Guinness Beef Stew

I adapted this recipe from a few sources (Miliken and Feniger's recipe at FoodNetwork.com, Kathy Maister's recipe at Startcooking.com) and love it enough that I've revived my food blog to bring it to you!

I really wanted a single-pot dish with a long, slow cooking process, so my neglected Dutch oven can get its much-needed autumn workout. Accordingly, I went for beef chuck (a tasty, not too fatty option that can stand up to long cooking), and decided to buy a full roast and trim it down into stew pieces myself. If you go that route, be prepared to buy at least a three-pound roast, since you'll lose some fat or connective tissue when you trim. Pre-packaged stew meat would be absolutely fine.

Serve this stew with a nice hearty bread--a soda bread would be great! (The bread in the photo is actually a sweet sourdough bread with a great chewy texture.) If you prefer to serve with mashed or cooked potatoes, feel free to leave the potatoes out of the stew itself.

Recipe after the jump!

Saté-Spiced Roast Chicken

Honestly, I'm slightly embarrassed to post this one. I hadn't planned to--hence no photos, since I don't have my camera available--but this is the second or third time that I've posted a menu of what I'm cooking in a Facebook status update and gotten some reminder that I haven't blogged about it yet. (One of the main barriers to me posting more frequently is that I really want these posts to be illustrated, and that requires that I plan ahead a bit more than I sometimes do. It's no coincidence that I post more often around the holidays, when I have planned dishes days or weeks in advance!)


The other reason I'm slightly embarrassed to post this one is that it is ridiculously simple. Simple can be really good, though, and it certainly is more manageable on a weeknight. I can easily see adding this recipe to the rotation. It's an easy, cheap(ish) cut of meat to buy, and you do practically nothing except sprinkle seasoning on the meat and throw it in the oven for 30 minutes. Keeping the skin and bones on the meat adds flavor and juiciness to the final product, plus you get a delicious crispy skin which you can gobble down guiltily.

A word about the saté [sah-TAY] seasoning. This is usually used on chicken satay, those marinated chicken pieces skewered, grilled, and served with spicy peanut sauce as an appetizer at innumerable restaurants and parties (see right), so it's more familiar than you think. The seasoning blend is Indonesian in origin, and the version I use came from Penzeys, and is made up of salt, brown sugar, garlic, white onion, coriander, purple shallots, ginger, turmeric, sweet paprika, Ancho pepper, galangal, cayenne red pepper, and lemongrass. I added a bit more ground coriander, because, well, I like coriander. How traditional this blend is I don't know, but it is yummy. The chicken tastes even more chickeny--nutty, spicy, with a little bit of heat, even some slightly sweet herbal notes. (Image courtesy Jaakko from Wikimedia Commons, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike License 3.0.)


So, now the recipe, which is based on one from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Here is a similar recipe from the Cook's Illustrated website.


Ingredients

• 2 split chicken breasts, skin-on, bone in
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and (slightly) cooled
• 3-6 tablespoons saté seasoning
• kosher salt
• black pepper, freshly ground 

Hardware

• oven safe dish at least 10" wide 

(ATK/Cook's Illustrated recommends cooking the chicken on a broiler rack over a broiler pan covered in aluminum foil. I see their point--fat drips away from the meat, better heat circulation, etc.--but I was cooking just one split chicken breast, and that seemed like a lot of work for half a chicken breast. I used a 9" Pyrex pie dish, the chicken came out really well. Whatever you choose to use, make sure that the chicken you are cooking has plenty of room around it so it cooks evenly and the skin crisps, and you'll be fine.)


Directions

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 450 degrees. 
2. Sprinkle underside of chicken breasts liberally with salt, pepper, and saté seasoning.
3. Loosen the skin covering each 1/2 breast with your finger, and pull away from the meat. Season meat liberally with salt, pepper, and saté seasoning. Replace skin and rub in the butter, then sprinkle skin liberally with pepper. 
4. Place split breasts in cooking dish, bone side down and skin side up. Move dish to the oven, and roast until thickest part of breast registers 160 degrees on instant-read thermometer, 25 to 35 minutes.
5. Transfer chicken to cutting board and let rest 5 minutes. Carve and serve immediately.

Serves 2-3.

Wild Sockeye Salmon with Brown Sugar Citrus Glaze

This is the gateway drug for cooking fish. This is the easiest, least scary recipe I have ever come across, and the results are delicious. (As in, use-your-finger-to-scoop-leftover-glaze-from-the-pan delicious. I use no names, to protect the guilty. But these are the same people who ate ALL of my Molasses Spice cookies on New Year's Eve before I could take a picture for the blog--hence the delay in my posting that entry, which is still on tap.)

There are literally three steps, unless you count zesting a lemon, which would make four. All credit to Mr. Alton Brown (or his test kitchen?) for this recipe.

Does it matter whether you use wild sockeye salmon instead of farm-raised Atlantic salmon? On a taste comparison, I can't be sure; I haven't tried this recipe with farm-raised salmon, though I have my suspicions. On a health comparison, the evidence is pretty clear; wild has it all over farm-raised. Wild has a better ratio of omega-3 fatty acids, fewer chemicals/toxins, and less fat than farm-raised. On a visual inspection, it's pretty easy to tell the difference (this blog has a good run-down of the health info, and is the source for the photo at right. The fish on the right is wild, the fish on the left is farm-raised.) Trader Joe's sells frozen skin-on fillets of wild sockeye salmon for $7.99/lb, which is a pretty reasonable price, I think.

Try this recipe. Get hooked (pun intended). You won't regret it.


Ingredients

• 1 side, skin-on, sockeye salmon, 1 1/2 to 2 pounds, pin bones removed
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Position a rack in the oven 3 inches from the broiler. Line a half sheet pan with aluminum foil and place the salmon on the pan.
2. Place the sugar, zest, salt, and pepper into the bowl of a small food processor and process for 1 minute or until well combined. Evenly spread the mixture onto the salmon and allow to sit for 45 minutes, at room temperature.
3. Turn the oven on to the high broiler setting for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, place the salmon into the oven and broil for 6 to 8 minutes or until the thickest part of the fish reaches an internal temperature of 131 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer. Remove the salmon from the oven and allow to rest, uncovered, for 8 to 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Spaghetti with Balsamic Tomatoes

This is something I put together the other day out of (almost) pantry-only ingredients; in any case, the ingredients are ones I tend to keep on hand. (If fresh basil isn't immediately available, then dried might be an option. You'll lose a certain amount of "brightness" in the final product and some eye appeal, but the balsamic vinegar has a fair amount of brightness to begin with.)

Depending on the balsamic vinegar you have, adding brown sugar to the braising tomatoes may not be necessary. The vinegar I use for this recipe is cheap--it comes in a half-gallon jug, really watery and pungent--which is why reducing it to this extent, which thickens it and reduces the harshness, is preferable to trying it straight. There's really no reason to use good-quality balsamic vinegar here, though; it would be a terrible waste.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound spaghetti
• 1 12-oz can of whole tomatoes (those packed in juice are preferable to those in puree)
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced thin
• 2 tbs + 2 tsp olive oil
• 3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1-2 tbs brown sugar (optional)
  
• 2 tbs fresh basil chiffonade
• pinch kosher salt
• pepper to taste

Directions

1. Prepare pasta according to package directions. (I usually cook pasta 1-2 minutes less than the directions indicate to avoid mushy pasta.)
   
2. Drain can of tomatoes in a colander. Remove seeds, stems, and cores from the whole tomatoes where possible. (With very small or young tomatoes, the cores may not be woody and will not need to be removed.)
   
3. Heat 2 tbs olive oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium high heat until shimmering.
   
4. Saute the drained tomatoes in the skillet, breaking them up with a spatula until they are roughly chopped.
5. Add balsamic vinegar to the tomatoes and cook until the vinegar is reduced into the tomatoes. You may add the brown sugar here if you wish, as well as salt, if necessary.
6. Set the tomatoes aside, clean the pan, and add 2 tsp olive oil over medium heat.
7. Saute garlic until golden with a pinch of kosher salt, then add to the tomato mixture
   
8. Toss the pasta with the tomatoes and garlic; add the fresh basil and top with freshly grated parmesan.