Everything about food, from matching food and wine to recipes, techniques and trends.

RCP/Technique: Meats in wine-rosemary juices

Moderators: Jenise, Robin Garr, David M. Bueker

no avatar
User

Max Hauser

Rank

Ultra geek

Posts

447

Joined

Thu Jul 19, 2007 2:57 pm

Location

Usually western US

RCP/Technique: Meats in wine-rosemary juices

by Max Hauser » Wed Aug 01, 2007 2:31 pm

This is proving such a useful principle it's worth highlighting.

Last winter, Joyce Goldstein published a recipe article, "Veal in wine-rosemary juices." Typical Italian braise with wine and savory ingredients. Goldstein stressed versatility: The flavorful cooked juices make a fine sauce over pasta with optional cheese, the meat served separately. Or you can chop the cooked meat and combine with the juices (which I did), again good with noodles and cheese.

This is serious comfort-food territory, and such cooking also stores and reheats very well. No only was it delicious, but microwaveable frozen portions later joined frozen onion soups in deliveries to two sick friends. (Both recovered immediately.)

I thought the idea might work with precooked meats and it did, better than I expected. The flavors "took" despite briefer acquaintance of ingredients than when the meat is cooked from raw.

Local warehouse-type stores have been offering Brazilian canned cooked beef. Labels reported honest ingredients and low fat content, so I tried both brands and they were of good quality. (One brand adds starch for rudimentary "gravy," the other is brisket pieces in broth.) This leads to the obvious question of what to do with it that tastes very good? (Morrison Wood found cooked chicken in jars and used a case of it trying to make something interesting, with some success. Sixty years ago.) I have experience using canned fish and poultry, but not canned beef.

The best use so far was with wine-rosemary juices, pre-cooked then gently simmered with the canned meat.

Few handfuls chopped leek and shallot (to give the "juices" soul) into heavy saucepan with some chicken stock (maybe half the volume of the vegetables), simmer 15-20 minutes to begin cooking things down. Add generous chopped fresh rosemary leaves* (small handful, or generous tablespoon), a grind or two of black pepper, and red wine, say a little less volume than what's already in the pot. I happened to use the bottom of a 1996 Echézeaux opened the day before, which worked excellently, but any rich red wine you like to drink should serve. Bring this to boil and keep at moderate heat, uncovered, for 40 minutes or so. Keep an eye on it and stir occasionally so it doesn't burn. Point is both to cook the ingredients together and to reduce the liquid a bit. Important: As with other recipes using canned foods, do not add salt until the end if ever: in this case I never did, because the canned meat had more than enough salt (as I'd expected from the sodium content on the label). The final ingredient was two 12-ounce (340g) cans of the beef with "gravy." Returned to boil, simmered gently an hour or so (gently so as not to break up the meat too much, since it's already cooked).

The juices had good consistency and the sweet onionoids offset the wine's acid (it was a '96 Burg after all). You might want to taste for this along the way, adjusting ingredients accordingly. (I didn't, I just relied on past experience with stew proportions. There's a classic German stew, by the way, that is simplicity itself: Equal weights beef, leeks, and beer. Chop appropriately and stew together until done; salt to taste.)

Right after making it, this went exquisitely over linguine noodles.


*Rosemary in my experience is the easiest herb to grow, it's hardy and it even looks nice. Therefore fresh rosemary can be easy to have. Friends with a Volkswagen-sized bush of it pick long sprigs, layer them over a charcoal grill, add boneless chicken thigh cuts, cover and smoke for a glorious cheap flavorful starting point in quick meals.
no avatar
User

Jenise

Rank

FLDG Dishwasher

Posts

43586

Joined

Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:45 pm

Location

The Pacific Northest Westest

Re: RCP/Technique: Meats in wine-rosemary juices

by Jenise » Tue Aug 07, 2007 12:15 pm

Max, you posted this a week ago and I never saw it before this morning. I'm so sorry! But: canned beef. Now THAT is an interesting conversation for foodies to have. We all accept canned tuna, but we tend not to look kindly on other canned meats. I bought some canned chicken by accident (thought I was grabbing tuna), and it was one of those stacks of like four cans all shrink-wrapped together at Costco. I opened one can, and the others still sit in my pantry. They probably expired years ago.

I had mixed feelings about the can I did open. Tastewise, it instantly reminded me of the diced chicken bits in the canned chicken noodle soup of my childhood. Although Mom made a great chicken noodle soup from scratch, she kept a lot of canned goods on hand for me since I would cook those for myself when I didn't like the breakfast or lunch the rest of the family was getting--and that was fairly often. Back then, I loved a lot of things kids usually don't like, but I also disliked a lot of conventional foods so canned soup was my friend. And tasting that flavor, it was kind of good, like an old friend, but at the same time it was kind of useless. Did I want to replicate canned chicken soup? Not hardly. Make chicken salad sandwiches? Not a fan--it tastes like tuna salad that someone left the most essential ingredient out of.

But many years ago I had one very good experience with canned beef. Friends and I had planned a weekend at Big Bear Lake, and one of the foods we decided to make was beef tacos. Richard, who was Mexican, volunteered to make them his mother's way. And he showed up with canned beef. I had no idea such a thing existed, but Richard insisted that his mother preferred canned beef for this taco filling, it was what she had used in Mexico pre-refrigeration. And I have to tell you: it was good. We shredded it and sauteed it with cooked diced potatoes, chopped fresh jalapenos, and whatever liquid was in the can. It made a fine and flavorful taco filling, and were you so inclined toward border cuisine it would be an excellent thing to do with your canned Brazilian meat.

Would also be pretty cool for a campout.
no avatar
User

Max Hauser

Rank

Ultra geek

Posts

447

Joined

Thu Jul 19, 2007 2:57 pm

Location

Usually western US

Re: RCP/Technique: Meats in wine-rosemary juices

by Max Hauser » Tue Aug 07, 2007 2:05 pm

Given that all canned food is steam-autoclaved at high temperature to kill any incidental anaerobic bacteria (which otherwise are very dangerous*), it's a wonder any two canned foods taste different from each other. Canned chicken soup exactly fits my impression too of canned poultry, but it has its uses. (Morrison Wood found some, as I mentioned. I use it, absent fresh roasted poultry, for chicken-and-noodles: Big noodles, ideally homemade, barely cooked, tossed with Reggiano Parmesan; chicken or other light meat added on top and slightly mixed in, then some fresh chicken veloute or poulette sauce, made from good stock, over all. Bake until bubbling and browned on top. Do not substitute canned or commercial stock, it increases the mediocrity factor already present from the canned chicken.)

But thus I was skeptical about the canned beef products bought recently (one from Costco, the other, with light starch "gravy," from Smart-and-Final, labeled "Hereford" brand) but was pleased with their quality, and in stew-type dishes the cooked quality of the meat has fit in.


*If you hear of a recall for botulism, that typically means the steam heating wasn't done right.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: AhrefsBot, ClaudeBot and 2 guests

Powered by phpBB ® | phpBB3 Style by KomiDesign