Category: Meat

I may not know how to make Szechuan pork the way my favorite Chinese restaurant used to do it, but beef and broccoli with a quick sauce is one of those simple meals that’s easier than ordering takeout.

This thinly sliced beef was great for this. I dusted it with some corn starch and then seared it in a hot pan with some oil. Then I removed the meat and added enough water to the pan to scrape up all the brown bits with a metal spatula. (I didn’t have any beef broth handy or else I might have used that. But I decided that the browned bits would add enough flavor anyway.) Once that had reduced, I tossed in some minced garlic and minced ginger (from the freezer) and cooked those for a couple minutes before adding:

• Mirin (sweet cooking sake)
• Soy sauce
• Go-Chu-Jang (Korean style hot/sweet sauce)
• Water

I was just looking for a pleasing balance of sweet, salty and spicy. So eyeball the amounts and make it according to your taste. I always have soy sauce (salty) and mirin (sweet) and a bottle of something spicy hot around. Experiment with other ingredients if you don’t have these. Sugar and water or sugar and broth of some kind? Chili flakes? I used to keep oyster sauce and black bean sauce in my refrigerator, but I guess I don’t use them often enough to remember to restock them. Develop your intuition in the kitchen and start cooking without a recipe.

Once the sauce is boiling, toss in your broccoli florets and beef. Cover and reduce to simmer. Cook just until the broccoli is tender when pierced with a fork and the sauce has thickened up a little bit. It doesn’t take much more than 5 minutes. Quick and easy. Served over brown rice, it’s pretty healthy too, as simple meals should be.

Authentic?

Am I claiming to be an expert in authentic Chinese food? No way! Did this dish taste good and have my husband asking me to make it again? Yes.

I enjoy foods from all over the world and when I have had the privilege to sample some of them at the homes of friends from other countries, I often ask how to make a particular dish. Frequently I have been told that they will have to continue to make it for me because I wouldn’t know how it’s supposed to taste, so I shouldn’t try. Hooray for someone volunteering to cook for me! However, while it’s true that my palate would probably not be able to replicate every nuanced flavor the way a native would make it, I will forever try to do my best with what I have.

So, I encourage you also to try to identify the main ingredients of your favorite restaurant or ethnic dishes and experiment in your own kitchen. Play around with the various flavor components and see how they complement one another. You might end up liking your own version even better! Simple meals adapted to your own taste are so rewarding.

Try a similar sauce with different vegetables and chicken.

By the way, just because I only used broccoli florets above does not mean I threw the stems away. As long as you peel them, they’re perfectly flavorful and tender, either raw or cooked. Zero waste cooking! They were great in this salad another day.

Here’s an example of a “pantry salad”: canned garbanzo beans pair nicely with red cabbage and broccoli stems, which have a long shelf life when refrigerated. Simple meals can also be healthy!

For another Asian inspired dish using similar ingredients, please read Butakim next.

When I met Michael, there was one thing he could cook. He called it “Michael’s Famous Tacos”. Eventually I took over the taco making in our house because it was excruciating to see how long it took him to prepare the ingredients. There are three things he is still in charge of though: Grating the cheese, cooking the homemade taco shells and assembling them.

Like most of us, Michael grew up eating home made tacos with prepackaged taco shells. However, during his college days, he learned from his friend, Adrian, how to make his own homemade taco shells.

Baking Tortillas for Homemade Taco Shells

Lay out the tortillas on a cookie sheet and grate some cheese on them. Put them into a preheated 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes. They should be crispy, but still pliable enough to bend them.

The Meat

We used ground turkey here, but it could be whatever kind of meat you choose. Michael used to use a packaged seasoning mix, but I prefer to create my own. After browning the meat, I add to it:

• salt
• garlic powder
• dried minced onion
• cumin
• paprika
• smoked paprika
• cayenne pepper
• oregano

The Salad Mix

• romaine
• tomatoes
• green onions
• cilantro
• avocado

Of course you can still make tacos without all these ingredients. Use what you have. After crushing some garlic with salt in my mortar, I whisk in these ingredients:

• lime juice or vinegar of some kind
• olive oil
• salsa

For tostadas, you would bake the tortillas about 5 minutes longer.

Got any meat left over? Toss it into a salad the next day along with some rice or beans for a satisfying lunch. Make some dressing by crushing in your mortar and mixing together:

• garlic
• salt
• coriander
• lime juice
• olive oil
• salsa

Got more soft tortillas? Make fajitas. See Use Your Head, Plan Ahead.

I don’t really like to name a dish because I think it sets up an expectation for what it should be exactly. So, I quickly regretted it when Michael asked what was for dinner and I replied, “Butakim”. He saw me slicing a red cabbage and was very concerned about the outcome of this dish. Ingredients for butakim usually include baby bok choy as pictured below. But if I don’t have that, I will use another cabbage; even a red one. Get inspired by this spicy sauce for stir fry and cook a fantastic meal with ingredients you have on hand.

What Is Butakim?

Butakim is a dish we discovered at a local izakaya (Japanese pub). Buta means pork and kim is a shortened form of kimchee (spicy, fermented cabbage). That izakaya no longer exists and we always had trouble getting them to bring the rice at the right time anyway. We didn’t want the rice for dessert. We wanted to eat it with the butakim. So I started making it at home.

The first thing to do is to take the kimchee out of the refrigerator. I like it to come to room temperature if possible because I want to stir it in at the end of preparing the dish. Why? I don’t want to lose the probiotic benefits by cooking the kimchee.

I began with browning some ground turkey. Then I removed it from the skillet because it was very lean and I didn’t want to overcook it. Next, I sauteed the mushrooms and then added some sliced onions. Some minced garlic goes in there too. Finally add the bok choy.

If you’re using red cabbage, be sure to splash a little vinegar into the skillet because the acid helps preserve the pretty purple color of the cabbage. It doesn’t look very appetizing if it and everything else in the skillet turns blue.

Sauce For Stir Fry

Once the ingredients appear to be nearly finished cooking, start adding your saucy stuff: soy sauce, mirin (sweet cooking sake) and Go-chu-jang (Korean hot and sweet sauce). If you don’t have some of these ingredients, you can improvise with whatever you have. Got some Sriracha (spicy Thai chili pepper sauce)? Some other kind of hot sauce? No mirin? Try a little sugar or honey with a little water. Taste and see what you think it needs in order to find an appealing balance of sweet, salty and spicy. You will have fun expanding your palate and cooking without a recipe.

Of course, it’s the kimchee that ultimately makes the dish. So stir that in at the end along with your cooked meat. Be sure to put a little liquid into the jar once you have poured all the kimchee out. That way you can shake it up and get the last bits of spicy goodness out. A little soy sauce or chicken broth would do the trick.

Basic Ingredients:

• ground or sliced meat of your choice
• cabbage such as baby bok choy
• sliced onion
• mushrooms (such as shitake or button)
• garlic
• soy sauce
• mirin (or something sweet)
• Go-chu-jang (or other hot sauce)
• vinegar (perhaps)
• Kimchee
• cooked rice

Want to learn about other probiotic foods? Please read Miso Adaptable next.

I enjoy a good meatloaf. So easy and versatile, besides making great leftovers for sandwiches. If meatloaf is a little too pedestrian for you, try forming them into balls or patties. Anything in the shape of a ball suddenly screams party…at least that’s how Michael feels…and they’re so easy to cook in the oven.

You can choose from any array of herbs and spices to change up the personality of ground meat.

For the meatballs pictured above, I used some leftover rice instead of bread crumbs. (Neither of those are absolutely necessary, by the way. I make all kinds of meatballs without either.) This is one reason I often make my rice a little bit plain to start. It gives me more options for using the leftovers later.

I decided to season the meat with:

• cumin
• cinnamon
• garlic powder
• nutmeg

Some diced onion adds flavor and moisture. An egg helps bind the ingredients together. Again, it’s not absolutely necessary. I have often made meatballs without eggs.

How to Cook Meatballs in the Oven

I baked these on a cookie sheet in the oven for about 20 minutes. Turn them over at around 12 minutes or so to cook evenly. That’s the easiest for me, but you could certainly do them in a skillet if you preferred or simmer them in a soup.

Leftovers freeze well, but we ate these a couple days later with some yogurt/tahini (sesame seed paste) sauce . Lots of ways to make that. I put into my food processor:

• a clove of garlic
• plain yogurt
• tahini
• lemon juice
• salt

The ratio of yogurt to tahini was nearly equal, but a little heavier on the yogurt. That’s what I decided tasted good. You decide what works for you. Cooking without a recipe is liberating.

For more on working smarter, not harder, please read Use Your Head, Plan Ahead next.

If you have a grill, use it. At the moment, we don’t, so I put our steaks under the broiler. It seems to yield the most consistent results. A very simple approach that allows me the opportunity to think more about the sides. Are you a meat eater that resists veggies? I can help you learn how to eat more vegetables when you don’t like them.

Filet mignon used to be our steak of choice until we discovered ribeye. It’s a question of tenderness versus flavor. Ribeye wins hands down, in our opinion. But sometimes the ribeye available lacks enough marble and we’ll get a New York strip instead. On this occasion, the top sirloin looked the best, so that’s what I picked up.

I often season a steak with herbs or top with a sauce of some kind. In this case, I decided to simply sprinkle with a little garlic powder and salt before putting under the broiler. If it’s a great steak, that’s quite enough, as far as I am concerned. A simple, celebratory meal.

Make Veggies the Star

Once I roasted the vegetables, I decided to give them a little love and make them the star of this meal by offering a truffle aioli for dipping. (Crushed a clove of garlic with a little salt using my mortar and pestle and simply mixed it with some mayonnaise and a touch of truffle oil.) It’s hard to restrain oneself with the truffle oil, but do try as a little goes a long way. You want a hint of flavor, not that it should knock you over.

I leave my skillet in the oven while roasting the broccolini and sweet potatoes at 400 on a cookie sheet so that the skillet can preheat. Cover and remove the vegetables once they’re tender and jam up the heat to 500. Then preheat the broiler. Carefully put the steaks into the preheated skillet and under the broiler until done to your liking. 4 1/2 minutes is usually about right for us to reach medium rare/medium for the steaks pictured above. (Figure about 5 minutes per inch.) Remove from the skillet and let steaks rest before serving.

All my friends return from their trips abroad with clothing and jewelry as souvenirs. I am a strange bird…What did I bring home from Italy? Truffle oil. If you can’t hop on a plane right now, you can purchase it online or at a local specialty market.

For another idea on using truffle oil, please read No Small Potatoes next.

Got leftovers? Lots of us don’t want to eat the same meal all over again in the next day or two. What to do? If you don’t think you will eat it within a couple days, put it in the freezer, by all means.

Here’s another way to practice zero waste cooking: reinvent leftovers. Using some meat from a previous dinner, we had this refreshing lunch of lamb sandwiches alongside hummus, which Michael declared was better than the last lamb sandwich he had at our favorite Greek restaurant. (Translation: no surprising, unwanted bites of fat.) High praise from a guy who many years ago remarked that he would rather go to the aforementioned restaurant after I had made something similar! Why do I remember these random events, but he never does? It’s okay, Honey, I’m listening!

It’s easy enough to make your own hummus, as long as you don’t insist on peeling all the garbanzos…Yes, my perfectionistic friends, you know who you are. If you prefer the smoother consistency, that’s fantastic! You can make it for me when we see each other next rather than the other way around.

Making the most of the leftover meat, I mixed it with romaine, tomatoes and cilantro. A crushed clove of garlic mixed with a little plain yogurt made a quick, healthy salad dressing. If I had cucumbers, I would have put those in there too. You could do something similar with cabbage if you were out of lettuce. Celery is also great for dipping in hummus. I had the bread in the freezer, which is where I usually put it as soon as I buy it. Crackers would work instead. Olives should ALWAYS be in the pantry, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t you agree?

For more on reinventing leftovers and zero waste cooking, please read Use Your Head, Plan Ahead next.