Feeding Groom Daube a` la Vin Rouge

Never met a beef stew I didn’t like.

Seriously.

But the French version, called daube takes beef stew to a whole new level.

Beef marinates in red wine, red onions, carrots, bay leaves, grated fresh nutmeg and orange zest, rosemary and garlic.

Marinate it overnight or 45 minutes.

Up to you.

After that, plan for a couple of hours on top of the stove.

Serve over noodles, smashed potatoes and turnips or by itself with crusty French bread and butter.
Use your imagination.

A stew becomes a daube becomes dinner.

What’s not to like?

By the way, this is a celebratory post.

Feeding Groom is two years old this month!

Thanks to Last Night's Dinner for the inspiration and to Groom for the kick in the pants to get this going.

And to those of you that stop by and see what’s happening at the Red Brick Ranchero, cheers!

Feeding Groom’s Daube a` la vin Rouge

1.5 boneless beef short ribs, cut into bite sized pieces
½ sweet red onion, cut into slivers
½ sweet yellow onion, cut into slivers
2 large carrots, peeled, sliced on the diagonal
6 fat cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
2 bay leaves
1 cup red wine
1 cup beef stock or chicken in a pinch
½ orange, zested
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Fresh Italian parsley, about a handful, chopped for garnish

Put the beef, onions, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, red wine, orange zest and rosemary in large bowl.

Season with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Let marinate overnight or at least 45 minutes.

Heat a couple of good swirls of extra virgin olive oil in a large dutch oven. When the oil is wavy, add the beef, don’t crowd the pan and let it brown on both sides. Remove the cooked beef and continue til finished. Drain the veggies from the red wine (reserving that and add the veggies to the hot dutch oven. Cook until golden, about 10 minutes, stirring.

Add the reserved wine and a cup of beef or chicken stock. Let cook 1-½ to 2 hours, til the beef is tender. Remove the veggies and beef, and raise the heat to reduce the sauce down a bit to your taste.

Serve over what you like…pasta, smashed potatoes and turnips or alone with crusty French bread. Garnish with freshly chopped Italian parsley.

Enjoy.

Serves 3 generously.

Click here for a printable recipe!

One Year Ago on Feeding Groom

Two Years Ago on Feeding Groom

Feeding Groom Daube a` la Vin Rouge

Grilled Flank Steak with Thai Cucumber, Tomato and Mint Salad

Cook or no cook, there are items that you should have in house that signify it’s summer.

Homegrown tomatoes are coming into season now…thank God.

Tomato sandwiches are now allowed in the house.

Fresh mint abounds in the garden for iced tea.

Cucumbers are prevalent south of here and will soon be in abundance for cool cuke and cream cheese on dark rye for lunch with a bit of fresh dill.

Limes…for summertime cocktails and a squeeze over grilled shrimp tossed with cilantro and garlic for a quick meal…

And flank steak. Fast grilling, slicing and begging for a cool salad over top to make a quick weeknight or even company meal.

Beg no more…

Grilled Flank Steak with Thai Cucumber, Tomato and Mint Salad
Adapted from Molly O’Neill’s A Well-Seasoned Appetite
1 cup lime juice
½ cup Thai fish sauce or nam pla
A good pinch of vanilla sugar
½ jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
1 medium homegrown tomato, diced
½ large English cucumber, peeled, diced
1 cup fresh mint leaves
Small to medium flank steak, about 1-½ pounds, drizzled with a bit of extra virgin olive oil and seasoned with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

Combine lime juice, fish sauce, sugar and jalapeno pepper in glass or ceramic bowl. Add the tomatoes and the cucumber and refrigerate.

Grill the flank steak about five a side and let stand for five minutes. Add mint leaves to salad and toss. Slice steak thinly and top with the salad.

Serves 3 generously.

Salad lasts several days in fridge.

Click here for a printable recipe!

One Year Ago on Feeding Groom

Grilled Flank Steak with Thai Cucumber, Tomato and Mint Salad

Flank Steak with Mushroom, Red Pepper and Baby Bok Choy

This recipe is the bomb.

It’s a very motivational meal.

It gets you to eat baby bok choy, something I’m sure a lot of you have stared at in the grocery store, sidling a bit to the side when someone very hip comes up and throws two of them in their cart and moves on. And you think to yourself, why don’t I go on and try it..what could it hurt?

It gets you to use Fish Sauce which someone very dear to me said the odor reminded him of the wrestling mat at his old high school when it’s 98 degrees in the shade and everyone showed up to watch him get his butt kicked, and his face spent most of the time on said mat.

It gets you to marinate something quickly as opposed to overnight.

It gets you to slice and grate and stir and fry and have a glass of wine and discover that it wasn’t such a bad day after all.

You see?

Fast, easy, motivational, mood changing and delicious.

What more could you ask of a recipe?

Flank Steak with Mushroom, Red Pepper and Baby Bok Choy
Adapted from Cooking Light Magazine December 2008

3 tbsp Fresh ginger, grated
1 spoonful garlic confit or 3 fat garlic cloves, smushed and chopped
3 tbsp soy sauce
1-1/2 tsp fish sauce (Nam Pla)
4 tsp cornstarch, divided
A good shake crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 pound flank steak
1 pkg baby bella mushrooms, washed and thinly sliced
½ cup thinly sliced sweet yellow onion
½ cup thinly sliced green onion
1 cup thinly sliced red bell pepper strips
4 cups thinly sliced baby bok choy
1 cup chicken broth, preferably homemade

Mix together the ginger, garlic, fish sauce, soy, 2 tsp cornstarch, sesame oil and crushed red bell pepper and pour over flank steak. Put in zip lock bag, seal and squish around to combine. Let sit for at least 30 minutes or more.

Heat large skillet and put a couple of good swirls extra virgin olive oil in over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms onion and bell pepper to the pan. Cook three to five minutes until crisp tender and then remove from pan and put in bowl and immediate add bok choy to pan and saute three minutes til slightly wilted and add that to the mushroom mix and keep warm.

Now you can grill the steak until done and slice it OR you can slice the marinated flank steak and quickly cook in hot skillet in batches…this takes maybe five minutes, depending on how hot you have the pan. Put steak in bowl with veg…put pan back on medium high heat and add broth and the remaining two teaspoons cornstarch and boil, scraping the pan to get all the browned bits then add the steak and veggie mix back to the pan and toss to combine.

Season to taste with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serves 3 generously.

Click here for a printable recipe!

One Year Ago on Feeding Groom

Flank Steak with Mushroom, Red Pepper and Baby Bok Choy

Grilled Flank Steak with Arugula, Baby Romaine, Fresh Oregano Vinaigrette and Manchego Cheese

Spring has sprung here at the Red Brick Ranchero!

I’m out in the garden (believe me it’s a stretch to call it that) picking fresh oregano, tarragon, sage and thyme on any given day. The ginger mint and the peppermint are up. The Italian parsley, which has come back for years in the same pot, and the rosemary are rockin’! The grill has been officially cleaned and has been working hard.

It got a great workout last week with this recipe.

Perfectly grilled flank steak marinated for just a bit in splashes of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. A sweet spicy fresh oregano vinaigrette tossed with arugula and baby romaine and shavings of Manchego cheese. If you don't have Manchego on hand, of course a bit of Parmesan Reggiano works just fine.

A grand combination and a nod to the new season in one great meal.

Grilled Flank Steak with Arugula, Baby Romaine, Fresh Oregano Vinaigrette and Manchego Cheese

Small flank steak (you know the size you like to buy)

Sprinkle a bit of extra virgin olive oil on both sides of flank steak and season with salt and coarsely ground black pepper. Then sprinkle a bit of balsamic vinegar on both sides and let sit at room temp for about 30 minutes.

Fire up the grill. Grill the flank steak for about 5-7 minutes per side. Let sit for five minutes before you slice so the juices stay in the meat.

Fresh Oregano Vinaigrette (a nod to Bobby Flay…this came from one of his books, but I can’t remember which one!)

¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup aged sherry vinegar
2 tbsp honey
¼ cup fresh oregano leaves
Salt and coarsely ground black pepper
1 shallot, chopped

Combine in blender until mixed. Season to taste. Can be stored in the fridge.

Slice the flank steak and arrange on platter. Mix the arugula and baby romaine with a bit of the vinaigrette and put on top of the flank steak. Shave a bit of Manchego over the top and serve.

Serves 2-4, depending on how big your flank steak is.

Leftovers? Stuff a pita pocket and add some avocados and toasted pine nuts.

Grilled Flank Steak with Arugula, Baby Romaine, Fresh Oregano Vinaigrette and Manchego Cheese

Flank Steak Stuffed with Swiss Chard and Manchego Cheese

I have been thinking about this recipe for the past year.

Maybe a little bit longer.

I was watching one of those Saturday afternoon PBS food shows last winter, dreaming about being able to finally cook in our renovated kitchen. At that point in time, it was totally a dream as we were living in two bedrooms in our house…one as a living room and one as a bedroom while the opposite end of the Red Brick Ranchero was, well, basically gutted.

But that’s another story. Back to the recipe.

This one involved Swiss chard, garlic and a beef tenderloin having a meeting of the minds and ending up in a beautiful red and green swirl on a plate with a few potatoes as a side.

I have thought about this recipe and thought about it and today decided, well if life doesn’t throw a beef tenderloin at you, it can at least throw a flank steak.

I butterflied the flank, laid it out flat and beat the you know what out of it with a rolling pin. Then I put a pile of garlicky sautéed Swiss chard and shavings of Manchego cheese in the middle and rolled it all up.



Browned it on all sides on top of the stove, ran it in the oven for twenty minutes, let it sit and think for five and slices of pure pleasure landed on our dinner plates.

Sometimes it pays to think about something for awhile before you do it.


Flank Steak Stuffed with Swiss Chard and Manchego Cheese

1 1-2 lb flank steak, butterflied, click here to learn how
1 bunch Swiss chard, rinsed, stemmed, chopped
4 fat cloves garlic, minced
Extra virgin olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
About 6 thin sliced Manchego cheese
Preheat oven to 375.

Butterfly your flank steak or have butcher do it for you. Put steak between two pieces of saran wrap and beat it til of uniform thickness. Sprinkle with coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Heat large skillet with a couple of swirls extra virgin olive oil over medium high heat. Throw in the garlic and let cook until golden. Add the chard and cook until it’s just wilted.

Take off heat and put in colander to let juices drain out. When cool enough to handle, squeeze as much liquid out as you can and put chard on top pf the steak. Place the cheese on top of the chard. Starting at the side of the steak closest to you, roll the steak tightly and tie with kitchen twine in several places.

Season the outside of the rolled steak with salt and pepper. Heat a bit of olive oil in saute pan and brown on all sides. Put in a small casserole dish, place in oven and let cook about 20 minutes at 375. Take out and let sit for 5 minutes or til reaches internal temperature of 130-140 depending on how rare you like your steak.

Serves 3.

Flank Steak Stuffed with Swiss Chard and Manchego Cheese

The Patty Melt

My all time favorite sandwich is a patty melt.

Sure, I’m happy when I have a hamburger or a cheeseburger. A Hardees’s Thick Burger once a year on the way to the beach, that’s cool. But what really gets me going is a patty melt.

When I was in college, there was a pub on campus called The Bistro. They had patty melts, which they called grilled cheese burgers. I lived on them. Give me a Tab with a lemon slice and a patty melt and I was good to go for the day.

Groom makes the best patty melt ever. He’s serious about them. He does the whole thing, the onions, the rye bread, the Swiss cheese, the ground chuck.

And they are amazing. They cure hangovers, they warm you up on a cold afternoon, they taste divine on the deck at midnight on a hot summer night.


The Patty Melt

12 ounces ground chuck
1 tbsp tamari sauce
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 pieces good rye bread
3 slices baby Swiss cheese, cut in strips
1 Spanish onion, diced
Hellmann’s mayonnaise

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium high heat and put a swirl of extra virgin olive oil in pan. When hot, add the onion and cook til golden brown.

Combine meat, tamari and ground black pepper in bowl and form into 2 large patties. Heat a large nonstick skillet and fry the burgers on each side. Spread Hellmann’s mayonnaise on one side of each piece of bread.

When burgers are ready put on the Hellmann’s slathered side of the bread, then onions on burger and then the cheese and top with other mayo’d side of rye bread. Add a little olive oil to the pan and cook on both sides until cheese is melted and bread is golden brown.

You can, of course, grill the burgers and finish on top of the stove.

Serves 2 very generously!!!


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The Patty Melt

Wine Merchant Steak

When I was growing up, my favorite night of the weekend was the one when my parents would go out. Usually a Friday or a Saturday night. That meant my best friend, Anne, would come over to spend the night and we would cook dinner for ourselves. It was a major production. We set the table, we lit candles, we put music on the stereo or if it was Friday night, we would time it to watch Time Tunnel with James Darren. We were fork in hand when that came on!

One of the first things I learned to cook by myself was a minute steak. I thought I was the stuff cooking that poor piece of meat to death in a frying pan. I’d do it right too. Butter in the pan, lots of garlic salt on the meat..cooked to perfection once I learned that the minute in minute steak should be taken literally. My favorite topping for a minute steak was sautéed mushrooms. Again the butter and mushrooms cooking down and then splashing in a bit of Worcestershire sauce that usually instantaneously disappeared considering the fact that at that point in my life, high was the heat of choice, leaving a wonderful caramely flavor.

Needless to say, I outgrew minute steaks fairly quickly. Discovering tenderloin will do that to you. Yes, it’s expensive and no, you can’t eat it every night. But tenderloin brings on the same anticipation that the minute steak brought to me when I was ten. The table is set, the candles are lit, there’s wine to open and the weekend begins.

Wine Merchant Steak..adapted from Jacques Pepin’s Table

2 -7 ounce tenderloin filets
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 shallots, peeled and chopped
4 ounces baby Bella or Crimini mushrooms, sliced
2-3 large cloves garlic, peeled, smashed and finely chopped
1 cup Beaujolais
1 cup low sodium chicken stock
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
A little bitty dab of horseradish sauce
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
A bit of cornstarch
Finely chopped chives

Season the steaks with salt and pepper. Heat oil in cast iron pan and when hot, add the steaks and sauté for 2-3 minutes per side for medium rare.
Remove steaks to plate and set aside in warm place. To drippings in skillet add shallots, and sauté for about 10 seconds, add mushrooms and garlic and sauté for about a minutes. Stir in wine and boil down until only about 2 tbsp remain. Add stock and reduce the mixture to about ¾ cup. Add Worcestershire and Dijon mustard and mix well. Take a little bit of the hot sauce and mix with maybe ½ tsp cornstarch and dissolve then add back to pan and whisk till smooth.

Bring to boil. Season to taste.
Plate the steaks and drizzle sauce over.
Put face in plate and enjoy.
Serves 2.

Wine Merchant Steak