One Pan, Two Plates (18 page)

Authors: Carla Snyder

BOOK: One Pan, Two Plates

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Beef goulash
. . . it even sounds warm and homey. Sure to warm up hungry tummies on cold evenings, this stew is especially nice because it’s stocked with vegetables, flavored with sweet paprika, enriched with sour cream, and topped with dumplings that would make your grandmother cry happy tears.

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START TO FINISH
45 minutes

...

HANDS-ON TIME
30 minutes

...

serves 2

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1 tbsp olive oil

2 slices bacon, chopped

12 oz/340 g top sirloin or flat-iron steak, trimmed and cut into 1-in/2.5-cm cubes

Salt

1 small yellow onion, cut into ½-in/12-mm dice

1 red bell pepper, seeded, deribbed, and cut into ½-in/12-mm dice

1 garlic clove, minced

1 tbsp sweet paprika, preferably Hungarian

1 tbsp tomato paste

3 new potatoes, scrubbed and cut into ½-in/12-mm dice

2 cups/480 ml beef broth

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

Freshly ground black pepper

½ cup/65 g all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking powder

¼ cup/60 ml milk

1 tbsp unsalted butter

¼ cup/55 g sour cream

1.
Heat a 12-in/30.5-cm skillet over medium-high heat and add the olive oil. When the oil shimmers, add the bacon and cook, stirring, until it has given off its fat but isn’t crispy yet, about 2 minutes. Add the beef and ½ tsp salt and spread the beef cubes out in an even layer in the pan. Let the meat brown on one side without moving it, about 3 minutes. Turn the meat with tongs or a fork to brown on a second side, another 2 minutes. Add the onion, bell pepper, garlic, paprika, and tomato paste and continue to sauté until the vegetables begin to soften and the bottom of the pan gets nice and brown, about
4 minutes longer. Add the potatoes, beef broth, vinegar, and a few grinds of pepper and scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Bring the mixture to a simmer.

2.
Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and ¼ tsp salt. Combine the milk and butter in a cup and microwave on high for 10 seconds at a time until the butter is melted. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir just until combined. Drop the batter by tablespoonfuls into the simmering stew; you should have enough for about about eight dumplings.

3.
Cover the skillet, reduce the heat to low, and simmer the stew until the vegetables and dumplings are tender, about 15 minutes. (Don’t peek! The steam will be released and your dumplings may not be as puffy and light as they could be.) To check for doneness, run a toothpick into a dumpling. It should come out with dry crumbs adhering to it, not wet and gooey. If it’s wet, cover and cook another 3 minutes and check again.

4.
Scoop the dumplings into warmed bowls. Taste the stew for seasoning, adding more salt or pepper if needed. Ladle the stew over the dumplings and top each portion with a dollop of the sour cream. Serve hot.

it’s that easy:
I direct you to brown the meat and then add vegetables, paprika, and tomato paste, and cook until it all browns on the bottom of the pan. Don’t stress over what might seem like a sticky pan; the browned bits will all come up when you add the broth, and the flavor of the stew will be the richer for it.

extra hungry?
For a lovely salad to pair with this stew, peel, seed, and thinly slice a cucumber and blend it with 1 to 2 tbsp sour cream, a splash of white wine vinegar, and season with salt and pepper.

in the glass:
Every now and then a Merlot is the right wine for a dish—and this is one of those times. Look for bottlings by Rutherford, Simi, Clos du Bois, and Round Hill, all enjoyable quaffs.

Beef Stew

in
HIGH HEELS

Sounds messy, right? But what I’m talking about here is a dressed-up version of beef stew. Akin to boeuf bourguignon, this rendition is miraculously simple and fast, and, per our method in this book, made in one pan. I call for those cute little baby onions (frozen, of course), which are the foundation of the traditional mélange of peas, carrots, red wine, and cubed sirloin, all held together in a lightly thickened sauce so good you will want to swipe up every last drop with a piece of baguette.

........

START TO FINISH
45 minutes

...

HANDS-ON TIME
30 minutes

...

serves 2

........

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

12 oz/340 g sirloin steak (see “It’s that easy”), cut into 1-in/2.5-cm cubes

2 tbsp olive oil

1 carrot, peeled and thinly sliced

1 celery stalk, thinly sliced

1 shallot, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 cup/115 g frozen pearl onions, thawed

½ tsp dried thyme

½ cup/120 ml dry, full-bodied red wine

2 new potatoes, scrubbed, quartered, and thinly sliced

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 cups/480 ml low-sodium beef broth

½ cup/70 g frozen peas, thawed

1 tbsp minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

1.
In a large, shallow bowl, stir together the flour, ½ tsp salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Add the meat and toss to coat it well on all sides in the seasoned flour.

2.
Heat a 12-in/30.5-cm skillet over medium-high heat and add 1 tbsp of the olive oil. When the oil shimmers, add the beef cubes and spread them out in an even layer in the pan. Reserve the flour mixture that remains the bowl. Let the meat brown on one side without moving it, about 3 minutes. Turn the meat with tongs or a fork to brown on a second side, another 2 minutes. If the bottom of the pan begins to scorch, reduce the heat. Transfer the meat to a plate. The bottom of the pan will be browned with reduced meat juices.

3.
Quickly add the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil to the hot pan along with the carrot, celery, shallot, garlic, onions, thyme, and remaining seasoned flour. Sauté the vegetables until they begin to soften, about 2 minutes. Add the red wine and cook, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, until the wine boils and reduces by half, about 2 minutes. Add the potatoes, Worcestershire sauce, beef broth, and browned meat (along with any juices that accumulated on the plate) and bring the stew to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook at a bare simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in the peas and half of the parsley and return the heat to medium-high. Simmer vigorously until the juices reduce and the stew thickens somewhat, about 3 minutes. Taste the stew and add more salt and pepper, if it needs it.

4.
Scoop the stew into warmed shallow bowls, sprinkle the remaining parsley over the top, and serve hot.

it’s that easy:
It’s possible to make a quick and delicious beef stew if you upgrade from tough stew meat to tender sirloin. Stew meat requires hours of cooking to get tender, but the meat in this stew will be ready in about the same time as the vegetables. Browning the sirloin takes a few minutes but it’s an important step that prevents the meat from steaming to an insipid gray, so for the best-tasting stew, make sure you first sear the meat on at least two sides for a nice crispy, caramelized brown crust. (All six sides would be fabulous, but is time-consuming and not crucial.)

extra hungry?
Put a slice of good bread, drizzled with olive oil and toasted in your broiler or toaster, in the bottom of each bowl and ladle the stew over the top.

in the glass:
In my mind, there’s nothing like a full-bodied glass of red wine to go with a rich and warming stew. Use whatever wine you added to the stew, preferably an affordable claret or red blend like Apothic Red or Newton.

Veal Piccata

with
BRUSSELS SPROUT HASH
and
APPLES

If you’ve ever wondered how cookbook authors come up with recipes, here goes:
We love Brussels sprouts at our house, but they aren’t a “quick sauté” kind of vegetable . . . that is, unless you slice them down into whisper-thin slivers of cabbage confetti. I’ll call it . . . Brussels Sprout Hash. And something sweet and tart would give it a lift—how about a diced apple? And I want to keep the veal simple and not dust it with flour (it makes such a mess)—just salt and pepper and a quick two-minute sauté. To make it piccata, I’ll squeeze half a lemon over the cutlets just as they’re finished cooking. I’d like to eat that for dinner tonight. . . .
That’s generally how a recipe is born.