House of Annie

Winging It

Since I had gotten all my ingredients, I did not have time to wait for her to respond to my email for the recipe. I decided to wing it instead. And it worked out really well. It was quite easy like she said and full of wonderful Chinese spice fragrance. Also, the addition of tendon gave the stew a wonderful mouth feel.

The only problem I faced was that I started the stew much too late. I started prepping my ingredients around 4pm and realized at that point that my tendon wasn’t going to get cooked in time for dinner. Thanks to a can of Spam and some eggs, my family sat down to a simple dinner of scrambled spam and eggs and a simple veggie stirfry. The stew? It continued to simmer away till close to 9pm.

This problem turned out to be a good thing. First, stews are always better the next day anyway and secondly, I didn’t have to worry about dinner today.

If you have a chance to get some tendon for this stew, go for it. It is an ingredient that isn’t that exotic really. The texture is soft and gelatinous once it’s cooked down and the tendon absorbs a lot of the lovely flavors. I know it doesn’t sound like the most appealing thing but when tendon is cooked right, it is simply amazing! Unctuous and silky with just the right amount of sticky chewiness to delight your palate.

Beef Tendon

As for the beef, this is not the time to use an expensive cut. I went for a cheap cut with some fat marbling (chuck or brisket is a good cut for stews). Cut into large chunks and browned in a bit of oil before putting everything together for the long simmer, the meat breaks down and becomes tender and flavorful.

One other important ingredient would be the daikon. On its own, it adds some sweetness but more importantly, the daikon holds together really well in long braises unlike the potato which would break down to a starchy mess. It also absorbs all the flavors from the broth making it work harmoniously with all the rest of the ingredients.

As for the flavoring ingredients, the spices used in this stew are reminiscent of Asian five spice. Cinnamon, star anise, and ginger all added sweetness and heat. Some simple seasonings and a long simmer and the beef stew is done. Try this out if you’re looking for another way to cook a cheap cut of beef!

Chinese Beef Stew

Ingredients:
1 kg (about 2.5lbs) of beef (chuck or brisket is good), cut into 1 inch cubes
500g (about 1 lb) tendon, cut into bite sized pieces (1 1/2 inches)
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup Shao Hsing wine
2 cinnamon sticks
3-4 star anise
1 fat thumb ginger, peeled and sliced into thick disks
1 medium piece of rock sugar (or to taste), if you can’t find rock sugar, use regular sugar
1-2 tsp salt
1-2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 large or 4-5 small daikon, peeled and cut in large chunks
2 cups water

Method:
1. In a large, heavy bottomed dutch oven pot, add vegetable oil and turn heat to medium.
2. Brown beef chunks on all sides being careful not to crowd the meat. Brown in batches until all the beef is done. Remove beef and add Shao Hsing wine. Scrape the bottom of pot till all the browned bits have melted into the wine. Turn down heat a little if the wine is evaporating too quickly.

Browning Beef

3. Return the beef to the pot along with the tendon.
4. Add the cinnamon sticks, star anise, ginger, rock sugar, salt, soy sauce and water to the pot. Bring to a boil and skim off any scum that rises to the top.

Rock Sugar, Cinnamon and Star Anise in Beef Stew

5. Turn heat to med low and let simmer for an hour.
6. Add daikon and bring to a boil again. Immediately lower the heat to low and simmer for another 3-4 hours or until tendon and beef is tender. Make sure that the water level is close to the top of the meat (otherwise, whatever pieces are sticking out might get dried out and tough—stir every hour or so to ensure all the pieces get cooked through).
7. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Chinese Beef Stew with Tendon

Plate up and enjoy this hearty stew with some rice. Leftovers would also be good with dry-tossed wonton noodles.

Enjoy!

Cheers, Annie

We took half of our leftover corned beef and diced it up. Peeled and diced a couple of potatoes (since we mashed the boiled potatoes to make colcannon instead). Diced up a couple of peeled russet potatoes. Sliced up one onion.

Heated up some oil in my trusty cast iron skillet. First I fried up the onion until it was soft and translucent. Then I tossed in the potatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper, and let those sizzle in the pan until they started to brown.

Next I added the corned beef and mixed it in to distribute evenly. I didn’t want to turn it too much because I wanted the bottom part to get all nice and carmelized-crusty (“carmelusty”?).

“Carmelusty” Corned Beef Hash

Removed the corned beef hash from the pan and then fried a couple of eggs. Topped the hash with the eggs, and this became dinner for the kids.

The kids? Well then what did the adults eat?

Adult Food

In our Corned Beef post, Annie talked about how the only corned beef she knew about growing up was corned beef hash in a can. Her Mum would mash it up, mix it with egg, and fry it with shallots. So we wanted to recreate the dish using our real corned beef.

First thing we did was to thinly slice up four shallots.

Next, we took half the corned beef and finely minced it. I’d say it came to about two cups of corned beef.

We beat together five eggs, then added the corned beef to the eggs. We also took a little chile pepper from our garden, sliced that up thinly, and added that to the corned beef and egg mixture.

This time, we used a non-stick frying pan. Started off by frying the shallots in a little bit of oil until they began to turn brown. Then we poured the egg and corned beef mixture on top of it. (Five points for spotting the chile pepper!)

We fried this until the eggs were cooked through and lightly browned. Then plated it up. I guess I would call it a “corned beef egg fu yong”, except without all that gloppy fu yong sauce. Annie calls it an "omelet thingy". Obviously, and advanced culinary term. ;-)

Corned Beef Egg Fu Yong / Omelet Thingy

So there you have it. Two quick and easy recipes using leftover corned beef. Which one tastes better?

Honestly, I like them both. The corned beef hash is great, with the carmelusty fried potatoes and beef. The corned beef egg fu yong is also pretty tasty, with all that yummy fried egg plus the nice chili pepper bite.

I hope you get to try these recipes out yourself!

Aloha, Nate

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Hungry for more recipes using leftovers? Click below:

Spam Fried Rice

Hot Sour Gai Choy Soup with Roasted Pig's Feet and Duck Heads

Turkey Jook

How do You Top Mum's Popiah? With Kuih Pie Tee

Leftover Turkey Omurice

A Real Surprise

So consider my surprise when I was presented with this big chunk of beef which was then thinly sliced and served with boiled carrots, potatoes and cabbage, with a mix of two mustards to schmear on said items.

Real Corned Beef

I didn’t quite know what to expect of its flavors because boiled foods have never appealed to me. But I must say, that that meal was a delightful surprise. I enjoyed every bite.

Failing Under Pressure

The next time I had it was at Nate’s home. He told me he was going to make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day. And after having experienced the wonders of this simple meal at June’s, I was glad to go over to his place to have some. Imagine my surprise when I saw him cubing the corned beef and throwing it into a pressure cooker along with the carrots and potatoes to cook.

Somehow, cutting up the meat into cubes caused all the flavor to be released into the liquids, leaving the corned beef bereft of taste. Texturally, it wasn’t very appealing either. And the potatoes and carrots were pressure cooked to death. Since we were dating at the time, I think I tried to be polite about the dish. I did not enjoy it but I ate it anyway.

Now if this had been my first experience with corned beef, I probably would never have wanted to eat it again. I decided that the first chance I got, I would boil it the way June did it and let Nate have a taste. Nowadays, boiling our corned beef is the method of choice.

A New Way to Enjoy Cabbage

The one thing I’ve never really enjoyed about corned beef and cabbage was the boiled cabbage. The carrots and the potatoes were fine because they absorbed all those wonderful flavors from cooking in the briny broth. But the boiled cabbage was always just soggy and limp, and it’s no wonder that that was always one of the last things that got finished up.

I decided this year that I would try a new way of cooking cabbage. As I looked up corned beef recipes, I came across this Irish dish called colcannon. It calls for potatoes to be boiled and cabbage to be shredded and then steamed, and then both ingredients to be mixed together with some milk and seasonings.

I didn’t know how well this combination would work, but many reviewers highly recommended it. I decided to tweak the recipe a little bit by still boiling my potatoes in the pot with my corned beef, but instead of steaming the cabbage, I decided to sauté it with butter (because, you know, butter makes everything better!).

The results? Smashing! Cabbage was no longer the last thing to go. As a matter of fact, it is so good, I could eat this all on its own, even without the corned beef. I would eat three helpings of this if not for the fact that the butter and potatoes would just go straight to my hips.

So here I offer you an easy to prepare St. Patrick’s Day meal. I hope you give colcannon a shot. It is a simple and tasty dish that would make a great side any time of the year, but especially now when cabbage is so cheap.

Corned Beef Recipe

Buy any size corned beef that you like. We prefer the larger sized ones so that we will have enough leftovers to make corned beef hash (that’s another post). Having tried some corned beef made from leaner cuts of beef, I would suggest sticking with the point cut of the brisket. Most of the fat is boiled off, but enough is left to keep the meat tender.

Either freshly corned beef, or cryovac’d corned beef is fine. If you get the cryovac’d corned beef, simply follow the instructions on the packet. With a freshly corned beef, all you have to do is put it in a large pot and completely submerge the meat in water. Make sure that your pot is large enough to hold not just the beef but also the carrots and potatoes you will be adding later. Bring it to a boil and then cover and let it simmer for three to four hours depending on how big your cut is.

Meanwhile, prep your carrots. Try to choose fatter carrots for this cook. Peel four to five large carrots and cut them in half or thirds, depending on how big your carrot is. In the last hour of your cook, add the carrots to the pot with the corned beef.

Peel your potatoes, about one large potato per person (I recommend Russets). Add the potatoes in the last half hour of your cook. If you really don’t have the space in your pot, finish cooking your beef and carrots, remove them to rest in a warm oven, and then cook the potatoes in the broth.

Colcannon Recipe

adapted from Epicurious. Makes six to eight servings

six to eight large Russet potatoes, peeled
1 to 1-1/2 cups scalded milk
1 medium head cabbage, cored and shredded
4 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil potatoes in the corned beef broth. (if you’re making this dish on its own, just use salted water.)

2. While potatoes are boiling, heat a large saute pan and melt butter in it over medium heat.

3. Once butter has melted, throw in the shredded cabbage. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Saute the cabbage until cabbage is soft but not browned.

5. When potatoes are tender, remove from water and place into a large bowl. Mash the potatoes or run them through a ricer. Add one cup of milk, and cabbage. Combine well. If the potatoes are dry, add more milk until you get a nice, creamy consistency.

Mashed Potatoes and Cabbage for Colcannon

6. Taste and season with more salt and pepper. (Don’t skimp on the salt and pepper. The pepper really brings this dish alive.)

Colcannon

Feel free to spice this colcannon up if you want. We were thinking we might try it next time with some mustard seed or dill seed.

Serve this up alongside the corned beef and carrots. Don’t forget to serve it with some Dijon mustard and sweet honey mustard on the side.

Corned Beef, Carrots and Colcannon

Enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day meal!

Cheers, Annie

PS: Besides the corned beef, there’s another reason I really love St. Patrick’s Day. Can you guess what it is? ^_^

This post was entered in the March Potato Ho Showdown roundup, hosted by Krysta from Evil Chef Mom.

Hungry for more soup/stew dishes? Click below!

Cioppino Hot Pot Recipe

Pork and Daikon Soup with Red Dates and Carrots

Hot Sour Gai Choy Soup with Roasted Pig's Feet and Duck Heads

Bun Rieu Cua

Thanksgiving Turkey Leftovers: Jook, Turkey Tortilla Soup

There are lots of ways to cook oxtail. In Hawaii, we have a version of oxtail soup that comes with a clear broth scented with star anise and ginger. The Malaysian oxtail soup version that Annie is more familiar with comes flavored with spices like coriander, cumin and fennel seed. One day when we were dating I told her we were going to have oxtail soup. She was so excited, only to be let down when I served her the Hawaiian version of oxtail soup instead of the Malaysian version she was expecting.

Getting back to the oxtails at hand, I specifically wanted a recipe that called for red wine because I wanted to use up my bottle of LAN Crianza Rioja. So I surfed over to Food Blog Search, found a few good candidates, and eventually settled on the Oxtail Stew recipe by Elise over at Simply Recipes.  It truly is an easy recipe!  The only part that isn't quick is the browning of the oxtails.

Oxtail Braised in Red Wine

adapted from Simply Recipes

Ingredients

3 lbs oxtails with separated joints (my package was only 2 lbs)
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 cups stock (I used chicken stock)
1 cup water
2 cups of red wine
1 garlic clove, minced
2 to 3 cups chopped vegetables - carrots, celery, parsnips, turnips (I used carrots and celery)
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup tomato paste
Seasoning - salt and pepper, a pinch of thyme, one bay leaf

Seasonings for Braised Oxtail in Red Wine Recipe

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350*F.
2. Rinse oxtails and pat dry. Season oxtails in salt and pepper.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a dutch oven over medium heat. Sear the oxtails until browned on all sides.

Searing Oxtails for Braised Oxtail in Red Wine Recipe

4. Add 1/2 of the chopped onions to the pot and cook them down until translucent.
5. In another pot, heat the stock, water and red wine over medium heat. Add to the dutch oven, then bring to a simmer. Cover and place in the oven to cook for 2 hours (3 seemed a little too long for me).
6. Add the vegetables, raisins, tomato paste and herbs to the dutch oven after the oxtails have been braising for 2 hours. Cook 1 more hour in the oven, then remove the pot from the oven.

Braised Oxtails in Red Wine

At this point, the house was filled with the wonderful aroma of red wine, oxtails, and veggies. I wanted to dig in right away but I decided to wait, let the pot cool, and then put the braised oxtails into the fridge overnight.  I think it's best done this way to let the flavors further meld and develop.

The next night, we had it for dinner, served with mashed potatoes. Before heating it up, though, we tried to skim off some of the congealed fat. There wasn't a lot, but I wanted to make the dish a little healthier!

Oxtails Braised in Red Wine with Mashed Potatoes

That oxtail was falling-off-the-bone tender, and the sauce was so incredible. The flavors had really come together. I especially liked the sweetness that the tomato paste, onions and carrots brought to the dish. The meat itself still had nice flavor and moistness due to all the intra-muscular fat.

(Annie says: Nate's dish turned out really well. Better yet, I didn't have to do the cooking--teehee! But I still want some Malaysian Oxtail Soup! Next time, we'll cook some Malaysian Oxtail Soup, okay?)

(Nate: yes, dear.)

Aloha, Nate

Hungry for more braised recipes? Click below:

Tau Yu Bak (Pork Braised in Soy Sauce)

Pork Riblets Braised with Fermented Red Bean Curd

Braised Char Siew (or Non-bake Char Siew)

Chicken with Vinegar & Onions, Warm French Lentil Salad with Smoked Sausage

Braised Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

Stir-fried Beef with Ginger and Eggs

1. Coat the beef with cornstarch, then mix in 1 Tbsp rice wine, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, 1 Tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp sugar, and 1/2 tsp white pepper. Set aside to marinate.


2. Peel and julienne ginger into 1/16-inch sticks. Chop green onions into 1 inch-long pieces. Lightly beat an egg.


3. Heat up the oil in a wok over high heat. Toss in the ginger and fry until golden and crisp.
   
   
   

Remove the ginger from the oil and drain.





4. Add the beef to the wok and oil. Stir fry for 1 minute.
   
   
   


5. Add the green onions and stir fry for another 15 seconds


6. Move the beef and onions to the sides, creating a well. Add the water, then the beaten egg.


7. Stir the beef and the eggs together until the egg sets.


8. Plate it up and garnish with the fried ginger.

Five Quick Asian Dishes Series:

When I was a kid back in Hawaii, I used to watch my uncle light his charcoal by splashing gasoline from his gas can onto the pile of charcoal, then tossing a lit match from about 3 feet away. It made a big "whoomp" sound and produced an awe-inspiring fireball before dying back down. Whatever we'd grill over it had a distinctive taste of gasoline on it. YUM.

It seems that a lot of people learned how to start charcoal from the same school my uncle did. Because even today, I see people doing the same thing, except with large squeeze bottles of lighter fluid instead of gas cans. What's worse, they will actually squirt the fluid onto the burning flame! Can you say "third degree burns"?

Once the lighter fluid burns off after a minute, the coals are (of course) still not lit. What's the next step? Fanning, of course. The pyromaniac grabs an empty pizza box or a thick section of newspaper and begins vigorously flapping his makeshift fan up and down, side to side, in an effort to turn that small flicker of red into a medium-sized flame. He huffs and puffs and blows himself blue, silently wishing for a hair dryer and a very long extension cord. After 15 sweaty minutes, the coals are about ready to go. Success!

Now, if you've learned from this "fireball then fan" school of charcoal lighting, may I suggest a safer, saner alternative? Get yourself a charcoal chimney. You just load it up with charcoal, crumple up a couple or three sheets of newspaper (I like to use veggie oil-infused paper towels because they don't make as much smoke and ash) into the bottom of the chimney, light the paper, and let it go. As Confucius say, "Set it and forget it!" Fifteen minutes later, you'll have flames coming out the top and coals ready to cook. Plus, no nasty lighter fluid flavor on your food!

Charcoal chimneys run you around $15 at most hardware stores. Get one. It's cheaper than a trip to the emergency room.

********

Alright, getting back to the tri-tip...

Tri-Tip Rub

Ingredients

1, 3-lb tri-tip roast, trimmed of excess fat (if you can't find tri-tip roast at your local grocery, try a 3-lb sirloin roast.)

3 tbsp kosher salt

1 tbsp granulated garlic

1/2 tsp dried parsley flakes

1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Step 1: Rinse off the roast, pat dry, and trim the excess fat off, leaving at most a 1/4 inch thick fat cap on one side of the roast. Once you've got the charcoal chimney started, rub the seasoning mixture all over the roast.

Step 2: Pour the coals out into the WSM's charcoal ring. Take the top grate and put it directly onto the charcoal ring. Lay the roast, fat side up, onto the grate. Grill for 2.5 to 3 minutes to get a good sear, then flip and sear another 2.5 to 3 minutes.

Step 3: In the mean time, take the water pan out of the WSM's middle section, then put the bottom grate back in. Once the tri-tip is done searing, move the roast to the bottom grate. Remove the top grate from the charcoal ring.

Step 4: Since authentic Santa Maria tri-tip uses red oak coals for their distinctive smoke flavor, I toss chunks of red oak onto the charcoal. A friend of mine brought back a bag of chunks for me from Santa Barbara. If you can't get red oak chunks, use whatever kind of oak wood you can get your hands on.

Step 5: Place the middle section of the WSM, containing the tri-tip roast, over the bottom section. The meat is now sitting about 2 feet directly over the burning coals. Insert a probe thermometer into the middle of the roast, then cover with the top section. Leave all the bottom vents open for maximum airflow. What we want to do is raise the temperature up above 350* F so that we're up in the high barbecue / low grilling range.

Step 6: Leave the roast alone - no peeking! If you're lookin', you ain't cookin' (remember Confucius?) Set your target temperature for 145* for medium doneness. It should take a half hour to 45 minutes. When the roast hits the target temp, remove it from the smoker, set it aside and tent it to rest for 15 minutes.

Step 7: Slice the tri-tip thinly across the grain. You should be able to clearly see the grain as it runs across the top of the meat.

Serve it with roasted potatoes or other grilled veggies. Savor the salty, garlicky rub and the bold smokiness of the oak. Oak smoked tri-tip goes great with cabernet sauvignon or other big red wines. If you have any leftovers (a big "if", because that meat is very addictive), you can eat it the next day on a French roll slathered with butter and toasted under a broiler, or grilled just like they do down in Santa Maria:

INGREDIENTS

1 lb sweet Italian sausage links
3/4 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup minced onions
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
2 (6 1/2 ounce) cans tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon italian seasoning
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
12 lasagna noodles
16 ounces ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 lb mozzarella cheese, sliced
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

In a Dutch oven, cook sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic over medium heat until well browned.

1. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water.
2. Season with sugar, basil, fennel seeds, Italian seasoning, 1 tablespoon salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons parsley.


3. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.


4. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil.


5. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes.


6. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water.


7. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg, remaining parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.


8. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).


9. To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish.


10. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce.


11. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture.


12. Top with a third of mozzarella cheese slices.


13. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.


14. Repeat layers, and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese.


15. Cover with foil: to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese.


16. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.


17. Remove foil, and bake an additional 25 minutes.


18. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.