Tag: beef
Chinese Beef Stew
Chinese Beef Stew
This Chinese beef stew is an easy 1 pot meal that requires minimal prep work. You can use short ribs, chuck roast, untrimmed brisket, or beef shank meat for your protein. Traditionally, there would also be beef tendon in this stew, but that’s up to you if you’d want that. After 3 hours of cooking, the meat is so tender that barely have to chew it.
Ingredients
- 2 lbs flanken cut beef short ribs cut in between the bones
- 5 cups water
- 1/4 cup shaoxing cooking wine
- 4 dried red chilies
- 8 slices ginger
- 3 green onions roughly chopped
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 star anise
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 cup light soy sauce
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 large carrots cut into 2” pieces
- 3 red potatoes peeled and cut into large cubes
Garnish
- green onions chopped
Instructions
- Place the short ribs in a large pot with the water. Bring to a boil. Simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes, skimming the scum off the surface of the water.
- Add in the shaoxing cooking wine, dried chilies, ginger, green onions, bay leaves, star anise, cinnamon stick, sugar, and black pepper. Cover. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 45 minutes.
- Pour in the soy sauces and the salt. Continue to simmer for 90 minutes.
- Add in the carrots and potatoes. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes until the veggies are cooked through.
Navajo Blood Sausage
Navajo Blood Sausage
Every culture on every continent makes a blood sausage of some sort. They all consist of the animal’s blood(sheep, beef, or pork), a filler(cornmeal, rice, barley, buckwheat, etc), and seasonings; stuffed into either sheep stomach, and beef or pork intestines. They are then boiled until cooked through. The sausage is then eaten out of the casings(both sheep stomach and beef casings being inedible in this instance). Blood sausages can be traced back in the Navajo tribe to the 1600’s when they started farming sheep. They would traditionally use sheeps blood mixed with cornmeal, potato, chilies, and seasonings, stuffed inside a sheep’s stomach.Unless you know a farmer, finding lamb’s blood and stomach will be hard to find. Using beef blood and pork casings is an acceptable substitute. The sausages will be in a ring bologna shape instead of a softball-sized stuffed sheep stomach.
Equipment
- sausage stuffer
Ingredients
- 20 oz beef blood
- 12 oz pork fat cut into tiny cubes
- 2 cups cornmeal
- 1 large potato peeled; cut into small cubes
- 1 medium onion finely chopped
- 1 large jalapeño finely chopped
- 2 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp black pepper
- pork casings
Cranberry Mustard
- 1/4 cup spicy brown mustard
- 1/4 cup cranberries
- 1 tbsp sugar
Instructions
- Bring a small pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the potatoes until cooked through; about 8 minutes. Drain and cool completely.
- In a large bowl, season the blood with salt and pepper.
- Stir in the rest of the ingredients.
- Using your sausage stuffer, pipe the filling into the sausage casings.
- Carefully twist the sausage into rings.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the blood sausages to the water. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer the sausages for an hour.
- Let rest for 15 minutes before serving.
Bollos Pelones
Bollos Pelones
Bollos pelones are a great example of Venezuelan home cooking. The dumplings consists of corn flour dough balls filled with seasoned ground beef. They’re boiled, then covered with a tomato sauce. They remind me if you crossed a tamale and a matzah ball. These meat dumplings can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner as an appetizer or as your main course.
Equipment
- immersion blender
Ingredients
Dough
- 1 1/4 cup warm water
- 1 1/4 cup masa harina
- 2 tbsp butter melted
- 1/2 tsp salt
Filling
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 tsp oregano
- salt and pepper to taste
Sauce
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 medium white onion finely chopped
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 2 roma tomatoes finely chopped
- 1 pinch sugar
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Heat up the olive oil in a sauté pan over medium high heat. Brown the ground beef. Season with oregano, salt and pepper. Set aside.
- Heat up olive oil in a small pot over medium high heat. Sauté the onions and garlic for 5 minutes.
- Addin the tomatoes. Season with salt. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Using an immersion blender, purée the sauce. Set aside.
- Mix together all of the dough ingredients.
- Form into a dozen balls.
- Make a hole in the center of the ball with your thumb. Fill it with 3 tbsp of the filling.
- Close up and re-roll the balls.
- Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Drop in the balls.
- Boil for 10 minutes. The balls are ready when they float to the surface. Drain the balls. Hehe.
