jeffpaulsen

yesterday I made a chicken salad, and some beef burgundy.

chicken salad
1 C homemade mayo
2 lbs chicken breast, cooked and chopped / shredded
2 T lemon juice, fresh squeezed
1 shallot, chopped
1 big handful chives, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 large pile fresh parsley, chopped <-- this is the important thing
salt
pepper

beef burgundy
2 lbs stewing beef (maybe more, didn't measure)
salt
pepper
4 strips bacon
3 onions, chopped
2 or 3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/3 C flour
1/2 bottle red wine
1 and a half cups chicken broth ( the low sodium kind )
thyme (not much)
bay leaves (3 or 4)

1 lb mushrooms, sliced or quartered
1 lb pearl onions, cooked (just get the frozen kind and microwave them)

Salt and pepper the beef.
Chop bacon fine and cook until crispy in a dutch oven. Crispy is more about time than about high heat. Remove bacon & bacon grease, keep separate.
Brown the beef (in the same dutch oven) in some of the bacon grease. You want it good and dark brown, so don't stir too much. I prefer to use tongs to turn each piece. Do this in 2 or 3 small batches, not one big one. Remove beef & set aside in a bowl or on a plate or something.
Saute onions in the same dutch oven, one big batch is fine. Stir often.
When onions are softened but not yet translucent (8 minutes?), add garlic. Stir continually for 30 seconds - garlic will burn quickly and taste nasty.
Add flour. Stir continually for 2 minutes - flour will brown quite a bit.
Add wine - scrape the bottom of the pan (you're using a long wooden spoon for this, right?) and get all the good stuff dissolved.
Add chicken broth & herbs.
bring to a simmer
cover & put in a 260 F oven for 2:30

meanwhile, brown mushrooms in a nonstick pan in some more of the bacon grease - stretch this out with butter if needed, but you shouldn't really, the mushrooms will give up a lot of liquid. This is maybe a 10 minute deal. Remove & reserve.
Brown pearl onions in the last of the grease (or butter if you run out). This only takes like three or four minutes, and you maybe only have to stir them once a minute. Reserve these in the same bowl with the mushrooms.

When the timer goes off on your oven, add the mushroom/onion mix to the beef, stir, and put it back in the oven for another 30 minutes.

finish with about 1/3 cup of chopped fresh parsley. serve on noodles with sour cream & more parsley for on top.

I made a couple pitchers of bourbon punch slushies. You make them like this:

1 bottle bourbon
1 quart double strong black tea
2 cans thawed lemonade concentrate
1 can thawed orange juice concentrate
3 quarts water

stir together and freeze. stir again after 6 hours.

People liked the slushies.

I made bread last night. I famously suck at baking, and it came out awesome anyway. Like bakery good. Here is the way of it:

Dutch Oven Bread
1/4 t dry yeast (yes, that's one quarter of a teaspoon)
1.5 C warm water
3 C flour
1.5 t salt (one and one half teaspoons)

1. Dissolve yeast in water. Add dry ingredients, mix into a sticky dough. Cover with plastic, and let rise in a warm place 12 hours or more.

2. When dough is all bubbly and spongelike, turn it out onto a floured surface. Dust with flour, and fold into thirds a couple of times. Cover with plastic again and let rest 15 mins.

3. Shape dough into a ball, and put it seam-side DOWN on a floured dishtowel. Dust with flour, cover with another towel. Let rise in a warm place 1 or 2 hours - until doubled in size basically.

4. Put a dutch oven (or similar massive lidded heat-retaining pot) into the oven, and preheat to 475F. Yes, that's almost five hundred degrees. When hot, turn the dough into the dutch oven, seam-side UP (although if you get this wrong it will still be bread). You can do this easily because it's on a floured towel. Put the lid back and bake covered for 30 minutes.

5. Remove lid, and bake uncovered 15 minutes or until you like the color

6. Remove bread from pot and place on a wire rack to cool for an hour or more.

I have no idea why you don't need to knead this bread. I can guess that the tiny quantity of yeast and the really long first rise go together, and that the fairly wet dough going into the super hot dutch oven gives the same effect as a steam injected baker's oven. Beyond that I am baffled, but that is normal for me and baking.

Every year people ask me to make this. I am happy to, but you can make your own by following these simple instructions. This recipe is courtesy of Johnny Mohawk and Ah Pook, the two best roommates a guy ever had.

Ingredients

1 lb	butter
2 lbs	dark brown sugar
1 Tablespoon	cinnamon
1 Tablespoon	ginger, ground
1 Tablespoon	allspice
1 teaspoon	cloves, ground
1 teaspoon	nutmeg, ground or grated
1 teaspoon	mace
1 Tablespoon	vanilla

Instructions

Blend thoroughly in a saucepan over low heat, package in your favorite white trash tupperware (small cottage cheese tub does nicely). No refrigeration required unless you mean to let it lie about for several months!

To use the batter, combine a large tablespoon with a healthy shot or two of rum in a mug, and fill with hot water.

A Paulsen family staple. Just typing this up makes me miss my grandma.

creamed tuna on toast
butter
flour
milk
salt
pepper
1 can tuna, drained
2 slices bread

Melt butter in a saucepan over med-low heat. Add flour to make a roux. When the roux is done (this is well before it browns), add milk (room temperature or colder). Whisk until lumps are gone. Cook until thickened. Add tuna. Season with salt and a frightening amount of black pepper. Keep warm on stove.

Toast and butter the bread. Pour creamed tuna over buttered toast. If you are me, add more pepper. Eat with fork.

variation: chipped beef on toast
For the full-on Shit on a Shingle experience, replace the tuna with sliced dried ("chipped") beef. You will need less salt for that one.

I roasted a bone-on rib thing for Christmas dinner. I got a three-bone select-grade one, with the bones cut away but tied back on, for $28 and change. Choice-grade was about twice as much, and looked fantastic, but I didn't get that one. No prime-grade was available at my butcher, so I couldn't make a real no shit Prime Rib, not that I could have afforded to.

After I posted an inadequate single-serving HBR recipe last week, johnnymohawk sent me this, and I made it, and it was very, very good. I served some to khalja and Cody when they stopped by over the weekend, and they seemed to like it, too. To use the batter, combine a large tablespoon with a healthy shot or two of rum in a mug, and fill with hot water.

St Bacchus Doorag's Greasy Rumgasm Batter
1 lb. butter
2 lb. dark brown sugar
1 rounded tablespoon ea. cinnamon, powdered ginger, allspice
one level teaspoon ea. ground clove, nutmeg, mace
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Blend thoroughly in a saucepan over low heat, package in your favorite white trash tupperware (small cottage cheese tub does nicely). No refrigeration required unless you mean to let it lie about for several months!

This recipe courtesy of johnnymohawk and Timmy W., aka Ah Pook.

[update 12/6/06: don't make hot buttered rum this way. Make it like this: St Bacchus Doorag's Greasy Rumgasm ]

single serving version

2 cloves
1/2 cinnamon stick
allspice
1 tsp sugar

Steep in a half-mug of boiling water for 5 minutes. Add warm rum. Stir in a pat of unsalted butter. May need more sugar.

Rigatoni alla Bolognese

This sauce is cooked uncovered for its entire life. [edit - forgot to mention salt, pepper and nutmeg.]


Regarding tomato paste: I like the stuff that comes in a tube like toothpaste rather than the jar, because who ever uses a whole 8-oz jar of tomato paste, and then you have to store the leftovers. Screw that.

Regarding pasta: Any pasta will work, but you really want something that the sauce will cling to. Think ridges.

ABSURDLY EASY cheddar chive popovers

Preheat oven to 375 - rack near bottom.

2 eggs
1 C milk
1 T butter, melted
3/4 C + 2 T flour
1/2 t salt
some chives

Whisk together - leave lumpy

Butter the hell out of some muffin tins. pour 1/2 batter into tins. Add a little bit of shredded cheddar to each one. Add remaining batter. Maybe bit more cheese on top, not much though.

Bake 45 mins. use sharp knife to let steam out of popovers. Bake maybe 10 minutes more to let the insides dry out a bit.

Serve hot.

You can probably replace the cheddar / chive combination with parm / garlic, or do without the extra flavoring altogether. Haven't tried doing them sweet, but plain + jam would be nice.