Alice uses cast iron pots and wooden utensils and keeps the recipes as close to the traditional recipe as possible. She even utilizes a fire pit located outside her home to test authentic recipes. For more information about Alice the Cook, visit her website at http://www.alicethecook.com
In future blogs, I will offer recipes, kitchen hints, and historical cooking lessons.
I wanted to provide a great recommendation to my readers. Caufield Clay Works, http://www.caufieldclay.com/, located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, provides some beautiful ceramics. They have also been kind enough to donate several ceramic dishes and plates to Alice the Cook’s kitchen.
As a note, all of the food photographed on this website is shot on Caufield Clay Works plates. If you are looking for some beautiful stoneware, or other items, please consider visiting his online studio at http://www.caufieldclay.com/.
Ingredients:
1/4 lb lean bacon
6 to 8 small, young onions
two cups chopped button mushrooms Ingredients for the meat:
3lb stewing steak
4 tablespoons oil
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons flour
1 bottle of fruity young claret (Burgundy or Beaujolais)
Salt and freshly milled black pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
Bunch of fresh herbs
Cutup and cook the bacon in a frying pan until it is lightly brown. Add the onions and cook uncovered for roughly ten minutes. Then add the mushrooms, stir, cover and cook gently for a further ten minutes.
Cut the stewing steak into cubes roughly 1½” square. Add the beef to the bacon, onions and mushrooms and begin to brown the cubes of meat. Add the garlic and sprinkle the flour over the meat. Stir from time to time.
Add wine, light seasoning and herbs. Cover and simmer for 3 hours or until the meat is tender. Serve with boiled potatoes sprinkled with chopped parsley or mashed potatoes.
Final weekend approached us very quickly and we cooked up several dishes. All unique and very tasty. People were surprised at the variety of ingredients we used. This recipe is the first of four recipes we did this past weekend. I will post each recipe separately.
Oxtail Soup
Oxtail dishes are found across cultures. From Northern Europe, across the British Isles, Ottoman Empire, Mediterranean, Arabic, and Far Eastern cultures have all used oxtail in a variety of dishes. Some dishes were primarily delicacies, but secondarily offered homeopathic cures to various ailments including back and hip pain.
The Chinese added shredded cabbage mushrooms, and carrots, among other vegetables to provide a heart stew. Arabic and Mediterranean cultures added tomatoes and chickpeas, while European cultures, including Italy even added wine or brandy to the dish during the post-Restoration period.
Oxtails were once inexpensive, but with their increased use in many cuisines, the price of oxtails has become expensive. Asian grocery stores offer oxtails at about a third of the cost of main stream grocery stores.
Oxtail Soup, made at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival 10/02/11
This is a favorite among my male friends as oxtails, when cooked properly, can take on a prime rib flavor and texture. This particular dish, was cooked over an open fire in a cast iron Dutch oven.
Ingredients:
3 lbs of oxtails
1 lbs of beef shoulder soup bones.
2 lbs red potatoes, thinly sliced
3 parsnips, peeled and shredded
1 lbs of leeks, cut into rings
3 sprigs of rosemary
1/4 cup of butter or oil
2 lbs carrots, thinly sliced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small can of tomato paste (optional)
Kosher or sea salt
Black pepper
Begin preparing the dish by adding the beef shoulder bones in a large pot with enough water to cover the bones and add 1 tsp of sea or kosher salt. Bring items to a boil for a half an hour. Remove and dispose of the bones and reserve the broth.
Heat oil or melt butter in a different soup pot. Once heated, add the oxtails to brown and slowly add the leeks and garlic; continuing to cook. Once browned, add enough of the new broth to cover the cover the oxtails by an additional 3 inches, water may be added to increase the amount of liquid. At this moment, one may add optional tomato paste. Let cook for 1 hour and stir occasionally. After an hour, remove the soup bones, but leave in the oxtails. Begin adding the potatoes, carrots and rosemary. Cook for an additional 20 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender.
This dish is very rich and if one’s constitution prefers a less rich version, one may choose to put the soup in a cooler and remove the excess fat from the top before reheating. Add additional salt and pepper to taste.
Last weekend for High Seas weekend, we demonstrated several techniques used in preserving food. These techniques included smoking meats and salts. We also demonstrated how to make flavored extracts, oils, salts and sugars. All of these things can be used to create lovely handmade gifts for the holidays.
Smoked Pork Shoulder
Smoking Meats and Salts: Buy wood chips (found in the same location as the charcoal briquettes) and soak them overnight in water. Once done, place the soaked wood chips in the bottom of the pot or tray. Now, I strongly recommend that this is not done indoors, as it will create a lot of smoke, but on an outdoor grill or bonfire. If on a grill, use a double rack system and place the tray with the wood chips on the lower rack and the meat or salt on the upper rack and close the lid. If using a bonfire, place the chips at the bottom of the cast iron pot and place the meat on top of the chips or the salt in a tray on top of the chips and place the lid on the pot. The heat will cause the chips to smoke and will smoke the meat or salt. The meat should cook this way for 2-3 hours and the salt will take 6-8 hours. Make sure that you break up the salt every two hours so that they are evenly flavored.
Flavored Salts and Sugars: This is a fairly easy process. You will need a ceramic dish, we used ramekins. Place a layer of salt or sugar at the bottom of the dish. Sweet things should be applied to the sugar (nutmeg, ginger, vanilla, clove, citrus zest, or cinnamon) and savory things would be applied to the salt (garlic, rosemary, chilies, etc.) Place the chosen flavor on top of the bottom layer of salt or sugar and begin layering. Place the dish in a low heat area so the flavor infuses with the salt or sugar. Salt requires a higher heat (200 degrees) for an hour and sugar requires a lower heat (100 – 150 degrees) for two hours. Place in an airtight container and serve as needed.
Orange and Vanilla Extract
Extracts Like the sugars, extracts are easy to make. Finding a sweet spice (nutmeg, ginger, vanilla, clove, citrus zest, or cinnamon) and placing it into a clean bottle that can be sealed. Add a strong flavorless liquor such as Everclear or Vodka and seal shut. The longer it sits with occasional shaking, the stronger the extract will become.
Flavored Oils & Vinegars Follows the same principles as the extracts, but vinegar or olive oil is used with savory herbs such as rosemary, basil, thyme, or peppers; I recommend heating the vinegar or oil and adding fresh herbs to the mix, simmering it, and then bottling it. The acids will keep longer than the oils. Keep the oils in the refrigerator for use.
Lemon Basil Beef with Carrots - September 25, 2011
Our 5:00 pm show each day is different and we never repeat the same show. It is mostly improv – based as we don’t know what we are making until an hour before the show. We do this on purpose as it helps us come together as a team, provides an opportunity for my assistants and I to share ideas and to have a little bit of fun. This weekend, two of my assistants made up a song while cooking this dish; it was rather amusing.
Now some of the ingredients were made with the flavored salts and oils that were made earlier in the day. Those ingredients aren’t necessary and I will be writing the recipe keeping in mind that the specific flavored oils and salts are not available.
Ingredients:
1 lb beef (top round or chuck), hand minced (do not use ground beef for this recipe)
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp fresh basil, minced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
5 large carrots, sliced thinly on the bias (long slices)
sea salt and black pepper to taste
In a large fry pan, add the oil and heat up. Once hot, add the basil, garlic, and 1/3 of the lemon zest. Sautee and add the beef quickly. The oil should be hot enough that it sears the beef (think stir fry). Once lightly browned add the carrots and stir frequently. Add the lemon juice, another 1/3 of the zest, and salt and pepper. Once carrots are tender, remove from the heat and serve. Garnish with remaining zest.
