Category: Beef

Mongolian Beef

I've been having lots of fun this last month or so with my new wok. I've tried several Asian recipes, experimenting with flavours. I've tried some recipes more than once, trying to get them just right (as ya do). I'm sure you too know what it's like when you try to make a dish for the first time, and you eat it and think, "That was yummy but next time I'll..." I've been doing a lot of that in the last few weeks!

One of the first meals I made in the wok was a Kylie Kwong recipe for Mongolian Beef. It was delicious made just as the recipe directs, though I do confess I substituted shredded rump steak for Kylie's recommended beef mince. (And don't forget to taste as you cook, to ensure you have a nice balance of flavours!)

This is a quick and simple family meal that's both tasty and healthy. It doesn't even have to be hot (as in chillies) at all if you leave off the suggested chilli garnish.

Mongolian Beef

Mongolian Beef

Serves 4

Ingredients

• For the marinade
  • 2 tablespoons rice wine
  • 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon cornflour
  • 1 tablespoon ginger, finely diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, finely diced
  • ½ teaspoon sesame oil
• For the beef
  • 600 g rump steak, shredded
  • 1 head chinese cabbage, finely shredded
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt
  • 50 ml vegetable oil
  • 2 tablespoons rice wine
  • 2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
  • 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
  • 1 teaspoon malt vinegar
  • ½ teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1 small carrot, peeled and finely sliced
  • 1 small red pepper, finely sliced
  • 1 bunch spring onions, finely sliced
• To serve
  • steamed rice
  • sliced chillies

Directions

1. Combine all of the marinade ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Add in the beef and leave to marinate in fridge for 30 minutes.
3. Put the cabbage and salt into another bowl and mix well to combine. Leave to stand for 15 minutes then rinse under cold water and drain. Squeeze out any excess liquid with your hands.
4. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a wok until the surface starts to shimmer slightly. Add half of the marinated beef and stir fry for 30 seconds. Remove from the wok with a slotted spoon and set to one side.
5. Add the remaining oil to the wok and cook the remaining beef for 30 seconds before returning the reserved beef to the pan.
6. Add in the rice wine, hoisin and oyster sauce, vinegar and sesame oil and cook for a further 30 seconds.
7. Toss in the cabbage, carrot and pepper and stir-fry for a further minute.
8. Stir through the spring onions, reserving a few for garnish and remove from the heat.
9. Spoon the beef into a serving bowl, sprinkle with remaining spring onions and serve with rice and sliced chillies.

Posted by Vicki on Friday, June 04, 2010 at 06:54 PM in Recipes and Asian and Beef and Low-fat and Stir-fry.

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Crunchy Szechuan Beef

My new wok arrived yesterday! Yay! I do love getting new kitchen toys.

Naturally, the wok had to be "christened" that very day. It's made of carbon steel so it first had to be seasoned — a baptism of fire indeed and so exciting to see the grey metal change colour to a beautiful shiny black. After that, it was ready to be put to use.

The recipe I eventually decided on was a Neil Perry one: Szechuan Beef. I settled on this one because, firstly, I figured anything Neil Perry put his name to was bound to be worth eating, and also because it looked simple to make and I had most of the ingredients already.

The result was extremely tasty. Beautifully balanced flavours and mildly spicy, with a crunch to the beef that was unusual (to me) but pleasing. I loved the shredded carrot and celery with it too; the absence of chunky pieces ensures that the balance of flavour and texture is maintained in every mouthful.

Crunchy Szechuan Beef

Crunchy Szechuan Beef

Serves 2, or 4 as part of an Asian-style banquet

Ingredients

• Vegetable oil, for cooking
• 450 g beef fillet, shredded
• ½ tablespoon hot bean paste
• ½ tablespoon ginger, chopped
• ½ tablespoon spring onions, chopped
• ½ cup shredded carrot
• ½ cup shredded celery
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• ½ tablespoon shaoxing wine
• ½ tablespoon caster sugar
• Dash sesame oil
• ¼ teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns, roasted and ground
• spring onion, extra, to garnish

Directions

1. Heat a wok and add vegetable oil. Deep fry the beef about 6 minutes, until crispy, then remove from the wok and drain.
2. Reheat the wok and add ½ tablespoon oil. Stir fry the ginger and spring onion until fragrant, then add the hot bean paste, carrot and celery and toss well.
3. Return the beef to the wok with the shaoxing, soy, sugar, sesame oil and Szechuan pepper. Stir fry 1 minute and finish with a little extra spring onion.
4. Serve with steamed jasmine rice.

Posted by Vicki on Thursday, April 29, 2010 at 04:11 PM in Recipes and Asian and Beef and Stir-fry.

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Pepper Steak with Red Wine, Parmesan and Chilli

It's time for another recipe blog post. "Yay!" I hear you cry. (Well, I can dream.)

We actually had this lovely, simple steak meal a few weeks ago, and I threw the photo up on Edible 365 and forgot about it. I'm shocked I could do that. It actually looked reasonably pretty in the photo, which makes it bloggable. Often my food photos are so bad (usually because the food presentation is — I'm still working on that!) I can't blog the meal because I don't have a supporting photo. Given that it has been so long since I put a recipe on Ozfoodie, when the photo caught my eye today I thought I would blog its recipe.

The recipe (which I found on Cuisine.com.au) calls for fillet steak but I used scotch fillet. Scotch fillet steak kinda sprawls across the plate and doesn't look as neat as the more compact fillet, but I prefer it in terms of flavour. If it's just about anything versus flavour, I choose flavour!

If (like me) you enjoy a nice, thick steak and want a decent thickness with scotch fillet steak, it is likely to weigh in at more than the recipe's suggested 150g. However, taking the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet as a guide, with its recommendation of 200g of protein per main meal with little or low carbohydrates, a weightier steak in this meal is perfectly acceptable. Sadly, however, I never seem to be able to finish a piece of steak that big, and it makes for a man-sized meal, so if you have a smaller appetite you could consider cutting a very large steak in half for two people.

Pepper Steak with Red Wine, Parmesan and Chilli

Juicy steak on sweet potato mash, in just a spoonful of red wine sauce, topped with chilli and parmesan.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• For the mash
  • 800 g sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks
  • black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon butter
  • 6 tablespoons low-fat milk
• For the steak
  • black pepper
  • 2 teaspoons butter
  • 4 fillet steaks (about 150g each)
  • 100 ml red wine
  • 50 g parmesan, shaved
  • 2 large red chillies, finely sliced
  • 2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley leaves

Directions

1. For the mash: Cook sweet potato in lightly salted boiling water (I left out the salt and didn't miss it) for about 10 minutes or until tender. Drain, add ground pepper, butter (I also used unsalted butter) and milk and mash until smooth.
2. For the steak: Grind black pepper coarsely on both sides of steaks. Heat butter in a large heavy-based pan until nut-brown, add steaks and cook over medium to high heat for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until cooked as desired. Remove steaks from pan and rest in a warm place.
3. Add wine to pan and stir over medium heat, scraping the residue from the base of pan. Check seasoning and when slightly reduced pour sauce over steaks and top with parmesan, chilli and parsley.
4. Serve with mash and green salad leaves.

Notes

If you love garlic, you can add a sliced garlic clove to the mash water, and when the water is drained, retain the clove and mash it in with the sweet potato.

Posted by Vicki on Saturday, April 10, 2010 at 03:39 PM in Recipes and Beef and Low-fat.

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Low-fat Beef Stroganoff

There are many, many versions of Beef Stroganoff, which originated in Russia and is traditionally a dish of sautéed beef and sour cream. These days (but still depending on where you are) lean beef strips are often used and onions and mushrooms are usually added. Sometimes mustard and/or tomato paste and/or white wine are also added. Some recipes even use heavy cream instead of sour cream. Rich yumminess. Mmm. But, if you're watching your weight, Beef Stroganoff may not, perhaps, be the best choice.

At the moment, I'm watching my weight. The fact of it is that I always need to watch my weight as I'm prone to putting it on, especially as I enjoy indulging in yummy, rich, fattening meals like Beef Stroganoff. It would be a shame to miss out on it altogether, though, so I set about creating a version that wasn't high in fat but was still tasty.

I figured that judicious use of oil when browning the meat and frying the onions would help, but there was still the sour cream to contend with. Even sour light cream seemed very high in fat and energy. I compared it (using the CalorieKing online food database) with low-fat natural yoghurt, which I've been using a fair bit of in my cooking lately, and there was quite a difference. I thought the yoghurt worth a try and it actually worked quite well.

I also liked the idea of the addition of some paprika that I'd seen in some recipes, so decided to try that too.

Unfortunately for my waistline, I've never been impressed with Beef Stroganoffs that use lean meat. It invariably, in my experience, fails to be suitably tender. (Though maybe I just haven't tried hard enough? Or maybe it's because I'd normally eat lean meat medium to rare.) I did consider using strips of scotch fillet, which is a very tender cut of beef, but in the end I chose the much cheaper alternative of diced chuck, cooked slowly. Chuck is a tough cut that is sweet and delicious when slow cooked, so that's what I used, first trimming as much fat off as I could. It may not have ended up exactly low in fat, but at least I knew it was going to be meltingly tender.

The end result was indeed rich and tender and had great flavour, so much so that we figured — diet or not — we'd stick with this version in future.

Low-fat Beef Stroganoff

Not exactly traditional, but it tasted lovely.

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
• 400 g chuck steak, trimmed of fat and diced into 2cm cubes
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 200 g button or other small mushrooms, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• ¾ cup salt-reduced beef stock
• 2 teaspoons cornflour, mixed with 1 tablespoon water or beef stock
• 2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• 100 g low-fat natural yoghurt
• flat-leaf parsley leaves, extra, to garnish

Directions

1. Heat a large, non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add 1 teaspoon oil.
2. Add beef cubes in batches and cook for 3-4 minutes per batch, or until browned. Remove from pan and set aside.
3. Add remaining oil then the onion, and cook for 2 minutes or until the onion starts to soften. Add mushrooms and cook a further 2-3 minutes, then add garlic and paprika and cook about a minute, until fragrant.
4. Return beef to the pan then stir in stock and Worcestershire sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer over a very low heat, covered, for 2 hours or until beef is very tender. (At the start it may look like there isn't enough fluid but it does build up. You can add more stock if you think it really needs it.)
5. Add cornflour mixture and stir until gravy has thickened. Stir in yoghurt and parsley, and season to taste.
6. Serve with pasta or rice and garnish with the extra parsley leaves.

Posted by Vicki on Monday, January 11, 2010 at 04:50 PM in Recipes and Beef and Low-fat.

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Rump Steak with Aioli and Potato Salad

Having hardly been kid-free for quite some time, and my son liking neither steak nor chops, Neil and I had been looking forward to a nice, juicy steak last night as we approached our much-anticipated kid-freeness. Then the message from Connor's dad came through, "Going to Dampier tonight", meaning my son is with us for another few days. Rethink time!!!!

Selfishness reigned. We decided that sausages were easily substituted for steak for the non-discerning (i.e. Connor), and went ahead with our own semi-formulated plan to have steak — but also noting in my iPhone's very slick shopping list app, Shopper, to get a couple of snags for Connor as well.

I opened MacGourmet and Neil and I browsed through all the recipes I filtered out as containing "steak". We shortlisted them, then finally decided on a pick of Neil's — something we hadn't tried before. To tell the truth, I was a bit dubious as it hadn't appealed hugely to me, but I'd given Neil the choice and that was it: Rump Steak with Aioli and Potato Salad. This was derived from a similar recipe on The Main Meal website.

In all, the flavours worked together far better than I'd imagined and this experiment resulted in another "keeper".

Rump Steak with Aioli and Potato Salad

A beautiful variety of colour and flavour.

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 400 g rump steak, halved
• Potato Salad
  • 300 g kipfler potatoes
  • 1 medium red capsicum, sliced thickly
  • 1 bunch asparagus
  • 2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • olive oil
• Aioli
  • 1/4 cup good quality egg mayonnaise
  • 1 small clove garlic, crushed
  • 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped coriander leaves

Directions

1. Wash the potatoes, place in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to boil and cook until just tender. Slice thickly.
2. Heat a BBQ plate or chargrill or other heavy pan. Spray the capsicum with oil and cook for a couple of minutes on each side until just tender. Remove.
3. Spray the pan with oil if necessary, and add the asparagus. Cook, turning, for a few minutes until bright green and tender-crisp. ("Tender-crisp". Love that term!) Remove.
4. Lightly brush the rump steaks with oil and season with salt and freshly-ground pepper. Add to pan and cook for 3 minutes or so each side for medium-rare to rare, depending on the thickness of the steak. If the steak is really spongy when you press on it lightly with your tongs, it is probably still raw. Keep testing as it cooks and feel how the resistance changes. This takes experience more than anything but you will eventually know when it's cooked "just right" for you. (I'm still getting the hang of this and wouldn't like to cook steak for numerous folks with different preferences, but for our own rare/medium-rare tastes we do ok.) When cooked to your liking, remove to a warmed plate and cover loosely with aluminium foil to rest for 5 minutes.
5. Place the potatoes in a bowl and season lightly with salt and pepper. Add the capsicum, asparagus and parsley. Drizzle with a little olive oil and add the lemon juice, and stir carefully to combine.
6. For the aioli, combine the mayonnaise, garlic and coriander, and spoon into a small bowl.
7. To serve, place salad on plates and overlap with steaks. Serve with aioli.

Posted by Vicki on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 at 07:19 PM in Recipes and Beef.

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Chianti Style Beef Rigatoni

Even The Fussy One (my youngest son) liked this one. It is always a risk turning him into a guinea pig, but in this case it paid off. ;-)

We'd actually planned to be guinea pigs tonight, but just for ourselves. I had Italian braciole in mind. Then (as is so often the case) my son's dad said he's going away today so my plans changed. There is no point cooking delicious gourmet food for someone who is unlikely to appreciate it. However, it becomes quite a challenge to find recipe ideas that I think my son will like. He's guaranteed to like anything with sausage or minced beef, but that really is kinda limiting...

I stuck with the Italian theme, bought (yes, I know!) some garlic bread, made a lovely garden salad, and served up this very simple dish. It turned out quite cheap as, although it uses an expensive cut of beef (fillet steak), it doesn't use a lot per person. Cooked lightly, it was tender and moist and there appeared to be heaps to go around. In fact, we expect to get a second meal (for three) out of it, but YYMV.

The original recipe is here but I made a lower fat version of it.

It's always especially successful when The Fussy One approves!

I hope you enjoy it too.

Chianti Style Beef Rigatoni

Simple to prepare with very few ingredients, this pasta dish was rich and tasty.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

• 25 g unsalted butter
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 800 g canned chopped tomatoes
• 350 ml medium-bodied red wine (I used a cheap-but-ok cleanskin merlot and it was great)
• 400 g rigatoni pasta
• 250 g beef eye fillet, very thinly sliced
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley, to serve

Directions

1. Melt butter in a large pan over medium heat. Add garlic. Stir for 1-2 minutes until golden.
2. Add tomato and stir for 5 minutes. Add half the wine, then simmer over medium-high heat for 15 minutes.
3. Add the remaining wine, then simmer for a further 15 minutes until well-reduced.
4. Cook pasta according to packet instructions. When almost cooked, heat oil in a frypan over high heat. Brown beef, in 2 batches, for 5-10 seconds each side.
5. Add beef and pan juices to sauce. Season, add drained pasta and toss.
6. Serve with parmesan and parsley.

Posted by Vicki on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 07:35 PM in Recipes and Beef and Mediterranean and Pasta.

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Beef Casserole with Parmesan Dumplings

I've had this recipe from Taste.com.au in my recipe database for a while now and, frankly, I'm sorry I didn't try it sooner.

I nearly messed up because I approximately halved the portions as there are only two of us — however I accidentally added the full amount of flour as thickener. More wine was thrown in and a bit more stock for good measure, and I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

All's well that ends well and this dish was a roaring success. Cooked very slowly on the stovetop, it had a rich, beefy flavour that left us both very enthusiastically saying, "Mmmm!"

Definitely a "keeper".

Serve with smooth and creamy mashed potato, and steamed vegies.

This casserole could easily be cooked in the slow cooker but I cooked it very, very slowly on the stovetop as there was such a relatively small amount of it.

Beef Casserole with Parmesan Dumplings

Beef casserole and dumplings for (in our case) two.

Serves 5-6

Ingredients

• 1 kg gravy beef or chuck steak, cut into 2cm chunks
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 6 rashers bacon, chopped
• 500 g button mushrooms, halved
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 2 cups (500ml) beef stock
• 1 cup (250ml) red wine
• 2 fresh thyme sprigs
• 3 bay leaves
• Parmesan Dumplings
  • 50 g butter
  • 2 cups (300g) self-raising flour
  • ½ cup (45g) parmesan
  • ¾ cup (185ml) milk

Directions

Posted by Vicki on Thursday, October 08, 2009 at 08:11 PM in Recipes and Beef and Casseroles and Stews and Slow Cooker.

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Cheesy Meatballs with Spaghetti

My youngest son is notorious for being a fussy eater. Thankfully, he's getting a lot better — but I'm always on the lookout for kid-friendly food. This quick and easy recipe from Taste.com.au uses a jar of pasta sauce of your choice and some simple meatballs that have grated parmesan cheese mixed in. This means you don't need to add cheese on the top. We never do, but then again we need to watch our waistlines and you may not! Still, if you scatter some small basil leaves over the top before serving, you'll have a both delicious and attractive meal.

As an alternative to mixing grated cheese throughout the meatball mixture, you might want to cut cubes of cheese and pop them in the middle of each meatball as a tasty surprise.

Cheesy Meatballs with Spaghetti

A kid-friendly meal that the whole family enjoys.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 500 g lean beef mince
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 cup grated tasty cheese
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• ¼ cup chopped basil
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 x 570g jar tomato, onion & basil chunky sauce
• 400 g dried spaghetti
• Basil leaves, to serve

Directions

1. Combine mince, egg, cheese, onion and basil. Season and roll into balls.
2. Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan. Cook half the meatballs for 4-5 minutes. Remove and repeat.
3. Return the meatballs to the pan and pour over sauce. Cover, cook over a medium heat for 20 minutes until cooked through.
4. Cook spaghetti in a large pan of boiling water, as per packet directions. Drain and place in bowl.
5. Spoon over meatballs and sauce. Serve with basil leaves.

Notes

For a healthy alternative, instead of frying the meatballs, place them on a tray, spray lightly with olive oil spray, and bake in a 180ºC oven until brown. Put the meatballs and their juices in a saucepan with the jar of pasta sauce to finish cooking if necessary (this will depend on the size of your meatballs — I like to make mine small as I find they tend to go further) and to heat the sauce.

Posted by Vicki on Thursday, October 01, 2009 at 07:35 PM in Recipes and Beef and Mediterranean.

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