The Dinner Files

Look at that beef. Pretty perfect looking, wouldn’t you say? How about if I told you I grilled it while wearing a knee immobilizer?

I have and will happily eat rare beef. Hell, I don’t mind a portion of steak tartare every now and again. But I really prefer a steak at a true à point, that state of medium-rareness where everything is a lovely rosy pink except for that blush of red at the center. For a larger cut, like this cross-rib roast, I’m an ideal eating companion or audience. If I think I can get away with it, I’ll nab the toasty burnt ends, but if all that’s left on the platter is a slice or two of bloody center cuts I’ll dig in with equal glee.

This roast was prepared as I was taught by my Minnesota predecessors. It was coated with a generous amount of salt, black pepper, and where they would use garlic powder I got all California on that roast and used fresh minced garlic. It was put on a hot grill and seared all over before the heat was brought down for it to cook a bit more gently. After it was off the grill and resting (the seriously most important step in cooking meat that way way way too many people pass over), we threw the asparagus on the grill until it was charred on the ends, at which point we took it out of its misery, drizzled it with olive oil and scattered a sort of crazy amount of lemon zest on it.

The extent to which, after surgery and a burial and long plane rides and leaving concourses full of pitying glances in my wake as I made my way through airports in a knee brace, my mouth watered while preparing and eating this dinner made me think of that old belief that beef “feeds the blood.” My blood, I’m afraid, needs a bit of feeding these days.

There are a few dishes that, come summertime, my family very much likes to have me cook up. By “family” I mean family of origin – plus additions – in Minnesota, not just my dashing husband and young son in San Francisco. Turkey tacos are always a hit, as is any grilled meat affair. For the fourth, though, we kept it simple and I made much loved green chile cheeseburgers. The great thing about these burgers is you can cook them well done and they’re still juicy and moist and delicious. How is that possible? From the grated cheese that is inside the burger. It is mixed in, along with chopped roasted green chile. I developed them when I was still at Sunset for a whole hamburger heaven spread. I developed quite a few recipes for that story. These are the only ones I ever make.

Green chile cheeseburgers

Handle the meat as little as possible to keep the final burgers as tender as possible. Cook over truly high heat. Flip only once and, for the love of god, don’t press down on the burgers with a spatula while they’re cooking! What is that? Why would a person press all the juice out of the burger?

Experience tells that this recipes easily halves or doubles.

2 or 3 large mild green chiles (like poblanos)

3 pounds lean ground beef

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

2 teaspoons sea salt

Get the grill going. Char the chiles, turning to brown/blacken them evenly. Take the chiles off the grill and let them sit 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the skin (it should slip off easily), stems, and seeds and finely chop the chiles.

Note: the chiles can also be charred over a gas flame or under a broiler if you want to prepare the burgers ahead of time.

Put the ground beef in a large bowl and gently break it up with your hands. Add chiles, cheese, and salt. Use your hands to gently mix to combine. Divide meat evenly into 8 chunks. Gently pat each chunk into a burger about 3/4-inch thick at the edges, making a slight dimple or dip in the middle of each patty. Put the patties on a baking sheet, cover, and keep chilled until ready to cook.

Make sure the fire on the grill is hot. You should only be able to hold your hand about an inch over the cooking grate for a second before pulling it away. Put the burgers on – they should sizzle immediately – and cook without turning or pressing or messing with them in any way until they have grill marks and well browned edges on one side, 4 to 6 minutes. Flip them over and cook until grill marked on the other side and cooked to your liking. For me it’s another 5 minutes or so. Remember, these burgers are designed to be delicious even though fully cooked, but if you want to keep things less than fully cooked please, I beg of you, please grind your own meat or make sure you know where and when it was ground. Actually, no matter what please look into that last item. Commercial ground beef can be some vile stuff.

Serve on a bun, with the condiments and fixings you like. A good burger, in my opinion, can be kept very simple and, as you can see, that’s how I eat mine. You and your burger? That’s your business.

Last night my world fell apart. And thus so too did dinner. Just a bit.

My Very Tall Cousin’s Norwegian girlfriend had been home over Christmas and made lefse from scratch with her stepmother. Lefse, in Norway, is a traditional food and made, she said, really mainly at Christmas time. Most people buy theirs – often from old ladies who make them at home – but her stepmother thought she’d try it and was amazed as how easy (just time consuming) it was. She came back full of will to make lefse – and to teach me how to make it.

So on Sunday she and My Very Tall Cousin showed up, with lefse ingredients in hand. They came upstairs and she unpacked the ingredients on the kitchen counter: flour, milk, butter, and sugar.

Where are the potatoes? I asked.

What potatoes? she responded.

Isn’t lefse a potato bread?

(And here all you Minnesotans will want to hang onto your hats because your minds are about to be blown.)

No, lefse is just plain and you fill it with butter and sugar.

I thought it was a flat potato bread.

No, that’s potato lefse. Just lefse is plain, with butter and sugar.

And, according to Wikipedia, she is right about the food of her country. According to the stack of English-language Scandinavian cookbooks on my shelf, she is on crack. But these books were all written by Americans for Americans. In Minnesota you can buy lefse at plenty of grocery stores. It is always potato lefse. Always. I had literally never heard of lefse being anything else until last night.

Forge ahead. The dough is very cool – just 2 cups scalded milk, 1 stick melted butter, and 2.2 pounds of flour beaten until it holds together in a shiny mass. It’s soft and pliable but holds together and doesn’t stick.

Then came the extensive rolling –

The rolling actually takes both time and a fair amount of effort because you want it paper-thin. Really, what you want is to get it read-through thin –

Getting each lefse this thin is, as you might imagine, a total pain in the ass. The best combination for this feat was the much-used (and thus constantly well-oiled and seasoned) cutting board and the rolling pin with actual handles. Rolling on the almost-never-used-for-direct-food-contact side of the kitchen cart with the handle-less French-y style rolling pin was not so much fun. In a way, it’s easy to roll out. It has the consistency of playdough and doesn’t stick much, but it has a tendency to bunch up and fold onto itself if you’re not paying attention or you’re using the above-mentioned poor combination of location and pin. We all took turns, and drank beer or wine (or, in Ernest’s case, a rare treat of ginger ale), and made a good time of it as we rolled, cooked the lefse on a pancake griddle instead of an authentic lefse grill, and – and I believe this is quite different than with potato lefse – layered the lefses ain between damp kitchen towels to soften them. Once properly pliant, they were spread with a butter-sugar mixture, folded, and stacked – ready to freeze as you see at the top of this post.

Then it was time for dinner. I had defrosted a top sirloin roast from my meat CSA, salted and peppered it and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Then I just roasted it at 450 until a meat thermometer read 135, let it rest so the temp would go up to 145, sliced it and served with butter braised cabbage and celery salad. And no potato lefse.

The problem was that none of the three thermometers in my kitchen drawers were registering any temperatures at all – but I didn’t realize that for awhile, what with all the lefse rolling business at hand. The meat all got cooked to medium well, which was a shame. Luckily, I had made a horseradish whipped cream (whip some heavy cream until it thickens and soft peaks form, stir in freshly grated horseradish and salt to taste). It was delicious. Beyond delicious, actually. And, as My Very Tall Cousin pointed out, it was like putting Cool Whip on meat. In a good way.

After letting the cream melt like butter onto the steak, and enjoying the horseradish tang on the deeply savory and seasoned meat, we headed back to the kitchen, for more spreading and folding and to eat our fill of lefse. Or, as my dashing husband dubbed it, “sugar bread.”

I am burying the lede. I forgot to take a picture of the lede. The lede should be (and in life was) the rib-eye steaks from our meat CSA. I defrosted a pair – they were cut a bit thin and I was worried they would cook up ill, but they were delicious simply grilled over a hot flame for 5 minutes on each side having only been lightly drizzled with a bit of oil and salted fairly liberally a moment before being laid ever-so-gently on the piping hot grill grate. I was so excited to eat them that picture-taking was the last thing on my mind as I sliced them diagonally and dabbed them with a garlic compound butter.

I served them to my dashing husband and young Ernest along with some grilled potatoes (with more of the butter slathered onto those, you can be sure) and the salad you see above. It was all very summery and satisfying. It was my last dinner in San Francisco for awhile. Ernest and I are headed to Northern Minnesota for a nice long stay again this summer. What draws us there? Well I could go on and on about the clear lake water for swimming and the extended family for fun and the walleye pike for eating but let me sum it up thusly: the living is easy and the child care is cheap.

I spent last night at a friend’s beach house in Manzanita, Oregon. We drove out from Portland yesterday, took a walk on the beach in a wind so bitter it made my Minnesota-raised eyebrows hurt; grabbed juicy, delicious, happy-beef (no hormones, no antibiotics, lots of exercise) burgers at the San Dune Pub that were most unfortunately accompanied by cardboard-like onion rings but most fortunately paired with glasses of chocolately Guinness and eaten next to a roaring fire; and went to bed early. We woke up to big, fat, white Christmas snowflakes droppping like so many bleached feathers from the gray sky. I have never seen waves crashing into snow. It is a marvelous thing to behold.

This weekend we had more people to dinner (not a dinner party, oh no). My Very Tall Cousin Sam and his Viking Goddess girlfriend stopped by. Very Tall Cousin Sam had volunteered his girlfriend to make “something Nordic” so the pressure was on. They arrived with a bag of groceries they lugged across town on their bikes, two giant smiles, some Norwegian chocolate for Ernest, and a cookbook for me. 

Next thing I knew we were downing luscious slices of gravlax draped over snofrisk-spread toasts and drizzled with a sweet mustard sauce. I was so busy snarfing slices down I forgot to get the recipe for the sauce. I’ll get on that. 

Then we sat down to a tasty Braised Beef With Paprika & Root Vegetables I’d been working on, served over a Norwegian-made celery root puree (celery root cubed, boiled until tender,then mashed with cream and butter), with a side of brussels sprouts (I left out the bacon from that recipe), which Ernest insisted on having. While he was picking them out at the store he expressed a desire to “grill” them. Then at dinner he was put out that I hadn’t “fried” them. Since I’ve never grilled or fried brussels sprouts, I was a bit confused.

Who had time to cook? I had presidential debates to watch. Well, just the one last night, but you know what I mean. I’d been slaving all day on a last minute story for The Man. The Man, however, was in a better place, thank god, so the whole thing went more like this:

The Man: We’d love you to do this story that you are uniquely qualified to write, would you do that for us in exchange for this small pile of cash?

Me: Why yes, I would, thank you for thinking of me.

[time passes]

The Man: This is great, thanks so much!

Me: You are very welcome.

I have to say, that’s about the level of drama I’m willing to deal with in professional relationships. Does it make good reading? No, not really. But I like how it doesn’t drive me insane and allows me to focus energies elsewhere, like into giant-ass needlepoint projects.

So anyway… back to dinner. It was a night of full-on freezer adoration. I went down to the freezer in the basement, rifling through the containers and bags, and pulled out some lemony lentils and spicy beef stew from an Ethiopian Feast I made in July. With an arugula salad (leaves from the farm box) and some sliced cucumber salad, we were all set. Oh yeah, plus the leftover butternut squash from the night before. Serious scrounging, yes. In a way it was a meal that was just working through what was in the house. In another way it was a tasty, nutritious dinner.

BTW, the cucumbers were “inspired” by this little number created by Jess over at Hogwash. Except I really didn’t have any of the key ingredients except the cucumbers. But still, I sliced them as thin as possible on a mandoline, which was step 1 of her recipe. Some day when champagne vinegar and chives grace my cupboards I will make that salad. Last night I just tossed them with a bit of oil and rice vinegar and plenty of salt. Boring but tasty. And cooling next to the stew.

So called, I believe, because it hangs off the diaphragm. Also the only loner muscle in mammals? Can that be right? Something like that–only non-symmetrical muscle… someone should google that.

In any case, it is a delicious cut of meat. Somewhat newly fashionable. Something the butcher used to keep for himself. Something young chefs are throwing on menus left and right. We tucked into a fabulous version last night at a friend’s house. Marinated in rosemary, nicely seared, and cooked to a perfect medium-rare. I am full of iron. Ready to take on the world.

“I don’t usually eat food like this at my house,” said our tiny dinner guest.

Ernie’s friend was as polite as could be, but our dinner as a whole did not appeal to him. Luckily, he found the spongy buckwheat flatbread irresistible and there were popsicles in the freezer for dessert, so he won’t forever associate dinner at the food writer’s house with starvation.

My dashing husband and omnivorous son were more enthusiastic about the experiment. The beef stew was fabulous, as were the lentils. My efforts with a version of the potato-carrot dish I’ve had at restaurants was a bit of a bust. Tasted fine, but a bit watery. Back to the drawing board with that and the injera–too dense and not spongy enough for a spongy flatbread.

Beef wat

2 Tbsp. butter

2 onions, finely chopped

1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. freshly grated ginger

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp. hot paprika

1 Tbsp. cayenne (or less if you’re scared you big baby)

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 tsp. fenugreek

1/2 tsp. ground cinnmon

1/2 tsp. ground cardamom

1/2 tsp. tumeric

1/4 tsp. ground allspice

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 cup red wine

1 can tomatoes (14.5 oz)

2 1/2 lbs. beef chuck, trimmed of as much fat as possible and cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Melt butter in a pot over medium heat. Add onions and salt and cook, stirring frequently, until well browned. Add ginger and garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant and incorporated with onions. Stir in all spices. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add red wine and cook until pretty much evaporated, about 2 minutes. Stir in juice from canned tomatoes. Use kitchen shears to cut up tomatoes in can and add to stew. Stir to combine. Add beef and bring mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to maintain a simmer, and cook until beef is unbelievably tender, about 2 hours.

Like all stew, this is even better the next day. To the point that I would recommend making it a day ahead and reheating it for the main event.

Here is my biased, unsolicited advice: If you are going to invite a food writer to a barbeque and if you are also going to ask said food writer if the tri-tip is done and if said food writer tells you that yes, in her opinion the tri-tip is at that exact moment grilled to absolute perfection, if all of these things are true, take the goddamn meat off the grill.

You don’t need to invite her (although she sure likes it when you do) and you don’t need to wave her over to the grill away from delightful conversation and put her to work at your party (although she really doesn’t mind), but if you do,  listen to her. Don’t, after all that hassle, over-cook the beef anyway.

Luckily, the beef wasn’t too terribly overcooked, just a bit more towards well-done than most people would probably like. The crowd was a forgiving one–former colleagues from Sunset–who I have witnessed dig into uncooked cake and burnt turkey. Everyone seemed too engrossed catching up and comparing the competing slaws to worry too much about the meat.