Where's the Beef?

During the 1980s, there was an iconic commercial that asked that all-important question, "Where's the beef?" For years, it seemed that was the question d'jour, even after the commercials quit airing.

Well, today's post deals with nothing but beef recipes, including Crockpot Beef Stroganoff and Bean Burger. Enjoy!

INSTANT POT ROAST

Recipe from the Tasting Table Test Kitchen, and can be viewed online at https://www.tastingtable.com/cook/recipes/instant-pot-roast-recipe.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings; Prep Time: 15 minutes; Cook Time: 1 hour; Total Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes

Ingredients

1/4 cup dried porcini, rehydrated

1/2 cup boiling water

2 tablespoons olive oil

One 4-to-4 1/2-pound chuck roast

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1/3 cup tomato paste

3 garlic cloves, smashed

2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

2 celery stalks, roughly chopped

2 thyme sprigs

2 bay leaves

1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped

2 cups beef stock

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Directions

Place the dried porcini in a small heatproof bowl and cover with the boiling water. Let rehydrate while you sear the chuck roast.

In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, heat the olive oil over high heat. Season the chuck roast with salt and pepper, and sear, turning as needed, until the entire roast is golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the seared roast to the bowl of an Instant Pot.

To the pot that you seared the roast in, add the tomato paste, garlic, carrots, celery, thyme, bay leaves and onion, and cook until the vegetables are softened and the paste begins to caramelize, 4 to 5 minutes. Deglaze the pan with the stock and red wine vinegar. Pour the contents over the chuck roast in the Instant Pot, along with the rehydrated porcini and their soaking liquid.

Seal the Instant Pot according to the manufacturer's instructions and cook on high pressure for 45 minutes. Let depressurize, then remove the roast and transfer to a cutting board to slice. Season the cooking liquid with salt and pepper.

Spoon some of the vegetables onto a platter and fan slices of the pot roast over top. Drizzle the cooking liquid on top, then serve.

CROCKPOT BEEF STROGANOFF

This comes from Diana Rattray, the Southern cooking expert for The Spruce. If you remember from previous posts about Diana being on About.com, you’re right. However, About.com recently launched The Spruce as “a standalone site for home decor and food,” according to Techcrunch (“About.com launches The Spruce, a standalone site for Home Decor and Food”).

Anyway, Diana wrote, “For an easy cold-weather meal you can throw together in 20 minutes, look to the crockpot to cook hearty beef to perfection for this hearty Strognaoff. Making this dish in a slow cooker allows the flavors to blend together and fully marinate the meat until it's juicy, tender, and totally satisfying. Serve with sour cream for an extra rich dinner on top of your favorite hot cooked noodles.” Time: 8 to 10 hours.

Ingredients

1 1/2 to 2 pounds stew beef or round steak or lean chuck, cut in 1/2-inch cubes

3 tbsp. flour

2 tbsp. butter or margarine

1 cup beef broth

2 tbsp. ketchup

1 sm. garlic clove, crushed

1 tsp. salt

8 oz. sliced mushrooms

1 med. onion, chopped

1 c. sour cream, blended with 2 tablespoons flour

hot cooked noodles, 3 to 4 cups

Directions

Dredge beef in flour and salt.

Melt butter or margarine in large skillet and add beef and onion.

Cook over medium heat until browned.

Combine beef broth, ketchup, garlic and mushrooms in crockpot. Add cooked beef and onions; stir gently to combine.

Cover and cook on low for 7 to 9 hours. Add sour cream, cover and cook on HIGH for 20 to 30 minutes, or until heated through.

Serve over hot cooked noodles.

PICADILLO

This comes from Sam Sifton in The New York Times cooking e-newsletter. Sam wrote, “Picadillo is one of the great dishes of the Cuban diaspora: a soft, fragrant stew of ground beef and tomatoes, with raisins added for sweetness and olives for salt. Versions of it exist across the Caribbean and into Latin America. This one combines ground beef with intensely seasoned dried Spanish chorizo in a sofrito of onions, garlic and tomatoes, and scents it with red-wine vinegar, cinnamon and cumin, along with bay leaves and pinches of ground cloves and nutmeg. For the olives you may experiment with fancy and plain, but rigorous testing here suggests the use of pimento-stuffed green olives is the best practice. A scattering of capers would be welcome as well.”

Yield: 6 servings; Time: 1 hour.

This was featured in “The Ultimate Cuban Comfort Food: Picadillo”, and can be viewed online here.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 medium-size yellow onions, peeled and chopped

2 ounces dried chorizo, diced

4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 ripe tomatoes, chopped, or one 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and crushed

2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 bay leaves

Pinch of ground cloves

Pinch of nutmeg

2/3 cup raisins

2/3 cup pitted stuffed olives

Preparation

Put the olive oil in a large, heavy pan set over a medium-high flame, and heat until it begins to shimmer. Add onions, chorizo and garlic, stir to combine and cook until the onions have started to soften, approximately 10 minutes.

Add the ground beef, and allow it to brown, crumbling the meat with a fork as it does. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

Add tomatoes, vinegar, cinnamon, cumin, bay leaves, cloves and nutmeg and stir to combine. Lower the heat, and let the stew simmer, covered, for approximately 30 minutes.

Uncover the pan, and add the raisins and the olives. Allow the stew to cook for another 15 minutes or so, then serve, accompanied by white rice.

BEAN BURGER

My kids had this one evening when I had to be somewhere – possibly an evening class – and it soon became a favorite. This, along with the next two recipes (Hamburger Special and Beef Stew), can be found in my e-book, Off the Wall Cooking.

1 1/2 lbs. hamburger

2 cans baked beans

2 T mustard (or to taste)

2 T brown sugar (or to taste)

Brown hamburger. Drain grease, then add beans, mustard & brown sugar. Heat thoroughly. May be eaten on hamburger buns, taco shells, or plain.

HAMBURGER SPECIAL

One of my variations of the good, ol’ hamburger. One-half diced yellow pepper may be added along with the red and green peppers, if desired.

2 lbs. hamburger

1 – 2 carrots, peeled & cut into rounds

1/2 green pepper, diced

1 small onion, diced

1/2 red pepper, diced

1 package dry onion soup mix

Mix all ingredients together & form into 8 patties. Cook immediately or freeze separately. Serve on hamburger buns.

BEEF STEW

I came up with this when the recipes I had for stew seemed too bland.

2 – 3 lbs. stewing beef

1 clove garlic, minced

3 T oil

4 carrots, cut up

2 C water

1 large potato, peeled & cut up

1 onion, chopped

6 oz tomato paste

8 oz tomato sauce

4 T vinegar

1 C flour

3 T honey

1 T soy sauce

salt & pepper

Cut beef into bite-sized pieces. Trim fat & dredge in flour & brown in oil. Add everything except carrots & potato. Cook 15 minutes. Add carrots & cook 15 more minutes. Add potato & cook 30 minutes. Add water as needed. Serve over noodles.