The menu: Cucumber Salad, Braised Beef with Onions, Green Beans with Garlic Sauce and Polenta (4 glorious recipes!)
It was great having C. to help me, we even went grocery shopping together which made things go quickly and efficiently. Immediately upon returning, I set upon a 5 pound beef eye of round. My task was to lard it, meaning infuse the meat with additional fat. In order to do this, The Silver Spoon gives us this hint, "make small incisions in a piece of meat and insert pieces of pancetta or bacon fat. . . The fat melts during cooking and tenderizes and seasons the dish (pg.28)."
"Alright, " I say, "I like seasoning and tender things." I started making cuts into the beef and stuffing pancetta into the cuts. Around the third stab I started to feel a little like Dexter Morgan. You can meet him here, in case you are unfamiliar:
I carefully read the recipe a few more times and it dawned on me, finally, that there was no braising liquid in the recipe. Now, I have an intense love of braising. Braised meat, cabbage, grean beans, I don't care, just give it to me. I've read a whole cookbook on the subject of braising alone thanks to my future mother in law's amazing collection of such things. Every recipe I have ever seen calls for some liquid, without liquid the meat will get tough! "SS, don't make me do it," I cried. I relented, placing the meat on top of the pounds of onions with no liquid, on a very low heat and set the timer for an hour.
C. washed and trimmed green beans while I started the cucumber salad. SS wanted me to blanch cucumbers "Why?" I said. This project is about trusting, so I am trusting The Silver Spoon with a large piece of meat and with a blanched salad, but not without questioning it loudly to anyone who'll listen. I put some salted water on to boil and added the sliced cucumbers to the water. Within a minute the cucumbers turned a beautiful green, I scooped them out and set them to dry on some paper towel.
This is the part of the story when your champion of the kitchen realized she got pre cooked polenta flour. It feels like cheating but I have hungry people to feed, so I put it aside and gather my guests in a game of Rummikub.
After hour one was up for the beef, I excused myself from game time and went to flip it. Anxiously opening the lid, I peered in and saw glorious braising liquid surrounding the meat. Thanks SS! I flipped the meat and checked my green bean recipe.
The recipe calls for a slice of bread to be soaked in white wine vinegar while you boil the green beans for 10 minutes in salted water. I do as directed and set to make the garlic sauce when I realize the recipe calls for a mortar and pestle. Nope, don't have one of those either, though I registered for one for my upcoming wedding. "Okay," I think, "I have to McGyver a mortar and pestle." This didn't go well. The best I came up with is crushing the garlic with my meat tenderizer on a plastic cutting board and scraping the results into a bowl. It didn't have the creaminess that the recipe describes, and I am going to chalk that up to lack of materials and move on. Next I add the bread, after squeezing it out, to the sauce and combine with the cooked (within an inch of their life) green beans. It looked weird. Judge for yourself:
Oh well, it was semi-instant polenta time. Pre-cooked polenta is very easy, although I will offer this word of caution: when stirring the polenta, wear an oven-mitt. When the polenta boils it can pop up and cling to your hand as it burns you. Yes, this happened to me. Once the polenta was stirred sufficiently it was time to eat.
First we had the cucumber salad, and I have to say blanched cucumbers are great! I served them with thin pear slices, feta cheese and a quick balsamic vinaigrette. C. said that it was better than a fancy restaurant. Hey! Thanks C.! The beef was fork tender and flavorful. In fact, the beef was one of those dishes that causes loud, talkative people consuming it to eat quietly for a few minutes.
My fiance and friends played Top Chef over my dishes, I asserted that the polenta was very plain but they insisted it provided a nice textural contrast. I thought the green beans were weird. The other "judges" liked them, one comment was that the bread offered a hint of the vinegar to balance the garlic, asking if she sounded enough like Tom for everyone's liking. P. was very curious as to what larding was and I explained it while we all ate the beef and onions. He commented that my cooking knowledge was growing, and because he was coming over, his was too. That's pretty cool, I think, I am learning and spreading the knowledge of The Silver Spoon one dinner guest at a time.
Now for my first full week as a healthy person in a long while, what to cook. . . .
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