Bob and I agreed last night, as we scooped heavenly spoonfuls of oozing sweet onions, tomato and beef that had condensed into a rich savory goo onto torn hunks of oven-hot crusty bread (and washed down with a nice '98 Bordeaux) that this dish would be #1 on our list of foods we wasted too many years of our lives not knowing about. I had never so much as heard of it before buying Judi Rodgers' Zuni Cafe Cookbook, but it's there described as a handy and traditional French way of using up leftover beef from a pot-au-feu (a recipe I posted here years ago).
Well, I'm here to tell you: forget the pot-au-feu and go straight to the miraton. And because you're not having to make it from presumably meager leftovers, you can make it with a bit more meat, as I do, and more tomatoes too than she calls for which I have found to be of benefit. Even you busy working types can do this on a weeknight by simmering the meat one night while you're having something else for dinner and assembling/baking the miraton the next. The ingredient list is short and inexpensive, the steps are few, and the payoff's huge: it tastes like a thousand times more than the sum of its parts. And as a dinner for two? It doesn't get any more sensuous than this.
Ingredient list:
1.5 lbs lean beef, like a bottom round roast
1 clove garlic
2 bay leaves
water to cover
1 large Vidalia type sweet onion
1 beefsteak tomato
1 tsp capers
2 sprigs thyme (or 1/2 tsp dried)
olive oil
1/2 c bread crumbs (fresh or panko)
Black pepper
Salt
Put the beef in a pan with the garlic, salt and bay leaves, add water to cover. Simmer the meat for about 75 minutes. Let cool and slice the meat thinly, 1/4" or less. Divide in two. Reserve broth for another use.
Cut the onion in half and slice into 1/4" or less slices. Sweat in enough olive oil to keep the onion from browning. When transluscent and very very limp, strip thyme leaves from sprigs and add to onions along with capers.
Slice tomato in 1/8" slices, divide in two.
In a 3 quart gratin pan, layer half the onions and top with beef then tomato slices. Sprinkle about 1/4 c of breadcrumbs on the tomatoes (they'll absorb some of the liquids that the tomatoes and onion will dispense during cooking), apply a few grinds of black pepper and a pinch (or more to your taste) of salt. Repeat with remaining ingredients, finishing the miraton with salt, pepper, a few thyme leaves and a drizzle of olive oil to crisp the bread crumbs.
Bake covered at 350 for about an hour, then increase the heat to 425, remove the lid and bake an additional 30 minutes until golden brown and crispy on top.
Throw a loaf of lighter style bread (ciabatta would be too heavy/tough) into the oven to crisp up during the last 7-8 minutes of cooking.
Now Jenise is going to tell you how to enjoy what you've made, so listen up! To serve, put a picnic blanket on the floor near the fireplace, set with two forks and two wine glasses (if you have pets, consider tumblers.) Mix a quick green salad with large torn leaves and a good vinaigrette. Cut the loaf into four big pieces by separating the top crust from the bottom, and then cutting or tearing each half in half--the idea is that you end up with four relatively flat hunks, each with a crispy side and a soft fluffy side. Wrap these in a linen napkin and place them in a basket. Now arrange the food in the middle of the blanket, pour the wine, share everything--no serving tools needed--and have one of the most intimate, relaxed dinners you've had in a long, long time.
For this dish, I buy the ubiquitous fluffy white long but wider-than-a-baguette French loaf every in-store bakery in American, it seems, charges 99 cents for and stacks up near the cash registers late in the afternoon when they're hot out of the oven. I'm sure you'll know which ones I mean.