Grinding Meat

It's come to this. We now have to grind our own meat.

The question is why.

Why grind our own meat? We are not the type of people who like to be martyrs to some cause or some recipe. I do not like to create more work for myself than is necessary.

Buying ground meat is probably the easiest meat shopping task there is, since every supermarket or grocery store will always have it in stock.

So why go through the trouble of finding the right cut of meat and cranking out the food processor to grind the meat?

Well, suffice it to say, sometimes -- no, make that more often than not -- there is value in doing the task yourself. Invest a little time and effort and the final result is often more satisfying.

Here are some dishes we are thinking of for our Grinding Meat series.

Lamb:
ragu
kofte (Lebanese kebab)

Beef:
Jamaican patty
spaghetti & meatballs
burger
beef ragu (or ragu Bolognese)

Of course, we can also combine these ground meats in different recipes. I am already thinking of a tri-meat meatloaf, which I think is how it is usually done, although for laziness, we usually stick with one meat.

Let the fun begin!

For the lamb, I started with a whole leg of lamb I had in my freezer.





I did not bother to trim the fat off of the leg. Leg of lamb is usually quite lean and fat is needed to make food taste good.

I cut the leg into approximately 1-inch cubes and batch-processed them into our food processor.



Pulse. I usually count 15 pulses then check the degree of mincing. I found that it took about 20 pulses to get the consistency that I wanted. I found the fatty bits needed more pulses, so I usually just take them out and put the straggly bits into the next batch to pulse.



The bits of celery, onions, carrots you see there are for my lamb ragu. I minced the mirepoix before I started on the lamb.



It's a different texture altogether from one made with a "real" grinder, but, it looks good enough for me, so this lamb was ready to be used in my dishes (lamb ragu and Lebanese kofte).

For the beef, I used chuck steak. Chuck was on special at my local Choices, so I figured this was a good opportunity to use it for ground beef.



Same deal with the lamb, that is, the cutting into cubes and batch-pulsing.



Et voila. Good enough for me and ready to be made into meatballs.

Mushrooms on Toast

We've been seeing this everywhere... OK, "everywhere" is Jamie at Home where he made this with his Italian friend (who was one of his assistants when he battled Mario in Iron Chef America) and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (the original British one, of course!) where it was part of a "modern British menu".

Hmm, that's a potential series for our blog. Modern British Classics. Now we have to find out what British classics are!

I came home one day and there wasn't really anything to eat. For lack of ideas, and because I was feeling lazy (because I was sick! Although, I don't need any excuse to be lazy), I was about to pop in a couple of Jamaican patties when I thought of mushrooms on toast. I knew we had some portobellos in the fridge, as well a baguette bought the day before that was just getting staler and staler and hardening up by the second.



We had a Terra Breads baguette. I don't like it. It's not very French baguette-y at all! I'd rather have one of those Safeway Artisan baguettes; their Artisan line of breads are actually pretty good.

The kitchen gods must have been punishing me for almost resorting to a "ready-meal", because the portobellos were almost FROZEN. For some reason, the fridge was at its coldest setting. Vegetables, especially greens, were frozen and wet!

Look, ice crystals on the mushrooms! (Kinda pretty.)



To appease them, I even decided to remove the gills from the mushrooms. I normally wouldn't because, you know, lazy. After prepping the mushrooms, it was a simple matter of sauteing.



I used both olive oil and butter, added the mushrooms, then added lemon juice and some vinegar after a bit. I used red wine vinegar this time, I believe. We also had some garlic chives (from making pad thai again, heehee) -- and no other herbage -- so I added that to the mix.



When they were more or less done, I added some more butter and some lemon zest.



Then, on the "toast" they went.

(I didn't toast the bread because they were already quite hard and dry from being exposed to air for about 24 hours. I was too lazy to toast them. I know it doesn't take any effort to do so, but I didn't feel like it.)



Again, this is one of those good, simple foods.

[js]
How amazing would this be with a lightly poached egg on top?

We could have used humble button mushrooms here and still be very satisfied.

Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish "Omelette")

How to turn this:


to this:


[ts]
Being the resourceful cooks that we are, we used leftover potatoes from our meat and potatoes meal to conjure up a Spanish tortilla.

To make it authentic (is there any other way to make things), I consulted this tome.



But of course, I made some very, very minor changes. ;)

First of all, I was using already cooked potatoes. Then, as per Culinaria Spain, I just sliced my potatoes thinly.



The recipe called for a lot of oil. We also saw someone in the Spanish episode of that Food Safari show (mentioned here) make a tortilla, and she also dumped a huge amount of oil into her pan. This here is only about 1/4 cup of oil.

I couldn't resist. I sneaked in a few cloves of garlic in there.





I used 8 eggs. I was supposed to beat them until they were frothy. So I beat and whipped...



...and whipped and beat.



Ta-da!
(Although, I don't know if one is really supposed to beat the eggs until that frothy.)



The potatoes go into the eggs and I was supposed to let it stand for a bit. I don't know what letting it stand was supposed to do, but I followed Culinaria.





Showtime. I heated the pan once again (it still had the residual oil from the potatoes) and poured in the mixture. I waited for the mixture to set, then...





Great difficulties arose.

I was supposed to move the tortilla onto a plate first, then flip it over back to the pan to cook the other side. However, I realized that we didn't have anything -- absolutely NOTHING -- that was larger than the pan. I finally used a "large" oval plate that still had two sides that were narrower than the pan. It was a 2-man process as I had to make sure nothing disastrous happened to the tortilla (like, say, it falling into a messy pool on the floor). But, finally, after much manoeuvering, all was well. Here's the 2nd side cooking:



It didn't take long. The only thing able to accommodate the finished product was this large deep serving dish. (I love taking pictures of my hand/fingers for scale, can't you tell?)



Culinaria says that you can serve it hot or cold.



[js]
I was surprised at how well this turned out. Personally, I had my doubts about this -- because, well, potatoes and eggs? I knew about the Spanish tortilla, but I can't imagine myself sitting down to potatoes in eggs.

There is something to be said for tradition so I am glad to be proven wrong in this case. I absolutely love how humble ingredients such as potatoes and eggs can be transformed into something quite goodly nourishing.

[ts]
Yes, I was really surprised that this didn't just taste like some potatoes in egg. The two ingredients became one entity; you didn't know when the potatoes ended and the egg began.

Simple. Good. Food.


eatingclub Spanish
Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish "Omelette")
Roast Duck and Orange Crêpes with Orange-White Wine Sauce
Sardinas na Bangus (Milkfish in the style of Sardines)
Red Wine-braised Squid with Potatoes and Chorizo
Philippine Beef Salpicao (and a Spanish variation)
Stewed Tripe, Spanish-style
Lengua Estofada (Beef Tongue Braised in Red Wine and Veal Stock)
Bacalao con Patatas (Baked Salt Cod and Potatoes)
Salsa Romesco ("Queen of the Catalan Sauces!")
Grilled Calçots (Green Onions) with Salsa Romesco
Empanada de Pavo
(Galician-style Meat Pie with Turkey Filling), plus Turkey Cracklings!
Fideuá (Spanish Seafood Noodle "Paella")... and Paella
Cocido (Spanish Stew with Various Pork Cuts)
Slow-Roast Pork Shoulder, Two Ways

eatingclub vancouver dishes inspired by Food Safari episodes:
Spanish: Tortilla de Patatas
Thai: Waterfall Beef Salad
Lebanese: Tarator-style Sauce
Thai: Thai Basil Stir-Fry (gka prow)
Lebanese: Lamb Kafta (Turkish: Lamb Kofte)
Indonesian: Belado
Moroccan: Preserved Lemons
Moroccan: Chicken Tagine

Some eggy eatingclub dishes
Tarragon-Carrot Deviled Eggs
Golden Egg Torta
Hunanese Stir-fried Eggs with Green Peppers
Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish "Omelette")
Piedmont Marinated Eggs
Asparagus and Crab Egg Crêpes
Stir-fried Egg and Tomato
Oyster Torta
Torta with Pork and Kecap Manis
Curried (Easter) Egg Salad
Taiwanese Stewed Eggs (滷蛋) with Stewed Minced Pork (魯肉 or 肉燥)
Longsilog (Longganisa + Sinangag + Itlog)
Torta (Mexican Sandwich)
Mr. Zheng's Soupy Tomatoes and Eggs with Tofu
Nasi Lemak (Malaysian Coconut Rice Meal with Sambal)
Home-style Chinese Steamed Egg with Pork
Golden Shrimp Torta (Philippine Shrimp Omelette)