International night – Ireland

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve updated this site, but I wanted to get caught back up with posting our international night recipes. When we started doing international night, I began with it on a Thursday night. That worked out pretty good for us until the week of Oct. 22. That Thursday night I had parent teacher conferences until 6:30 p.m., leaving no time to prepare an international meal after I got home. However, I came up with the solution to the problem by preparing Irish stew in the crock pot and serving it up to my bunch when I got home.

When I started researching Irish stew, I found that it’s one of those meals that everybody prepares to their own taste, but there are some common ingredients such as beef (or lamb), potatoes, carrots and onions. Stew is one of those great peasant meals that has become a comfort food staple for many people all over the world. I love a good stew, and the fact that Irish stew is traditionally served over another great comfort food, mashed potatoes, made it even more appealing to me.

I recipes that used just stew beef, beef mince (ground beef) and a combination of the two. I ended up going with one that had stew beef and meatballs made from ground beef. It was good, but I didn’t really get the point of going to the trouble of making meatballs, so I probably wouldn’t do that again.

A lot of recipes had Guinness beer added in, but after researching I discovered that traditionally Irish stew did not contain beer, so I left it out.

Here is the recipe for Irish stew that I used, but feel free to come up with your own version.

1 lb. beef stew meat

1 lb. ground beef

4 carrots, chopped

4 medium potatoes, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1/2 T. dried thyme

1/2 T. dried parsley

1 bay leaf

1 qt. beef stock

3 c. water

salt and pepper to taste

mashed potatoes

Brown stew beef and form ground beef into meatballs and brown. Combine all ingredients except mashed potatoes in a crock pot and cook on high for 3 hours or low for 8 hours until vegetables are tender. Remove bay leaf before serving. Serve over mashed potatoes.

International Night – France

I’m home with a sick 12 year-old today, so I can finally take the time to post last week’s International Night fare. At the suggestion of my son, we chose French cuisine. Although there are many more elaborate and well known French dishes, I chose to prepare steak frites largely due to time constraints.

We will probably revisit the food of France on a week when I’m not working because most of the recipes I found required lots of preparation and cooking time. With only about two hours after we get home in the afternoons to prepare our dinner, I’m a bit limited as to the complexity of the dishes I can select.

Steak frites, which is essentially a steak and fries, is apparently very popular in France and Belgium. Growing up steak and fries was a weekly meal in our house, but I had no idea we were being European chic!

There were a couple of unique things about the way the French prepare their steak and fries, though. First of all, they cook the steak in a skillet instead of grilling or broiling it. I don’t remember this, but several of my friends say they recall my mom preparing steaks in a skillet when they would stay over at our house. I do this occasionally when I don’t want to heat up the oven or grill, and it’s usually pretty good.

It appears the French use a variety of sauces to serve with the steak, but the most common seems to be a red wine and shallot sauce. I couldn’t find shallots, so I just used yellow onions. The sauce was excellent, though.

The other interesting thing in the preparation was the way the fries are cooked. They make homemade fries and cook them in medium hot oil for a few minutes and then remove them to drain on paper towels. Then the oil is heated to a higher temperature, and the fries are cooked until golden brown. They were very crispy, and I guess the frying method is the reason.

There were tons of recipes online for steak frites, but I used one from Rachael Ray just because it had the easiest to find ingredients. She called for strip steaks, but I found ribeyes on sale, so I used those. Most of the other recipes I found online used ribeyes or sirloins as well. I also didn’t cut my fries as thin as the French normally do just because I was in a hurry.

3 medium russet potatoes, scrubbed and dried

1 T.  extra-virgin olive oil

4 NY strip steaks or ribeye steaks

Salt and pepper

3 T. butter, divided

1 large shallot or small yellow onion, finely chopped

2 T. all-purpose flour

1 c. dry red wine

Heat 1 1/2 to 2 inches oil in a deep frying pan over medium heat to 325 F degrees or use a deep fryer set to 325 degrees. Cut potatoes into thin slices lengthwise. Cut each slice into thin shoestring strips. Place cut potatoes on paper towels. Place two generous handfuls of potatoes at a time into hot oil, in two batches. Par cook the potatoes 2-3 minutes and transfer to a towel lined plate. Raise heat to medium high up to 375 degrees F. When oil is heated to 375, return potatoes to oil in two batches to crisp them, cooking them to a deep, golden brown color, another 2 to 3 minutes per batch. Remove potatoes from oil to clean towels to drain. Season with salt and serve.

For steaks, heat a large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add a little oil to the pan, one turn. Season steaks with salt and pepper. Place steaks in skillet and sear 2 minutes on each side. Reduce heat to medium and cook steaks 6 minutes longer for medium rare, 8 for medium to medium well. Remove steaks to a warm plate to rest. Add 2 tablespoons butter and the shallots to the pan. Cook shallots 2 or 3 minutes, add flour to the pan and cook a minute longer. Whisk wine into pan and lift pan drippings up. Add the last tablespoon of butter and remove the pan from the heat. Spoon wine and shallot sauce over the steaks and serve with hot, shoestring potatoes.

International Night – Hungary

After a couple of less than stellar results, we were back on track with our most recent international recipes. Still examining the cuisine of European countries, I decided to go with Hungary. The most obvious choice of a Hungarian dish was, of course, goulash or gulyas, as it is known in its native land.

Growing up, I recall goulash being a popular dish, though I don’t think my mother ever prepared it. The goulash I remember from the 70’s, however, was very different from the traditional Hungarian recipes I found online. I remember a dish with ground beef in a tomato sauce with macaroni noodles being passed off as goulash, but traditional goulash is more like a beef stew.

One of the things that makes gulyas unique is the fact that it is seasoned with Hungarian sweet paprika, which is apparently quite different than the paprika we find on our grocery store shelves. If I had planned my meal better, I would have had time to order some real Hungarian paprika, but I had to settle for the standard American version. The end result was still very good, though.

We also had another Hungarian staple, langos. Langos is a deep fried potato-based flat bread that is a popular street food in Hungary. Although sometimes it is topped with a variety of items like sour cream, cheese and onions, langos is most often simply rubbed with a garlic clove and salted. The langos was a big hit as well, and the garlic and salt gave it an awesome flavor.

Here are the recipes for Hungarian gulyas and langos:

Gulyas

1 lb. lean boneless stewing beef

2 T. olive oil

2 medium onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

2 tsp.Hungarian sweet paprika

dash of cayenne pepper

3 c. beef stock or broth

2 c. water

1/2 teaspoon caraway seed

salt and pepper to taste

1 (16 ounce) can diced tomatoes

3 medium potatoes, peeled and diced

2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced

2 bell peppers, cut into chunks

2 T. flour

2 T. water

Cut beef into 1-inch cubes. Place oil in Dutch oven and add beef. Brown on all sides. Add onions and garlic to pan and cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add paprika, cayenne, stock, the 2 cups water, caraway, salt and pepper. Stir well. Bring to boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low; cook, covered, 45 minutes.

Add tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and peppers. Stir well; return to boil. Cover; cook 30 minutes or until vegetables are done.

Combine flour and the 2 tablespoons water; stir to form smooth paste. Add slowly to soup, stirring well. Cook over low heat, stirring until thickened.

Langos

1 pkg. dry yeast

1 1/2 c. lukewarm water

3 medium potatoes, peeled and boiled

1/2 tsp. salt

6 1/2 c. flour

kosher salt

2 to 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut in half

Dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup of the warm water. Mash the potatoes with a ricer or fork. Add the salt. Mix the potatoes with the flour, adding the yeast mixture and enough additional water to make the dough easy to knead. Knead on a floured surface until no longer sticky. Place dough in oiled bowl, turn over so that the oiled side is up, cover it and let it rise until doubled.

Punch down and divide the dough into 10 or 12 portions. Flatten each piece out with your hands or a rolling pin. Fry the dough, a few pieces at a time, until golden brown, turning as necessary. Remove from oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and rub with a cut clove of garlic.

International Night – Greece

My son requested Greece for our featured country this week, and it proved to be a bit of a challenge to find a main dish recipe. Many Greek dishes are made with lamb, and none of us really care for lamb, so those recipes were out. I finally settled on pastitsio, a pasta and meat sauce dish that is popular in Greece, particularly around Easter.

To be honest, we didn’t really care for it, but it’s only because I insisted on preparing it the authentic Greek way, with cinnamon and nutmeg as seasoning for the tomato based meat sauce. I don’t know about most readers, but in my family cinnamon and nutmeg aren’t spices we generally use with ground beef and tomatoes.

I remember one time when I was young, my dad accidentally added cinnamon to the chicken and dressing one Thanksgiving because he thought it was sage. I never really ate chicken and dressing, so it didn’t bother me, but the rest of the family gave him a hard time about that for years. I guess he would have fit in nicely as a Greek cook!

If you are willing to try new tastes, you can prepare the pastitsio the way the Greeks do. If you’re not feeling that adventurous, feel free to omit the cinnamon and nutmeg and add the familiar spice of your choice.

The Greek salad, however, was a big hit. It was very simple to make, and I’m going to do my best to approximate the measurements for the recipe since I just threw it together based on the traditional ingredients.

Greek Salad

3 medium tomatoes, chopped

2 cucumbers, sliced

1/4 c. red onion, diced

1 c. kalamata olives

8 oz. feta cheese, cubed

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cracked black pepper

1/4 tsp. dried oregano

1/4 tsp. dried basil

2 T. olive oil

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Serve on a bed of lettuce, if desired.

Pastitsio

8 oz. penne or ziti pasta

3 T. melted butter

1/3 c. grated parmesan cheese

1/3 c. milk

1 egg, beaten

1 lb. ground beef

1/2 c. chopped onion

1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp. pepper

4 T. butter

4 T. all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp. salt

2 c. milk

1 egg, beaten

1/3 c. parmesan cheese

Cook pasta; drain, and return to pan. Stir in the melted butter, 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, 1/3 cup milk, and the egg; set aside.

In a a skillet or large saucepan, cook ground beef and onion until meat is browned and onion is soft; drain excess fat. Stir in tomato sauce, the 1 teaspoon salt,  cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper; set aside.

In a saucepan, melt 4 tablespoons butter, then mix in flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Slowly stir in the 2 cups milk, stirring well after each addition so that no lumps form. Cook and stir on medium high until cream sauce starts to thicken; stir for one minute more, then remove from heat. Beat egg in a small bowl, then pour into cream sauce, stirring briskly. Blend in the 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese.

Layer half the pasta mixture in a 11" x 7" (or 2 quart) baking dish. Spoon the meat mixture evenly on top, then the remaining pasta. Pour cream sauce over top, to cover completely. Bake, uncovered, at 350F for about 40 minutes, or until hot and lightly browned. Let stand for 10 minutes.

International Night – Germany

Tonight we enjoyed our second International Night with food, facts and activities from Germany. My son suggested Germany for our first week, but after doing a little research, I decided to prepare sauerbraten as our main dish. I discovered that the beef roast had to marinate for three days, so German night was pushed back.

Our German night was made even more authentic with the help of Candace, an old friend who is living in Germany with her family for a year. Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I’ve been able to ask Candace for her advice on German food and culture the last couple of weeks, and she has been kind enough to take time out of her schedule to help me. I can always do research online about the food and customs of the various countries we choose, but it’s been great to actually get confirmation about things from people rather than a website. I really appreciate your help, Candace and family!

Candace suggested the potatoes and red cabbage as side dishes to my sauerbraten, and I decided to try to make spaetzle, a traditional German dumpling. I gave it my best shot, but it was kind of a miss. I’m not sure if I overcooked them or undercooked them, but they were a little too soft. We had spaetzle this summer when we ate at Epcot’s Biergarten, and it was much firmer. I threw in some pretzel nuggets since we ate pretzel bread at Biergarten as well. These were just some frozen ones I bought at Kroger, and they weren’t that great. 

Even though everything wasn’t perfect, we had plenty of good food. For our activity of the evening, we played the game Settlers of Catan, which my husband tells me is extremely popular in Germany (confirmed by Candace). Although I’m not a big board gamer, I thought it was pretty fun. Of course, my opinion of the game was greatly enhanced by the fact that I won!

Here are the recipes for sauerbraten and spaetzle as I prepared them tonight:

Spaetzle (adapted from allrecipes.com)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup milk

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 pinch freshly ground pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

Mix together flour, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Beat eggs well, and add alternately with the milk to the dry ingredients. Mix until smooth. Press dough through a large holed sieve or metal grater. Drop a few at a time into simmering liquid. Cook 5 to 8 minutes. Drain well. Saute cooked spaetzle in butter or margarine.

Sauerbraten (Alton Brown’s recipe)

2 cups water

1 cup cider vinegar

1 cup red wine vinegar

1 medium onion, chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, additional for seasoning meat

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 bay leaves

6 whole cloves

12 juniper berries

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 (3 1/2 to 4-pound) bottom round

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/3 cup sugar

8 dark old-fashioned gingersnaps (about 5 ounces), crushed

In a large saucepan over high heat combine the water, cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, onion, carrot, salt, pepper, bay leaves, cloves, juniper, and mustard seeds. Cover and bring this to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Pat the bottom round dry and rub with vegetable oil and salt on all sides. Heat a large saute pan over high heat; add the meat and brown on all sides, approximately 2 to 3 minutes per side.

When the marinade has cooled to a point where you can stick your finger in it and not be burned, place the meat in a non-reactive vessel and pour over the marinade. Place into the refrigerator for 3 days. If the meat is not completely submerged in the liquid, turn it over once a day.

After 3 days of marinating, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Add the sugar to the meat and marinade, cover and place on the middle rack of the oven and cook until tender, approximately 4 hours.

Remove the meat from the vessel and keep warm. Strain the liquid to remove the solids. Return the liquid to the pan and place over medium-high heat. Whisk in the gingersnaps and cook until thickened, stirring occasionally. Strain the sauce through a fine mesh sieve to remove any lumps. Slice the meat and serve with the sauce.

Summer salad series – spicy Thai beef salad

Until last year, I had never had Thai food. A small Thai restaurant opened nearby, and ever since my first visit for our anniversary last summer, I’ve been hooked on the stuff. Everything I’ve tried there has been wonderful, but one dish in particular has become my absolute favorite, the spicy beef salad. I find myself thinking about the flavorful mix of beef, cucumbers, mint and cilantro quite often, and as a bonus, it’s not covered with a heavy sauce or anything else that would make it taboo for my Weight Watchers plan.

This weekend I was thinking how wonderful it would be to have a bowl of lemongrass soup followed by the succulent spicy beef salad. However, I had my three year-old son with me, and I decided it would be best to forgo the trip. The Thai restaurant is a beautifully decorated, quaint space that I feel is not exactly kid friendly. Some people might feel comfortable bringing toddlers to such a place, but I feared my son might act up. I certainly didn’t want to expose myself to any situation where I wouldn’t feel like I could go back there frequently, so we went to another restaurant instead. For the record, I think it’s great that there are restaurants that aren’t appropriate for young kids, so I’m not complaining. My 11 year-old loves it there, but he is old enough to sit still and enjoy his meal while speaking at an acceptable volume.

Unfortunately, though, my craving for spicy beef salad did not subside, so I decided to pick up some things when I went grocery shopping later to try to make it at home. I knew what the main ingredients were, and I guessed at the rest. When I got home, I looked up some different versions of the dish online and adapted mine according to my own personal taste. I was extremely pleased with the results, but I still plan on frequenting Sai Thai Cuisine whenever possible. Let me just say that I made my version extremely spicy because of my husband’s love of hot food. Feel free to tone down the heat. It will still be awesome. There are some very strong flavors in this dish, but give it a chance.

Here is my version of spicy Thai beef salad:

1 lb.-1 1/2 lb. flank steak
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
6 c. leaf lettuce, torn
1/2 c. fresh mint leaves, torn
1/2 c. fresh cilantro leaves, torn
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2-1 tsp. dried red pepper
4 green onions, finely chopped
1 cucumber, peeled and sliced
juice of 3 limes
1 T. vegetable oil or sesame oil
2 T. soy sauce or fish sauce
1/2 tsp. sugar or Splenda

Marinate flank steak in 1/2 c. soy sauce and red wine vinegar for several hours or overnight. Grill or broil over medium heat, 5 to 10 minutes on each side until medium or medium rare, depending on preference. This step can be done a day ahead and flank steak refrigerated, if desired.

Combine lime juice, oil, 2 T. soy sauce and sugar or Splenda in a large bowl and stir until sugar is dissolved. Add mint, cilantro, basil, pepper, onions and cucumber and mix well. Refrigerate 30 minutes if possible to help combine flavors. Thinly slice beef and reheat in a skillet if necessary. Just before serving, add lettuce to salad mixture and mix well. Serve salad mixture with beef and steamed white rice, if desired. Pour any remaining dressing over beef.  Garnish with some additional sliced cucumber, if desired.

Thompsons’ awesome flat iron steaks

A couple of years ago, my husband and I started watching barbecue guru Steven Raichlen’s show on PBS. We both like coming up with new things to grill, and Raichlen gave us a lot of new recipes, but I will always remember the show as being our first introduction to the wonderful flat iron steak.

Everybody in our house loves steak, and I’ve been a steak fan for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I remember my mom had a standing order at Howard & Suda’s grocery store for steaks every Friday. I can vividly remember her taking the steaks home where she would wrap a piece of bacon around the edge of each steak and secure it with a toothpick before encasing it in plastic wrap. My mom didn’t have a new car until she was in her mid-40’s, we always had hand-me down furniture in our living room, but we always had steaks.

When I was living at home during my college years, I would often have to work late and get home past 10 p.m. My mom was always worried that I hadn’t eaten, so she would stay up and offer to fix me something when I got home. Most parents would probably ask if they could fix them a sandwich or something simple. My mom, however, would always start with, “Do you want me to fix you a steak?” I guess it’s no surprise that I’m still always on the lookout for the perfect medium-rare hunk of beef at a good price.

My history with steak made the flat-iron find even more satisfying. Besides the fact that it’s a wonderful tasting steak, it’s also very affordable. The flat irons come in a big slab at Kroger, which is the only store around here that I’ve been able to find them. We are all hearty eaters here, but I’ve found that one slab (usually around 1.5 lbs.) can easily make three steaks. At $4.99/pound, that works out to a pretty economical steak in my book.

My husband and I teamed up to make our steaks, and it’s worked out great. I tinkered around and came up with a wonderful marinade using beer, worcestershire sauce, A1 marinade and Strawberry’s Backyard Steak Shake. I’ve used more worcestershire or Dale’s Steak Seasoning in place of the beer before, and it’s still good. After marinating them for several hours, he puts them on the grill with a little Montreal steak seasoning. Flat iron steak is popping up on restaurant menus around here, but I can honestly say that I haven’t had one that is even remotely as good as ours.

Last year I had my journalism kids over for an end of the year party, and we made the steaks for them (using the non-beer marinade). They went nuts for them! The one male student loved them so much, I think he had three or four steaks. He was so excited about the steaks, I just didn’t have the heart to tell him he couldn’t have second, thirds or fourths. In fact, he ate so many that my husband had to eat a hot dog because there wasn’t any steak left by the time he got around to eating!

Thank you, Steven Raichlen, for introducing us to the amazing, affordable flat-iron steak!

These are the basic ingredients for the steak, marinade and grill seasoning. Any kind of non-flavored beer will work. This is just what we had on hand. I’m partial to the New York Steakhouse A1 Marinade, but others are good as well. Strawberry’s Backyard Steak Shake may not be available in all areas, but any kind of steak seasoning will work.

1 (1 1/2- 2 lb.) flat iron steak, cut into two or three pieces
1 c. A1 Marinade
1/4 c. worcestershire shire
1 bottle beer
2 T. Strawberry’s Backyard Steak Shake or other steak seasoning
Montreal steak seasoning

Place steaks in a gallon zip bag and add next four ingredients. Shake to mix. Lay bag flat in the refrigerator and marinade for several hours or overnight. Turn bag occasionally.

Remove steaks from marinade and discard remaining marinade. Sprinkle with Montreal steak seasoning and grill on medium-high heat until desired doneness. Serve with sauteed onions and mushrooms, if desired.

I usually serve the flat iron steaks with sauteed onions and mushrooms, corn on the cob and Cajun seasoned boiled new potatoes. We usually have some type of crusty bread, but we weren’t that hungry today, so we left off the bread.