice (use an ice cream scoop) to balance the plate.  Then spoon a very generous amount of the gravy over the middle half the steak and extend the pour down the inside side of the steak and onto the plate.  Take a picture!  Absorb compliments! Enjoy!






Tenderizing Meat
Oh, the marinades I’ve tried.  Oh, the hoops through which I’ve jumped. Oh the battles over marinades that rage far and rage near.  Oh the spices, the this and the that.  The various tenderizing mallets available… should I get a wooden one?  A metal one?  What size?  With texture or without?
Puhleeze.
Here’s the secret on tenderizing meat.  The goal is to make it tender.  You tenderize meat by:

a.        Soaking it in acid    -or-

b.      Beating it senseless   -or sometimes-

c.       Both (a) and (b).

If you’ve got a steak that’s tough as shoe leather, try #3.  I often use the strategies employed in #3 even if the steak isn’t tough as shoe leather.  Again, I love tender steaks, and am always in pursuit of the perfect tender steak.
If you want to try #1, here’s my version of the perfect marinade, and you won’t spend all afternoon hunting down 8 different spices and measuring 1/8 tsp. of this and 1/4 tsp. of that and a pinch of something else… puhleeze:

·         Rinse and place steaks / chicken / pork / whatever… in a shallow glass dish.  Try to get a small enough dish that not a lot of space is wasted on the bottom of the dish, but the pieces of meat don’t touch each other.

·         Grab a bottle of apple cider vinegar and dump it all over the meat.  Go crazy, this is not the time to skimp.

·         Grab a bottle of “seasoned salt” and sprinkle it all over the meat, much less enthusiastically than you vinegared the meat, unless you prefer steaks that taste like sodium bombs.  Once you get the hang of it, you can experiment with other spices, but only once you get the hang of it.

·         Flip each piece of meat over and “seasoned salt” what was the bottom of the meat.

Cover the dish with plastic wrap and let it sit in the refrigerator for as long as you have.   A minimum of an hour is best, but the longer it sits, the more tender the meat will become.  Flip the meat now and then.
About a half hour before it’s time to cook the meat, remove it from the refrigerator to let it come to room temperature.
When it’s chow time, you might not need a knife!

Guides

Guide to Doneness of Steaks  Take your hand and hold it palm up like you’re going to carry a tray.  Stretch.  Push on the pad between your thumb and wrist to see what a rare steak should feel like.  The outside of your hand under your baby finger is a medium steak and the center of your palm is a well done steak.  Compare these parts of your hand to your steak as it cooks and you’ll cook a perfect steak every time.

Guide to Recovering from Mistakes
Gravy too thick:  If you discover your gravy is too thick and has turned to paste either in the pan or the bowl, you might be able to rescue the mess and reconstitute it into gravy by putting it back in the pan and adding more stock and stirring some more.  But it’s better to catch it early.

Steaks too rare:  Not a problem… you’ve already got the nice color on the outside, all you have to do is cook the middle.  So heat the oven to 500 degrees F, put the steak on aluminum foil on a baking sheet, cover with aluminum foil, and bake for 2 minutes at a time until the steak works for you.

Steaks too well done:  Feed to dog.  Not exactly a recovery, but you will make the dog’s day.