Kithul Rosemary Beef - For Geethaka

It was time for beef. It took me awhile to like beef. As a child, i never did -- then i was 12 or 13 and i could not get enough. Puberty, I guess. Of course eating beef is tough (ha ha) in Sri Lanka. Its a taboo for many Buddhists and Hindus. But my mother at the time was in the grip of home science, (she has stopped eating beef now) and my father the physician had no option but to agree. We children were told to never revel the sacrilege to my paternal grandmother, and were then given it for one meal a day. In those days in the seventies, chicken was a luxury, only to be had once a week, if, and that always an if, a 'broiler' could be got. Beef was cheap, but hard to cook. Most often we had it as a curry, but at night, minced beef made up the fillings of rolls, cutlets, and even homemade hamburgers. Then there was Irish stew. That was really good, with bread and butter.
Beef is still hard to cook in Sri Lanka; there a no Sri Lankan steaks to be had of any cut that i know, what ever steaks available are imported. It is still not a preferred meat for many, but one of my close friends, the warm hearted Geetha, shares an interest in Beef. Its more of obsession with him -- I think he'd have beef for every meal if the lovely doctor allowed him to. Ha! He too remembers the meaty days at home, he says his mother had a beef roast for him, nearly every day. Wow. So it was with him in mind that i made this dish, with nearly a kilo of beef, just an ordinary cut is fine, for example 'boneless' from FC or Keels -- but of course, if you have a personal relationship with a butcher, then you are ahead of me. I simmer the beef in a pre-prepared beef stock, made of soup bones, for 2 hours. That's the deal, it comes out really succulent. No, i do not buy ready made cubes. To make Beef stock the easy way, pressure cook a kilo of soup bones in a .75l of water for at least an hour, by lowering the heat so just the steam doesn't escape. The meat that comes off the bones is very eatable, and can be re added to the strained stock, if you clean off the skin and cartilage that hasn't yet dissolved in the stock. And so, simmer the beef in beef stock. You can add red wine to this, it will be even richer. I usually do, this time i didn't. once its simmered, you can boil it down a little, so that any remaining stock is thickened.
You can save this in your fridge for several days. When its time to eat, i saute a potion in a tiny bit of sesame oil, add a capful of kithul treacle (not too much), and, say, two heavy pinches of chopped fresh rosemary (available at Colpetty market, and Keels@LibertyPlaza), and of course salt to taste. Once this is plated, i deglaze the pan real quick, with water or red wine, and toss in some cut, cleaned pokchoy, which will cook in the hot pan, in less that 2 mins. Yes, its that fast, try it, it will be super crunchy, a lovely compliment to the soft, yet still chewy texture of the beef. Kithul Rosemary, in my opinion, is one of the great fusion combination that I've ever tried -- the fragrance and flavor of the mix has real synergy.
The lovely, lovely Geethaka doesn't really cook, and doesn't get into recipes much, i do not think. (Oh but he might now).
But he liked his beef bite.
It was made with much love.


Geethaka Goonawardene contemplates the simple life:
Ruwani, Good Friends, a River Bath and Beef. He didn't mention beer. Strange.
( kumbukan oya, Sri Lanka.)

Jehan's Beef

Jehan's Beef
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.

Last Sunday, Jehan asked me to lunch at his cool apartment on Amarasekere Mawatha (Dawson Rd).
The house specialty which is beef curry, was on offer -- its a sirloin cut, so it doesn't have to be cooked long to be as soft and succulent as it was. The special ingredient is MD ambarella chutney, which gives it a lovely tang.
He served it with a cumber yorghert ritha, and and biriyani rice!

A great afternoon, with his wonderful friends.

Beef with mango relish.

I’ve been working on the mango part of this for awhile. The first time was with pork, but it wasn’t a success. But this time, the whole dish came together!
The idea in this particular line of meat dishes I’ve been doing is to contrast the rich, chewy meatiness of beef, lamb or pork – with sharp, hot, and slightly sweet fruity taste that makes you end each bite, with soft gasp for more. That’s a tall order, for sure. For one, sharp tastes can over power, and then while the dish may still be tasty, it won’t be memorable – it will end up like every other over sauced South Asian or American Chinese dish you’ve had. So subtly is also important, and since I have a difficult to control sweet tooth, that’s some times hard.
Its also harder with paws, but that’s a whole another thing.
In the pineapple wasabi lamb, the sharp taste works as a glaze, which clings to the outside of the cubes of meat, layering each bite with a hot, sweet tingle and then a full, rich meaty core. In the Beef dish I did today, the tastes are kept separate, and the diner is invited to mix between the two, just we do with a chutney when we eat rice and curry.

For the beef, I started with 500g of cubed beef, which I seasoned with one teaspoon of salt, fresh ground pepper, teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, and two teaspoons of brown sugar. After about an hour, I browned in the beef in a caste iron skillet, deglazed with arrack, added water, to about half away, and let it simmer for two hours.
Then I had a beer.
Later, (obviously – one must never cut anything right after a beer J ). I peeled a sour, that is half ripe, mango, and sliced one half of it length ways, and then mixed one tablespoon of white vinegar, one tablespoon of white sugar, and a teaspoon of red chillie pieces (not power), and reduced in down with the mango. I did this in the microwave one time (3 mins on hi-700w), and another time in a heavy bottomed pan. Basically, you’ve got it get it boiled down, but not burned. Taste for balance. If you like it subtler, keep to the proportions, but add less of every thing.
Once that was almost ready, I stir fried, in the tiny bit of sesame oil, 150g of the well cooked beef, with two teaspoons of black bean sauce. You can do the beef well before hand, and then refrigerate it. It will taste even better the next day!
Then I scalded the sliced leeks, in salted water for a minute, and plated it.

Moving between the succulent, yet lightly flavored beef and the hot, sweet, sour and still meaty mango was marvelous. I've blogged about chillie mango before, and it is as any school child in Sri Lanka knows, some thing to die for, especially when its half ripe.
The leeks gave the whole thing a nice, crunchy punctuation – with of course, a hint, a vague hint, of onion.

Beef & Bokchoy

This takes a little planning; but its really really simple and quick to make, in the end.
I used about 300 g of Ox Tail, with a few cubes of beef added, since there wasn’t enough Ox tail, I thought. This I seasoned and browned, and then simmered for near a day, about 20 hours, on low heat. Yes, that’s a lot preparation, in a way, but if you have burner that can be left on low, for while, with out disruption, then its no bother. And once you get organized on that part of things, the rest is so easy.
Wash and slice the bokchoy lengthways, and stir fry, with a tiniest bit of oil, of course, and crushed garlic, removing that in a two mins, adding some of the meat, drained of the lovely broth, stir frying with oyster sauce, soy sauce and a bit if kitul treacle. Add a ladle full of the beef broth, at the end, into the wok, and as it thickens, plate it.

Orange & Brown

Orange & Brown
Originally uploaded by pradeep jeganathan.

Yes I’m back to cooking!
I’ve been working on this oxtail stew for a few days now; I season the oxtail, about a kilo, then let it marinate in balsamic vinegar, kitul treacle and minced garlic, adding a tiny bit of olive oil to bind it. Then I brown it, removing it, and bring it a boil in a large heavy pot, with more than a liter of water, skimming off the scum several times, then let it simmer for more than 24 hours. Oxtail can take that, that’s the beauty of the all that work the cow’s tail does over the years! It falls of the bone, almost, but it still holds together. But it melt in your mouth. Once that’s well simmered, reduce it, and let it sit in the fridge; its good for more than a few days.
And then, each day, you can have a bit of it, with a different sauce or glaze. The day before I tried a mango/tamarind/wasabi glaze, which was okay, but I thought it over powered the flavor of the meat.
So today I tried a papaya/white wine sauce and it was terrific!
To make this, I pureed papaya cubes in the blender, adding a little water, and about half bottle of white wine (mine was a random bottle of Pinot Grigio), and then reduced that in a heavy pan, for about 15-20 mins, adding a little salt, and some sugar, just a little to adjust the tartness upwards, right at the end. The reduction gets a little frothy, a little bubbly, like strawberry jam in the middle of a omelet. That’s the consistency of the papaya I guess; so you can’t really thicken it enough to be a glaze.
But that’s okay!
Now spoon it over the stringy, succulently meaty Oxtail stew, and the smooth, soft tang of the papaya, deepened by the wine reduction, blends in wonderfully to the space between the strands of taste.
Or, in other words, I had a good dinner. I wish you the same.

Soup Brown

Oxtail Soup.
A very simple dish, really.
Grows tastier by the day, after you've made it.

marinate the ox tail in season the ox tail, marinate in a little vinegar, for as long as you like, and then brown it in some olive oil. then simmer it, on low heat for as long as you can, at least 2-3 hours, and then add carrots, onions, and what ever else you like, 20 mins before you want it to be done.

that's it. Ox tail, the most used muscle in the cow's body, is really tasty like this; it doesn't need much else.