Pho

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Sunday Dinner – 10 March 2019

Pho

I love the Pho from Koi Asian Bistro, and have thought about making my own for years, but was a little intimidated by the process. I actually bought a 12-quart stock pot more than a year ago, for the express purpose of making a batch, but didn’t get around to doing it until this weekend.

I used Chef Qui Tran’s recipe, from Nudo House in St. Louis. I followed the recipe to the letter, with the following exceptions. Not finding knuckle bones, I substituted soup bones and shanks. For the rock candy, I used Turbinado Sugar. Star anise wasn’t available in our town, so I used anise seed and fennel seed. Finally, in place of the flank steak, I used bottom round roast.

We served the broth over rice noodles and thin slices of the beef, with bean sprouts, scallions, red onions, Jalapeño slices, lime wedges, Sriracha and chiffonade of basil.

Claudia made an incredible lime and ginger dressed salad for the side, and a Vietnamese coffee mousse for dessert.

Coffee Mousse

Wine was a beautiful Mendocino County Sauvignon Blanc from Franc Dusak, which paired perfectly. The other choices would have been rosé or Pinot Noir, but I can’t imagine those being any better.

I think the only change I would make next time would be to brown the bones and onions under the broiler a bit before starting the broth. The other note is that this should be served piping hot, which I was inattentive to because of the timing of the meal this time.

A little of the Sriracha goes a long way, by the way. I put some on every bite of meat, which was fine, but by the end of the bowl of broth, it had added quite a bit of spice. Caroline seemed to like it. A drop or two on a tiny slice of meat, and she said “Oooh!”

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Busy Sunday – Crockpot Beef Stew

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Sunday Dinner – 17 February 2019

Family Around The Table

Like the title of this post says, it was a busy Sunday, and apparently the week following was no less hectic based on how long it’s taken to get this blog post done! I have a much greater appreciation for my husband and how he wrote every single blog post last year. Why did I decide I should guest host again???

We had tickets to see the last performance of KVTA’s Little Women for the afternoon (fantastic production, by the way) so there wasn’t a lot of spare time for meal prep that day. What better tool to use than the handy dandy crockpot? In the winter we use it at least once a week. I know there’s all this talk about the Insta Pot, but really, both require preparation. It’s just a matter of when you want to do it, in my opinion.

We hadn’t had beef stew for a while, and I don’t think we had it for Sunday Dinner since we started documenting. I don’t actually have a written recipe for beef stew – I learned from my mom and have adjusted it a bit over the years. But I thought I should do a little research anyway. I normally don’t brown the stew meat first, but Brian does, as apparently everyone else that has a recipe on the internet. So after cutting the beef into bite size pieces, the meat was lightly flowered and browned, and then the pan was deglazed with some frozen red wine cubes (handy tip for left over wine, not that we have that occur very often!). Along with the beef, carrots, onions, potatoes and garlic were added to the crockpot along with some beef stock and bay leaves. The other thing that I did differently was to add some worcestershire sauce. About 2 hours before serving time, fresh mushrooms were added, and then 1 hour before serving, frozen peas. As soon as we got home, I made a quick slurry to thicken the sauce.

What would Sunday dinner be without the salad? I dressed it this week with a raspberry vinegarette, and we served Hawaiin rolls.

My inbox is regularly spammed by Betty Crocker, and it turns out that they had an interesting cake that I thought I’d try out.  This Chocolate Chip Cake doesn’t use actual chocolate chips. Instead it requires lots and lots of grating of semi sweet chocolate. Thank goodness Thomas was willing to help me out with that task. The marshmallow butter cream frosting in the recipe is to die for. I was afraid it was going to be way too sweet, but everyone seemed to like it.

We had an unusually full house for dinner this week as dad’s youngest sister, my Aunt Mary Lou, joined us for the musical and dinner, and the boys were here for a visit as well.  It was hectic and loud with lots of laughter and talking over each other, but it was wonderful to have everyone around the dinner table. It reminds me of Sunday dinners at my Grandma Wulff’s house.

The wine that accompanied the meal was a 2015 Le Grand Chai Médoc, at the request of the boys, and there may have been after dinner drinks of Rumchata and Kahlua by some of the adults around the table.

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Italian Beef

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Sunday Dinner – 13 January 2019

Italian Beef Sandwich

Claudia made Italian Beef for Sunday Dinner this week. This is one of our perennial crock pot favorites. A roast, a packet of Italian dressing seasoning, a bottle of beer, some garlic and some pepperoncini go into the pot on low for hours until the beef falls apart. She serves it on buns with Mozzarella and red sauce.

She also made a salad, and sautéed some zucchini and other vegetables as a side. We picked up a quart of her favorite pasta salad (from JR’s Chicken in Kankakee) as well. For dessert, she baked brownies and served it with Aunt Pat’s DQ. Wine was the Ménage à Trois Silk soft red blend, which was an Aldi find and surprisingly nice.

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Beef Bourguignon

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Sunday Dinner – 20 May 2018

This week for Sunday Dinner we had one of our decadent favorites, Beef Bourguignon. Claudia made a beautiful salad, and I baked a couple of peasant boules to go with the stew. The wine was a 2016 Pinot Noir from Cooper’s Art by Timothy Olsen.

The Beef Bourguignon recipe is more or less Ina Garten’s, with a little liberty here and there. I use Herbs de Province in place of the thyme, and also tend to leave it in the oven longer.

The bread was the basic recipe from Artisan Bread in Five that we’ve been using for several years now.

If you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at this dish, or baking bread, but were daunted, I’d recommend that you give these recipes a try. As long as you follow step-by-step, it’s pretty hard to go wrong.

For dessert, Claudia made this lovely cherry cheesecake. Yes, I know how lucky I am.

Cherry Cheesecake

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First Run at Chicken-Fried Steak

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I spent some time in Texas recently at a conference for work, and on our last night there we ate at Horseshoe Hill in Fort Worth. It’s owned by Chef Grady Spears, and specializes in chicken-fried steak. In Texas, chicken-fried steak is a religion, and Spears is the high priest.

Prior to that night I had only had CFS as a sandwich patty from food service at the hospital where I volunteered as a teenager. It had been deep fried from frozen, I suspect, and tasted about like you would imagine. I had always enjoyed hand-made versions of CFS’ little sibling, the breaded pork tenderloin, over the years, and figured Spears’ offering would be sort of the beef equivalent. I had no idea that it would be a revelation.

Chicken-Fried Steak at HHThe meal, from start to finish, was amazing. Several of us around the table enjoyed appetizers, including some incredible fried okra and Rocky Mountain Oysters (hard pass from me on those). There was also plenty of cold Shiner Bock consumed.

I ordered my entrée “The Cowboy Way,” served with mashed potatoes, black pepper gravy and a grilled green onion. The very first fork full set my taste buds spinning. For such simple ingredients, the taste was dumbfounding. With the crunchy, golden crust, rich and slightly toothsome beef, and that silky gravy with the peppery bite – it was easy to understand why Chef Spears’ version of this classic has become its undisputed standard.

I am a large man with a huge appetite, and I found it impossible to finish the gargantuan portion in one sitting. Luckily the Marriott where we were lodged provided a small refrigerator in the room, and my breakfast plan for the next morning. 🙂

Friends at Horseshoe Hill

Some of the group opted for dessert. I couldn’t eat another bite, but was tempted by another Southern classic, banana pudding.

Off and on during the evening, a handsome man with a warm smile wearing a ballcap, a neatly-trimmed beard and an untucked shirt would pop into the room, quickly attend something, and then disappear. My boss, Stena, referred to him as “random guy.” As we were leaving, he came in again, fussed with something briefly, laughed and nodded at Stena’s greeting, and then followed us out to take a group photo. We realized only later that he was Chef Spears, which is sort of like not realizing until later that Nolan Ryan was taking your picture outside Arlington Stadium. He was friendly, unassuming and gracious.

In the week since my return from the trip, the memory of that meal has become an obsession. I was able to find Chef Spears’ recipe on the Texas Monthly site, and decided to do my best to replicate it at home. The prospects were a bit daunting, since I very rarely fry anything. Sauté, yes, but not fry. So I looked at this as an opportunity to add another skill to my culinary bag of tricks.

For a first attempt, it didn’t turn out badly. The gravy was perfect. Claudia loved the grilled onions, remarking that they reminded her of onion rings. The flavor of the steaks was incredible. I think that the cuts (top sirloin pan steaks) could have used just a bit more of the mallet. It’s not that they were tough, but some bites were on the chewy side of toothsome.

The breading is where I could really use some work. My guess is that I didn’t get the temperature of the oil quite right. The first steak I cooked was fairly blackened, so I pulled back the heat and must have overcompensated. The ones we ate had a little too much saturation for my taste.

If I were independently wealthy, I would be on the phone trying to contact the chef right now, begging him to let me come work in his establishment and watch what they do for a few weeks. As it is, I’ll have to be content to experiment with more breaded-and-fried things until I figure out how to do it right.

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Oktoberfest in April

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Sunday Dinner – 22 April 2018

German Food Fest Plated
This week for Sunday Dinner we had our own private Oktoberfest. Though it isn’t the right time of year, it was certainly a delicious meal.

Sauerbraten with ginger snap gravy and roasted veggies was the main course. We also enjoyed hot German potato salad, homemade spaetzle, a lettuce salad with apple and blue cheese dressing and an amazing cherry streuselkuchen for dessert.

The sauerbraten got started marinating on Wednesday evening, in a container of vinegar, spices and Coke. Here is the full list of ingredients.

  • 2 2.5 LB Boneless Chuck Roasts
  • 1 1/2 c Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1 can Coca Cola
  • 3/4 c Water
  • 3 Onions, sliced
  • 10 whole black peppercorns
  • 10 whole cloves garlic
  • 3 Bay leaves
  • 2 T Sugar
  • 1 1/2 t Salt

I turned the container over every day in the fridge. Four days is just about right prior to cooking.

Sunday Morning, 6 AM

We were up early on Sunday, since we were competing for oven space and Claudia wanted to get her crumb cake done before the Sauerbraten went in. She used the recipe from The Oma Way website, opting for cherries instead of apples.

I started on potato salad, washing, slicing and boiling 3 pounds of red potatoes in a large pot of salted water. Once the potatoes were done and drained, I fried 6 slices of bacon in the pot, then pulled out the bacon and sautéed 3/4 cup of chopped onion in the grease. Next 2 T of flour, 2 T of sugar, 2 t salt, 1/4 t celery seed and a grind or two of black pepper joined the onions in the pot. That got good and bubbly, then I added 1 cup of vinegar and 1/4 cup of water. That boiled for a minute, then it came off the heat and the potatoes and crumbled bacon were added. A gentle mix, a bite or two, and I added a little more sugar, vinegar and celery seed to taste.

Way back in the late 1970s, it was my habit to visit Altamont, Illinois each year for their Schützenfest. It was there that I first sampled the delicious, hot, gooey, pungent, sweet revelation that is German Potato Salad. Ever since, it has been like the Quest for the Grail to either find or prepare some that is even half as tasty. This batch finally hit the mark.

German Potato Salad

Mrs. Noe had headed out to Sunday Morning Yoga, so I blasted the Polka Jamboree from WDEZ radio while preparing the Sauerbraten. The meat is removed from the marinade, patted dry, floured, seasoned with S&P and browned in a Dutch Oven (one roast at a time). Then 1 cup of strained marinade is used to deglaze before adding 6 chopped carrots, 6 chopped celery ribs, and the spices, onions and garlic from the marinade. The roasts go on top, and the whole thing goes into a 350°F oven, covered, for 4 hours.

This might have given me time to nap, but instead I roasted coffee for the week, and piddled away time with the Internet and reading. 🙂

When Claudia got home, it turns out that she actually sort of enjoyed the Polka Music, because it reminded her of the dances they used to have a her home parish (St. Mary’s in Kankakee) when she was growing up.

Sunday Afternoon

Once it was time for the sauerbraten to come out, I removed the roasts and veggies from the pot, and added 5 T of ginger snaps and 5 T of flour that had done a few dozen revolutions in the blender’s food processor attachment, thanks to Mrs. Noe. Over low heat, that made a nice roux with the drippings, and the rest of the marinade was added to create the gravy.

I had never made spaetzle, and, in fact, we had a store bought bag ready in case things went South. But it turns out it was sort of fool proof. You beat three eggs, add a cup of milk, and then slowly combine with the dry ingredients (3 c flour, 1/2 t salt, 1/4 t nutmeg). This goes into the hopper of a spaetzle maker, sitting atop a pot of boiling liquid (in this case water and beef broth). You move the hopper back and forth, and let gravity do its work. After about two or three minutes, the little noodles float to the top and you nab them with a spider and reserve them to a bowl, then move on to the next hopper full.

If I were to adjust this at all for next time, I’d maybe add a little salt to the cooking liquid too.

Just before serving the meal, Claudia made an incredibly delicious iceberg lettuce salad with apples and blue cheese, again from the Oma site. I added just a little of the stock/water liquid to the gravy (over heat) to loosen it up, and we were ready for our Oktoberfest.

The wine was a Riesling that Claudia’s sister, Chris, had brought back for us from Colonial Williamsburg. It was the perfect light, crisp accompaniment to this meal. I also had a Brandy Old Fashioned for starters, and at some point Aunt Pat and I may have shared a can of Feldschlösschen Maibock (from Aldi’s yet) that was surprisingly super awesome.

When we were sitting around the table after this meal, Claudia commented that it was like Thanksgiving, she really wanted a nap. I think several of us felt that way.

But we saved room for some of that splendid cherry streuselkuchen that she had made.

Cherry Streuselkuchen

Ein Prosit!

My mother’s family identified as German American to some extent. Her maiden name was “Hirstein.” I took four years of German in high school (and one in college) and asked my grandfather once if he spoke the language. He taught me a little tame profanity.

It’s been many years since I have celebrated my German heritage, limited as it is. This meal was the perfect way to get back in touch with it. I think that’s what the best meals do. They help us to remember.

Eins, Zwei, G’suffa!

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Steakhouse and Supper Club Fare

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Sunday Dinner – 8 April 2018

Supper Club Relishes

This Sunday was Claudia’s parents’ wedding anniversary, so we decided to celebrate by grilling steaks.

The rest of the family went to a children’s production of our local theater group. I wasn’t interested in this particular show, so I stayed home and prepared dinner.

Wisconsin Supper Club CookbookThe main course menu was t-bones, baked potatoes, asparagus and salad, but I also decided to do a traditional “supper club relish tray.” The Easter Bunny brought me a copy of Mary Bergin’s Wisconsin Supper Club Cookbook, and there were several recipes I could barely wait to try.

The big hit was marinated olives from the Chippewa Inn. I drained a jar of pimiento stuffed olives, and added minced garlic, some olive oil, some balsamic vinegar, a little sugar, oregano, basil, red pepper flakes and dry vermouth.

I also fixed the cocktail mushrooms recipe from No No’s Supper Club. After blanching a pound of white button mushrooms for a couple minutes, I simmered some vinegar, sugar, garlic salt, Worcestershire and Tabasco and poured it on. These turned out just a little sweet for our taste, but Aunt Pat loved them and took the leftovers home.

The rest of the relishes were sweet cornichons, radishes (served with Lawry’s salt), pickled cherry peppers, and cold pack port wine cheese with crackers.

Sunday Dinner 040818

Our Jewel had t-bone steaks on sale, and they were each more than 3/4ths of a pound and decent thickness. The Weber Genesis was blazing hot – all four burners got it upwards of 600 °F before I killed the sear station burner – so the steaks cooked quickly. After the first two minutes I rotated them 90 degrees for quadrillage, and then flipped them after another two, turning the burners down to medium. Two more minutes and they came off to rest a bit before serving.

I’d also done baking potatoes, using our typical method of coating with olive oil spray, kosher salt and pepper before wrapping in foil to bake. We served them with whipped cottage cheese (another recipe from the Bergin book, courtesy of the White Stag Inn). It’s simply cottage cheese, chives and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt whipped up in a blender. This was another hit around the table, with several folks saying they preferred it to sour cream.

I also grilled some asparagus with olive oil, salt and pepper for about 15 minutes, and served it with doctored Knorr’s Hollandaise. Yes, I am still too timid to make the sauce from scratch. Shudder if you must. Claudia made another nice Wulff Salad to round out the meal. The wine was a 2011 Alambrado Malbec from Argentina.

Claudia’s niece, Emily, joined us this week as well, along with our usual crew, the folks and Aunt Pat. After dinner, the two older ladies had Brandy Alexanders and the two younger ones had Pink Squirrels, which are getting to be a fixture here on Sundays. Dessert was a peach pie and DQ soft serve that Pat brought.

This turned out to be a meal where I really needed (and got) a nap afterwards.

I’m still making my way through the supper club book, and look forward to trying some of the mains and sides. We’ll definitely keep this meal’s recipes in our repertoire.

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Memorial Day Weekend 2016

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Memorial Day is the day when Americans honor the fallen, and it’s also the unofficial beginning of Summer here. This year, as usual at our house, it was a weekend of cooking outside.

On Friday evening, we had some friends over and I cooked New York Strip steaks, baked potatoes and roasted asparagus on the Weber Genesis. For an appetizer, I baked a wheel of Brie with herbs and a wedge of Havarti with Blackberry Jam on a cedar plank.

Saturday we took a break from cooking and cleared out some of the delicious leftovers. Sunday morning, we drove down to Friends Creek Cemetery where my parents are buried, leaving some flowers. It was nice to see that the place is still well kept.

Sunday afternoon Claudia’s folks joined us for dinner. I used the rotisserie on the Weber Kettle for the first time this year to roast a chicken. It turned out tasty and perfect, with lots of hickory smoke flavor. The drip pan potatoes were a hit, as always, and I also grilled some roastin’ ears on the Genesis.

Monday, it was cowboy cooking. First, there was my wife’s favorite baked beans from her Aunt Nancy’s recipe. Wolfe Pit cole slaw and Hidden Valley potato wedges cooked on the plancha rounded out the side dishes. The more I cook on the plancha, the more I like it. It adds a crispy crust to everything from potatoes to burgers, and it helps to hold the heat steady on the Genesis which is great when you’re using it as an oven.

The star of the show was Grownup Sloppy Joes from Weber’s Big Book of Grilling by Jamie Purviance. This time, I seared then smoked the roast with Cherry and Hickory on the Kettle, and did the braising in a Lodge cast iron dutch oven over on the Genesis.

By the time everything was finished, I’d been on my feet all day and was pretty beat, but a nice glass of Petite Sirah from Lodi served as a fine restorative. The bold flavor was a perfect match to all the smoke and char of the barbecue. The folks joined us again and we had a lovely time. We’d been expecting my sons to join us as well, but they weren’t able to make it. I wish I could have emailed the smoky smell of the patio while the roast was on the Kettle.

The only dish from the entire weekend that needs work is the cole slaw. We eventually added some additional cider vinegar and sugar, because it ended up a little flat and salty tasting. I doubt that it’s the fault of the recipe. I cut it in half, and may have screwed up the proportions along the way.

It’s one of the joys of life to turn out a decent meal to share with people you love, and cooking outdoors is a feast for the senses from start to finish. I can’t think of any way I’d rather spend a long weekend.

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Argentine Asado Style Sunday Dinner

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asado-dinner

This week for Sunday Dinner I had planned to do a long smoke with a less expensive alternative to beef brisket, a chuck roast. Having recently watched an episode of Barbecue Addiction where Bobby Flay did an Argentine cookout, I decided to try Chimmichurri sauce for the first time. The rest of the meal developed from research on typical Asado sides.

On Saturday night, I prepped the 3 pound roast with my usual rub. Since chuck is similar to brisket with a lot of connective tissue, it lends itself to a low and slow cook, so the plan was to cook it the same as I would a pork shoulder, with several hours at around 225 F on the Weber Kettle, than finishing it up wrapped in foil on the Genesis.

I also baked some polenta with parmigiana in a shallow two quart dish that night. It was the first time I’d ever made it, but it turned out great. I used this recipe from Martha Rose Shulman, adding some shredded Parm before the last stir and bake.

On Sunday morning, I set up the kettle with a water pan in the middle of the bottom grate and ten unlit coals on each side of it. Then I added eight lit coals and some Hickory and Cherry chunks.

water-smoker-setup-kettle

Once the Weber was up to 200 F and the top grate was clean, I placed the roast over the water pan, and kept an eye on the temperature, adjusting vents as needed to keep the grill around 225.

smoking-temp

I opened the grill at the end of each hour, adding coals and wood as needed, and checking the internal temp of the roast. I’d planned to take it up to 165 on the kettle, then wrap it in foil and move it to the gas grill to go up to 195, but I was delayed at the grocery store during the third hour and when I got back the coals in the kettle were completely cold. The roast only registered 135, but I wrapped it and moved it anyway.

The Chimmichurri sauce was dead easy. I put one bunch of flat leaf parsley (minus the stems) in a blender, along with some fresh oregano, ten chopped garlic cloves, 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup of olive oil, a little diced red onion and some salt and pepper. Once it was blended smooth, I gave it a taste and it was a little hot, so I added about another 1/4 cup of canola (we were out of EVOO) and that tamed it some. I thought that the heat was coming from the garlic and onion, but realized later that it was the oregano. If I make the sauce again, I’d use dried oregano instead.

While the roast continued to cook, I cut the polenta into squares and grilled it on the plancha in the Genesis for three or four minutes per side with a little olive oil spray.

grilled-polenta

I also cut up a red bell pepper, a couple of zucchini and yellow squash, and the rest of the red onion and grilled them in a veggie basket. This mixed grill turned out to be the best thing about the meal, for me. The only seasoning was salt and pepper, but it was really delicious.

I grilled a few Andouille sausages as well, meant to be appetizers, although we ended up eating them with the meal instead.

The final side was a hunk of Provolone cheese, melted in an iron skillet on the Genesis with some Herbs de Provence. It turned out to be a combination of gooey and crispy goodness that we spread on slices of baguette.

provoleta

Mrs. Noe made a nice salad, and I also used some of the Chimmichurri as dressing for that.

The roast was tender and flavorful, although if I’d left it cook just awhile longer it might have been a little better. I’d hoped for fork tender so we could shred it, but settled for slicing into servings and bite-size chunks. In any case there weren’t any complaints around the table.

What Asado would be complete without Malbec? We served a 2011 Alambrado Gran Seleccion that was the perfect pairing – deep and fruity with nice soft tannins.

I’ve not smoked brisket because it’s so damnably expensive, but I can’t imagine it being more flavorful or tender than the chuck roast, at nearly triple the price. Perhaps once I have the technique down pat I’ll be tempted to try one, but in the meantime roast will be my go-to cut of beef for a long cook.

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Prime Rib On The Grill for Christmas Dinner

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prime-rib-on-the-grill

I made another run at Prime Rib for Christmas Dinner this year. I prepared and cooked it very much as I had the first time, except that I used apple and cherry wood for the smoke, and also I seasoned it the prior night to let it dry brine a bit.

Once again, this had a great flavor, and once again, it was tough in the middle (though cooked to the proper temperature). I can’t blame the cut, as this was from a great butcher shop in our county.

After researching again, I think I would cook lower and slower next time. Many of the instructions I saw online said 350 F, but I’m finding some now that say to cook the cut like you would brisket or pork shoulder.

Due to the cost, it’ll be awhile before I try this again, and I’ll want to experiment with a smaller roast next time. This one was over 13 pounds.

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