(First Published in Three Martini Lunch).
Sometimes a phrase will inspire you. I was reading a really bad issue of Esquire, including incompetent food writing (apparently their restaurant critic thinks that gizzards are “chicken assholes” and that kidneys are inedible) when I came upon a simple recipe for braised lamb shanks. The phrase was “use ten times as many vegetables . . .”
Hmmm. I didn’t have any shanks, nor were the fennel bulbs asked for available in Magdalena, but what else could I find for a snowy day long- cooked meal?
It was noon. I found eight carrots and a parsnip that needed using. Went to Trail’s End and found a nice beef arm roast— not too lean, not too tender— perfect. Added a white onion , a red one, and some mushrooms.
At home, I coated the roast with a mix of flour, paprika, salt, and pepper, and browned it in a Dutch oven in olive oil and butter. Removed it, and put the onions, chopped, half the carrots ditto, and about four chopped garlic cloves in, and cooked it all until it was translucent. Deglazed with a LITTLE red wine— maybe a small wineglass, scraped, cooked down until it was syrupy. Put the roast back in, and added a bit more than a cup of chicken stock. Added a whole head of garlic, cloves separated but not “skinned”.
I had put the oven on to 275 degrees. Into the oven with the Dutch oven, with the lid on, and just forget about it.
Some time between 5 and 6, I opened it up. Removed the now- tender roast. Strained the vegetables through a sieve, and returned the liquid to the Dutch oven.
Now: put the remaining four carrots and the parsnips, cut up, and the roast, back in. In half an hour, add however many chopped and peeled potatoes you want. Sweat the mushrooms in olive oil and butter and add them. When the potatoes are done, remove all meat and vegetables to a warm covered platter and reduce the liquid to a thick cup or less. Pour over the roast and serve. It will warm you.
Oh, and— this is infinitely variable— turnips or leeks or fennel can be added or subtracted, etc . . .
2 comments:
Sounds very good. But chicken stock with an arm roast? Why not use beef stock? Going for something lighter? And when you said you put the initial veggies through a sieve, does that mean syou pushed them through to effectively puree them?
Hi Harley. I used chicken stock because I had some-- I'm an improvising cook. Beef or even veal would have been fine, though the second "fancy".
To the second-- yeah, all the sort of mushy stuff came through as a thickener, though I wouldn't have used a blender. Low- tech.
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