This sounds good:

As St. Patty’s Day approaches our thoughts turn to thick slices of juicy corned beef, meltingly soft cabbage and fluffy boiled potatoes.  There’s nothing like good corned beef. When you cook it at home inevitably there are leftovers. I love a good corned beef hash or a thick sandwich as much as the next person. Occasionally though, I need a change of pace. Enter the corned beef burger.

To make this beauty we diced and shredded some leftover corned beef (what can I say, we couldn’t wait until Monday). We folded the cooked meat into some lean ground beef with a bit of cold, grated butter, a pinch of salt and a touch of cayenne pepper. We seared the burgers in a hot, dry pan allowing them to cook in their own rendered fats. The outsides crisped beautifully and the smell was intoxicating. While the burgers were resting we fried English muffins in the drippings and used them to cradle our patties.  The corned beef burger, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Yesterday I made Mark Bittman’s recipe for dinner. My own recipe is better, I have to say. I’m making that this afternoon (using a 300º oven for 3-4 hours instead of a 200º oven overnight), only using beef shanks. These recipes can be used for any slow-cooked cut: short ribs, beef shank, lamb shank, oxtails, and so on.

I love a shortrib, don’t you? I even blogged my own approach. But what Mark Bittman has today in the NY Times is well worth a look—particularly the video. The recipe is below, but read the whole article—and watch that video.

Short Ribs With Coffee and Chilies
Time: At least 3 hours

1 tablespoon oil
4 large or 8 small short ribs
Salt and pepper
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 dried pasilla chili, stemmed, seeded and minced
1 dried chipotle chili, stemmed, seeded and minced
1 cup dry red wine
1 cup strong coffee.

1. In a heavy pot that can later be covered, drizzle oil. Over medium heat, brown ribs well, adjusting heat as necessary to get a dark crust. Take your time, and season with salt and pepper as they cook. Remove them to a plate and turn heat to low.

2. In same pot, cook onions, garlic and chilies, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft, about 15 minutes. Add wine and coffee and reduce over high heat by about half. Return ribs to pot, cover, and cook over low heat (or in a 300-degree oven) for 2 to 3 hours. Cook until very tender — beyond when meat falls off the bone — turning every hour or so. Taste and adjust seasoning and serve.

Yield: 4 to 8 servings.

UPDATE: Made the usual sort of changes: doubled the garlic, used half a large onion and about the same amount of chopped shallots. Also cut up 4 mushrooms (plain domestic) into largish chunks and am cooking those. Wine is a Zinfandel. I was going to add juice of 1/2 lemon but decided not to—thought I’d stick to the recipe. I’m using the oven method. Four little shortribs in the 2-qt All-Clad Stainless sauté pan: good fit.

UPDATE 2: Very tasty, though I have to say that my own recipe (link above) is better.

Back in the day, the waiter would always come to your table and assemble the Caesar salad there, making the dressing from scratch. Nowadays it’s very rare to find Caesar salad (actual Caesar salad, rather than Caesar-like salad product) in any restaurant. Try this:

Caesar Salad

2 cloves of garlic
1 anchovy fillet
1 tbsp olive oil
2 egg yolks
3 tbsp Dijon mustard
juice of 1/4 lemon
1 dash tobasco
1 head Romaine lettuce, washed and torn into bite-size pieces
1/4 cup shaved Parmesan cheese

In a large bowl crush garlic until it is a paste.
Add each ingredient mixing after each addition.
Add lettuce and toss until well coated.
You can add croutons if you like.

I’m looking around at dry aging a roast, and came across this interesting note from Cook’s Illustrated. I’ll have to try this:

Pan-Seared Thick-Cut Steaks

The Problem: Pan-searing a thick-cut steak (a steak almost as thick as it is wide) presents a unique challenge: How to keep the perimeter from overcooking while the very center of the steak reaches the desired temperature.

The Goal: We wanted our steak to have a good crust and medium-rare center, without a wide band of dry, gray meat between the two.

The Solution: We found it was essential to sear the steaks quickly to keep the meat directly under the crust from turning gray. The key was to start with dry meat. We moved the steaks straight from the fridge into a 275-degree oven, which not only warmed them to 95 degrees but also dried the meat thoroughly. At this temperature, when the steak met the hot skillet, it developed a beautiful brown crust in less than four minutes, while the rest of the meat stayed pink, juicy, and tender.

Our steaks spend a long time in a warm oven, yet taste more tender than traditionally prepared steaks, which can be tough and chewy.

The explanation? Meat contains active enzymes called cathepsins, which break down connective tissue over time, increasing tenderness (a fact that is demonstrated to great effect in dry-aging meat). As the temperature of the meat rises, these enzymes work faster and faster until they reach 122 degrees, where all action stops. While our steaks are slowly heating up, the cathepsins are working overtime, in effect “aging” and tenderizing our steaks within half an hour. When our steaks are cooked by conventional methods, thier final temperature is reached much more rapidly, denying the cathepsins the time they need to properly do their jobs

This article in Food & Wine has several interesting dishes (list at the right). For example, this one:

Horseradish-and-Herb-Crusted Beef Rib Roast
Active time: 20 min
Total time: 4 hrs 15 min
Serves: 12

Besh opts to smear the roast with a horseradish, garlic and herb butter, which bakes to form an irresistible crust.

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 head of garlic, cloves coarsely chopped
• 1 cup prepared horseradish
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons chopped thyme
• 3 tablespoons chopped rosemary
• 3 tablespoons chopped sage
• One 16-pound rib roast of beef
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 325°. In a food processor, combine the butter with the garlic, horseradish, thyme, rosemary and sage and process to a paste.
2. Stand the roast in a very large roasting pan. Season generously all over with salt and pepper and set it fatty side up. Spread the horseradish-herb butter all over the top. Bake for about 3 1/2 hours, until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center registers 125° for medium rare. Transfer the roast to a carving board to rest for at least 20 minutes or for up to 1 hour before serving.

MAKE AHEAD The horseradish-herb butter can be refrigerated overnight. Let the butter soften before using.

NOTES If making Pat’s Popovers, reserve 3 tablespoons of the beef fat from the roasting pan.

WINE This impressive rib roast will pair well with a substantial Cabernet Sauvignon; Cabernet’s firm tannins help cut the richness of red meat, and its slight herbal edge makes a nice partner to the herb-horseradish crust. The 2004 vintage in Napa Valley produced fleshy, generous wines that are easy to drink now; two to look for are the blackberry-inflected Robert Mondavi Napa Valley and the curranty 2004 Provenance Rutherford.

Also this:

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This recipe is from Paul Bocuse’s Bocuse in Your Kitchen, though I got it from The Week magazine.

Steak Winegrower Style

1 or 2 boneless rib-eye steaks (about 1 3/4-inch thick, 1 3/4 pounds total)
3 shallots
1 medium onion
2 anchovy fillets
3 1/2 Tbsp butter
Salt, pepper
1/2 cup red wine

Bring steaks to room temperature. (Let them sit out on the counter for an hour.) Cut off excess fat from around steak. Finely chop shallots, onion, and anchovies. Place in bowl and reserve. Melt butter in large frying pan (cast-iron skillet would be ideal) over medium-high heat until very hot.

Salt and pepper steak on both sides, then place in pan. Cook steak for 6 minutes on each side for rare, 8 minutes on each side for medium rare. (Cooking time will vary depending on the size and thickness of each steak.) When done, life meat from pan and keep warm (in a warm oven, for example) while making sauce.

Stir chopped onion mixture into pan and cook for about 5 minutes, or until onions soften and start to brown. Stir in wine, bring to boil; boil for 1 to 2 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly; add salt and pepper if needed.

Serve steak on hot platter and slice it at table with sauce on side; or slice meat, spoon a little sauce onto each dinner plate, place slices of steak on top, and serve with any extra sauce on side. Serves 4.

UPDATE: I had this last night, and it was not nearly so good as it sounded. It was okay, but I doubt that I’ll make it again.

Today’s tomatoes have been going since around 10:30 a.m., and I just put a beef-shank dish on to simmer (covered) on top of the stove. It’s more or less the usual: brown the shank cross-sections, add a large chopped Spanish onion, a can of diced tomatoes, a handful of garlic cloves peeled, crushed, and chopped, a cup of red wine, a bunch of Italian parsley chopped, about 1/3 cup lemon juice, 2 Tbsp horseradish, about a Tbsp of Worcestershire sauce, some dashes of Tabasco. I had a mild chile pepper on hand, so I chopped up that and included it. Right now I have a cup or so of dried sliced Shiitake mushrooms that I’m reconstituting, and I’ll add those as well. Salt, pepper, thyme, Fines Herbes.

Something to grill this week.

UPDATE: I tried it, and I think my steak was too thin for the method. Result: very salty steak. If you try it, get a very thick steak.

The Amateur Gourmet cooks a rib-eye steak (my own fave) using a variation of the method I got from The Son and blogged earlier. Here’s the recipe the AG references:

Pan Seared Rib Eye Recipe courtesy Alton Brown

1 boneless rib eye steak, 1 1/2-inch thick
Canola oil to coat
Kosher salt and ground black pepper

Place 10 to 12-inch cast iron skillet in oven and heat oven to 500 degrees. Bring steak(s) to room temperature.

When oven reaches temperature, remove pan and place on range over high heat. Coat steak lightly with oil and season both sides with a generous pinch of salt. Grind on black pepper to taste.

Immediately place steak in the middle of hot, dry pan. Cook 30 seconds without moving. Turn with tongs and cook another 30 seconds, then put the pan straight into the oven for 2 minutes. Flip steak and cook for another 2 minutes. (This time is for medium rare steaks. If you prefer medium, add a minute to both of the oven turns.)

Remove steak from pan, cover loosely with foil, and rest for 2 minutes. Serve whole or slice thin and fan onto plate.

I’m not normally into the wine recommendation thing, but this screams for a punchy red wine (Merlot or Pinot Noir would be ideal), and nothing else. If beer is your thing, go with Guinness or a dark Pilsener like Sam Adams or Brooklyn.

And then, in the same post:

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Accidental Hedonist has a very good-looking recipe for sloppy joes:

The first version of this recipe was published in My Best Meat Recipes (National Live Stock and Meat Board, 1945) under the title “Barbecued Ground Beef”. The Saveur staff, after scanning the ingredients list, recognized the recipe as sloppy joes. And here it is for your viewing and hopefully cooking pleasure. I loved every bite of it and will undoubtedly beg KS to make more. My one piece of advice is this (actually, make that two):

1. If you can, get your butcher to grind the meat for you, for obvious reasons being hygiene, quality and freshness.

2. If you can get your hands on good buns (hamburger, that is), do that. Good bread significantly improves the dish, but I’m sure you already knew that! And I guarantee you, you’ll want to go back for those sloppy seconds!

2 tbsp butter
1 yellow onion chopped
1 green pepper, cored and chopped
1 lb ground beef
1 cup ketchup
2 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp. white vinegar
1 tbsp. sugar
1⁄2 tsp. ground cloves

Heat 2 tbsp. butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 1 small finely chopped yellow onion and 1 small cored, seeded, and finely chopped green bell pepper and cook until softened, about 15 minutes. Add 1 lb. ground beef and cook until browned, 6–8 minutes. Add 1 cup ketchup, 2 tbsp. mustard, 1 tbsp. white vinegar, 1 tbsp. sugar, and 1⁄2 tsp. ground cloves. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until thick and dark, 25–30 minutes. (Degrease, if desired.) Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Serve on buttered, toasted hamburger buns. Makes 6 servings.

Here’s a little reference site on the benefits of grassfed beef.

And information on heritage meats.

From the International Herald Tribune:

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.

The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.

A federal judge ruled in March that such tests must be allowed. U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that Creekstone sought to use the same test the government relies on and said the government didn’t have the authority to restrict it. - A federal judge ruled in March that such tests must be allowed. The ruling was scheduled to take effect June 1, but the Agriculture Department said Tuesday it would appeal, effectively delaying the testing until the court challenge has played out.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Britain.

Three cases of mad cow disease have been found in the United States. The first, in December 2003 in Washington state, was in a cow that had been imported from Canada. The second, in 2005, was in a cow born in Texas. The third was confirmed last year in an Alabama cow.

The position of the Bush Administration is so wrong-headed that one doesn’t know where to begin. I suppose one starting point would be the GOP’s (obviously hollow) praise for private enterprise, competition, and freedom from government regulation…

Here they are. Click “Next” or “Previous” to move forth and back in the list.

This morning I used Mama Bear’s Ylang Ylang shaving soap, a wonderful fragrance and a fine lather, worked up with my Edwin Jagger silvertip shaving brush. I used an English Rocket razor (very like the Super Speed) with a Gillette blade. Extremely smooth shave, finished with alum block and Pinaud Musk aftershave. Efficient and luxurious.

As you will recall, the USDA is very much against expanded testing for mad-cow disease, since in the Bush Administration the USDA is, in effect, an extension of Big Agribusiness, and the beef industry hates testing for mad-cow. So what do we get?

The March 21, 2007 edition of the New York Times featured an article called “Prevalence of Alzheimer’s Rises 10% in 5 Years.” It began: “More than five million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, a 10 percent increase from the last official tally five years ago, and a number expected to more than triple by 2050.” Alzheimer’s disease, it seems, now afflicts 13% of people 65 and over, and 42% of those past 85.

The piece also reported “the startling finding that 200,000 to 500,000 people younger than 65 have some form of early onset form of dementia, including a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease that strikes people in their 30s and 40s.” The Times adds: “Apart from early onset cases, the primary risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease is age.”

But, dear reader, there’s a cow-shaped risk factor sitting in the corner-ignored by the newspaper of record (and essentially all major media outlets). And it’s a very mad cow.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has earned the pithy nickname “mad cow disease” thanks to the invidious symptoms presented in affected cattle, i.e. staggering, tremors, involuntary muscle spasms, bewilderment, hypersensitivity to auditory and tactile stimuli, and other examples of seemingly “mad” behavior.

Like BSE, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) is also a transmissible, invariably fatal spongiform encephalopathy with a prolonged incubation period that leaves sponge-like holes in a victim’s brain. CJD, however, is the human version and this includes a newly identified variant of CJD, linked to BSE in British cattle.

“In humans,” says author and environmentalist, Peter Montague, “the BSE-like disease is called ‘new variant Creutzfeld-Jacob disease,’ or nvCJD for short. CJD has been recognized for a long time as a rare disease of the elderly—very similar to Alzheimer’s disease—but nvCJD is different. It has somewhat different symptoms, a different pattern of disintegration in the brain, and it strikes young people, even teenagers. Between 1995 and early 1998, at least 23 people died of nvCJD in Britain and at least one in France, the oldest of them age 42 and the youngest 15.” (Yet the Times is “startled” by the rise in dementia in younger and younger people.)

“CJD robs victims of lucidity, control and life over a period ranging from six months to three years from the onset of symptoms, which can take from 10 to 40 years to manifest,” writes journalist Gabe Kirchheimer. According to Nobel Prize winner Stanley B. Prusiner, fatal neurodegenerative diseases of animals and humans (like BSE and CJD) are thought to be caused by infectious proteins called “prions.” Perhaps what is most disquieting about this hypothesis is that, unlike viruses and bacteria, prions remain infectious even after being baked at 680° F for on hour (enough to melt lead), bombarded with radiation, and/or soaked in formaldehyde, bleach, and boiling water.

“CJD is 100 percent fatal,” adds Kirchheimer. “There is no treatment or cure. As no blood test for the living is available, CJD has been definitively diagnosed only through brain biopsy.”

Studies cited by Kirchheimer indicate it is likely that “tens or even hundreds of thousands of people are dying right now of undiagnosed or misdiagnosed CJD.” Government figures estimate approximately 200 to 300 cases of CJD have been diagnosed in the U.S. Before you take comfort in that modest figure, bear in mind the findings of John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton. The authors of Mad Cow USA learned that while some four million Americans (at the time) had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, autopsies revealed roughly 25% of alleged Alzheimer’s deaths were caused instead by other forms of dementia. One percent of these misdiagnosed deaths have been ultimately attributed to CJD. If this trend is extrapolated and one percent of the now five million Americans with Alzheimer’s actually have CJD (or nvCJD), the nationwide estimate rises dramatically from 200 to 50,000 cases.

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As you reach middle age, perhaps you will become interested in the foods of the Middle Ages. This site has recipes and other goodies for you. Sample recipe:

Beef y-Stywyd

This is a very simple recipe for stewed beef. The resulting soup would be excellent served with a vegetable tart and fresh baked bread.

• 1 1/2 lbs. beef
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 1/4 tsp. mace
• 1/4 tsp. grains of paradise
• 1/4 tsp. cubebs
• 1 medium onion, minced
• 1 Tbsp. parsley
• 1/2 tsp. sage
• water

• 3 slices bread
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• pinch saffron
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Cut beef into 1/2 inch cubes. Place in a large pot with enough water to cover and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 20 minutes and strain, reserving liquid - I suspect this step is to help remove any scum that forms on the surface during boiling. Put beef and broth back into pot, and add onions and spices. Return to a boil and cook until meat is tender. Meanwhile, tear up bread slices and place in a bowl with the vinegar and enough broth to completely moisten it. When the beef is cooked, strain the bread mixture through a fine strainer into the pot, discarding the bread solids. Add saffron and salt and simmer until the soup thickens slightly. Serve hot.

The bread in this recipe is used as a thickener. If thicker broth is desired then use more bread, and if thinner then add water.

Source [Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books, T. Austin (ed.)]: vj - Beef y-Stywyd. Take fayre beef of the rybbys of the fore quarterys, an smyte in fayre pecys, an wasche the beef in-to a fayre potte; than take the water that the beef was sothin yn, an strayne it thorw a straynowr, an sethe the same water and beef in a potte, an let hem boyle to-gederys; than take canel, clowes, maces, graynys of parise, quibibes, and oynons y-mynced, perceli, an sawge, an caste ther-to, an let hem boyle to-gederys; an than take a lof of brede, an stepe it with brothe an venegre, an than draw it thorw a straynoure, and let it be stylle; an whan it is nere y-now, caste the lycour ther-to, but nowt to moche, an than let boyle onys, an cast safroun ther-to a quantyte; than take salt an venegre, and cast ther-to, an loke that it be poynaunt y-now, and serue forth.

Came across this recipe on the shaving forum (thanks, Ben). (You didn’t think we talked only about shaving, did you?)

Strips of Beef in Whisky Sauce

This quick-cooking dish requires prime meat. The whisky liqueur will reduce to a sweet glistening glaze. The creamy sauce has a delicious boozy flavour. Serves: 4

700 Gram Sirloin steak (1 1/2 lb), preferably Aberdeen Angus
15 Gram Butter ( 1/2 oz)
1 Large Onion, chopped
3 Tablespoon Whisky, or whisky liqueur such as Drambuie
5 Tablespoon Double cream
Salt and pepper

Cut the beef up into thin strips. Melt the butter in a medium frying pan.

Add the beef strips and onion and cook for 5-10 minutes, until the beef is brown and cooked to taste.

Stir in the liqueur and cream. Heat gently to reduce slightly. Serve at once with vegetables.

And I recall one of my tutors, Duncan MacDonald, telling us of a wonderful punch he had at a party in Scotland: fill punch bowl with Scotch whisky, add a large block of ice, and enjoy.

First to go was brains. Then mountain oysters (testicles). Then sweetbreads became hard to find. And now, in talking to the butcher today: no spleen. Used to get, doesn’t any more.

From Nov-Dec 2002 issue of Cook’s Illustrated, stripped to its essentials:

1. Take the roast out 2 hours before starting the process.

2. Pre-heat oven to 250º.

3. Using kosher salt, salt and pepper the roast all over. Kosher salt makes a difference, so seek it out. (Your supermarket undoubtedly has it in the salt section.)

4. Take a heavy 10-12” skillet (cast iron is ideal) and heat it on medium for 5 minutes. Put the rib roast in, fat side down, and brown it for 12 minutes. Then turn the roast onto one side for 4 minutes, then the other side for 4 minutes. This is all the browning the roast gets, so do a good job.

5. Put the roast in roasting pan (or simply use the skillet), ribs down, and roast at 250 degrees until temperature inside is 135-140º (that’s my preference, anyway).

6. Remove from the oven and tent with foil to rest 10 minutes before carving.

Serve with this horseradish sauce.

UPDATE: Nowadays, I find the horseradish sauce at the link goes better with, e.g., smoked fish. It seems too rich for the standing-rib roast, which I now will have with grated fresh horseradish—or very thin julienne strips from the tender layer of fresh horseradish.

UPDATE 2: I just spotted this in the LA Times:

1/2 cup crème fraîche
1 tablespoon freshly grated horseradish

Combine the crème fraîche and horseradish in a small bowl and mix well. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour or as long as overnight.

Sounds tasty, doesn’t it? — later: I tried it. It’s great.

UPDATE 3: This year (Xmas 2007) I decided to try dry-aging the roast. From the November-December 2002 issue of Cook’s Illustrated (page 14):

To dry-age a prime rib, buy your roast up to one week early. Pat it dry and place it on a wire rack set over a paper-towel-lined cake pan or plate. Set the racked roast in the refrigerator and let it age until you are ready to roast it, three to seven days. (I left one in the refrigerator for nine days; the cooked roast was meltingly tender with big flavor.) Before roasting, shave off any exterior meat that has completely dehydrated. Between the trimming and dehydration, count on a seven-pound roast losing a pound or so during a week’s aging.

I’m not sure that this was worth the trouble. The problem is that the roast got cooked to a higher temperature (150º) than usual (145º), so it’s unclear whether the results were due to temperature or dry-aging or a combination. The roast was less juicy, which one might expect with the aging. The flavor didn’t seem to be that much more intense. So the jury’s out.