amusing

Amuses bouches have hit the unhip boroughs of our fine country (read: not New York).  Now, everyone is amusing their bouches with them.  Frankly, they’ve been uncool since 2002 among the hipsters, but since we don’t orbit in that galaxy, Daddy-o, we shall press on.

Trying to be hip myself (and thus always already outmoded), I’d say they are Derridean food, but it’s easier to prove and more 2008 if I just spit it out: they are tiny mouthfuls of fun that precede the appetizers in your fancy restaurant meal.  Like appetizers, but smaller and more liberated, contradictory even — more fanciful, less leaden and less predictable.  Amuses bouches are like the Beat Girl of appetizers:

(Yes, I watched this last night.  You’re seeing the best of it.  Well, maybe a café scene or two is better, especially since they use two of my husband’s favorite phrases, “you wanna fight?  Then join the army,” and “aw, nuts.”  He’ll be pleased to know the former phrase contained an even better ending: “you wanna fight?  Then join the army!  That’s what all the squares are doing.”)

But ANYWAY.  Amuses bouches come from Paris, like Gillian Hills, the star of Beat Girl.  There, they’re often called amuses gueules by the French poodles, which is too hard to say for us squares, so they became known as amuses bouches.

I translate these amusing mouthfuls most often when I have a very rich or very garlicky dish.  My cream of kabocha pumpkin soup with bacon, for example, served at Thanksgiving.  Or two or three strange flavors that might be overwhelming if they were served in larger portions, like this seared flank steak with Fraga Farm raw milk goat feta, boysenberry, and homemade blackberry-thyme vinegar.  Just one mouthful, that’s the ticket, dad, something that makes your tastebuds sing.  And sing they did:  the metallic tang of the meat, the funk of the creamy fresh cheese, the tart musk of the berry, and the echo of vinegar.

Needless to say, with les amuses bouches, one needs to use absolutely pristine ingredients.  Shell out for grass-fed local beef, Oregon Tilth (the big organic certifier around these parts) cheese, and just picked berries that you’ve rushed home from the vine.  Your guests will be wild for those kicks, even if you’re a bit behind the times, verging, dare I say it, on square.

And that’s what I’ve got for you today.  I’m gonna fade out, doll.  Zero.

 

corn-fed

I’ve started in with the hooligans over at the Mid-Willamette Valley Eat Local Challenge, representing the South Valley, an emissary of sorts. The challenge is to incorporate more local products into one’s summer cooking. Frankly, if you’re not doing this already and you live in the Willamette Valley, you’re missing out on some of the best produce, meat and nuts in the country. I’m going to track what I’ve sourced and talk more about the changes we’ve made to our diet over the past five months since I’ve been back in Oregon in a later post, but for now, it’s all about CORNED BEEF made from local brisket.

One of the chief joys in my life lately is, as I have mentioned, my Family Food Education/Master Food Preserver training through OSU Extension. This week, we learned about emergency food storage and root cellars, and spent several hours making cheese. Does it get any better than that? Why, yes, it does. A few weeks ago, we had a presentation on how to corn beef and tongue. My friend Janet is a tongue fan, so she asked me to provide the recipe. I told her I had to make it first to see if I could replicate the deliciousness, and, after three weeks of prep and curing, it turns out I could!

I bought the 5-lb. brisket at Long’s Meat Market (see under Eugene Marketplace links to the right). The meat is from Knee Deep Cattle Company in Coburg, OR, who also makes an affordable and delicious pound-bag of ground beef that sells at Friendly Street Market for $2.99. (N.b., the cows are not corn-fed until you rub ‘em with spices and let them cure in your corning procedure.)

The Morton’s Tender Quick might cause some issues with those of you — it’s a blend of nitrates, nitrites, sugar and salt used to fix the color and help preserve the meat. Paradoxically, it turns raw meat brown and cooked meat red. Science! I’ve seen recipes without it, and if you’d like to omit the Tender Quick, please don’t alter mine but use another recipe, like this adaptation from Julia Child, at your own risk. Tender Quick can be found at many grocery stores and places that have big canning sections in spring, like Fred Meyer.  (The image is from a product website, so you have a sense of what you’re looking for.  Try the spices aisle as well as the canning supplies aisle.)

This recipe is my adaptation of OSU Extension Service document LC 712, “Deli-Style Corned Beef or Tongue.” Other cuts to try include pork loin (for Canadian bacony taste), bottom round, and shoulder. Check to make sure your brisket will fit into a ziplock bag before the process starts, and plan for several weeks of curing time!

Corned Beef or Tongue

1 beef brisket (or tongue), 4-6 lbs.
2 T. Penzey’s premium pickling spice mix, toasted (or another brand, or make your own, using the ingredients listed here)
5 T. Morton’s Tender Quick
2 T. dark brown sugar
1 t. ground pepper
1 t. smoked Spanish paprika
1 t. ground allspice
1 t. garlic powder
4-5 fresh bay leaves, chopped, or 1 t. dried, powdered bay leaves

Toast spices in the spice mix in a small pan over medium heat until mixture smells aromatic. Crush spice mix spices in a mortar with pestle. Mix together sugar, all spices, and Tender Quick in a small bowl.

Prepare brisket or tongue by removing whatever surface fat you can. In a bowl or platter, rub mixture well into the meat, covering all exposed areas. Place meat in ziplock bag, seal tightly, then place into another ziplock bag for safety, and set on clean plate.

Allow meat to cure in refrigerator for five days per inch of meat thickness (measure at the thickest part). A corned beef brisket is usually around 2 inches wide; tongues are much wider, so plan for three weeks for a large tongue.

Turn bag over every other day.

Place fully cured meat in a large stockpot, and add generous amounts of water to cover. Bring to a boil, skim surface, and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until tender, about 3 to 4 hours. Tongue will be done when you can skin it, and you should skin it before serving. Do not do this in room with vegetarians.

In the last 30 minutes of cooking, you may add whole new potatoes and/or cabbage to the cooking liquid.

Let sit for 10-15 minutes before slicing, or meat will fall apart.

 

again-with-the-winter cranberry brisket

This week in the Willamette Valley, we’ve got blue skies and temperatures reaching upwards of 80 degrees. This is not a recipe for us. It is a recipe, instead, for people in the Midwest like my family, who are suffering rain and temps in the 40s. “Again with the winter?” they cry. So it’s long-cooked brisket one more time, before spring yawns and finally gets up out of bed.

The recipe is one I make whenever I get my hands on a brisket. Note that I don’t mean a corned-beef brisket, one of those marinated, spiced, plastic-wrapped dealies you get in bags around St. Patrick’s Day. It’s an uncorned, fresh brisket, tough as a gardener in Midwestern spring, meaty, with a big layer of fat, weighing in at about 5 lbs.

I saw a brisket on sale at Safeway for dirt cheap (and dirt quality — bah) and had planned to experiment with it. I’m longing to make my own corned beef. A quick look in a couple local stores yielded nothing but a problem, though. I couldn’t find the Morton’s Tender Quick (a mix of salt, sugar and nitrites) that one needs to add to corn the beef, so I’ve tabled that project for now. The brisket was destined to become cranberried.

The recipe comes from my mother-in-law, who made it at Passover one year, via Bon Appetit magazine. I’ve amended it a bit. It’s much, much better than any brisket recipe I’ve had, and it gets compliments every time it is served at such an occasion. You may use sweetened or unsweetened dried cranberries (I prefer unsweetened) and dried mushrooms to your taste. I prefer the already sliced dried Chinese shiitake mushrooms, but fresh portobello (use about 12 oz.) or shiitake are good, too. Don’t use button mushrooms, which are too watery and bland for this recipe.

Allow me to point out one technique before proceeding that can be used in all stews: double seasoning. If you add the seasonings prior to long cooking, the flavors will meld and form a complex gravy. Adding just a bit more of the predominant flavors about 30 minutes to the end of cooking punches those flavors up considerably. In this recipe, I add more wine and rosemary, for example.

Cranberry Brisket with Shiitake Mushrooms

Serves: 6-8

Note: Brisket needs to rest in the refrigerator overnight. Please plan accordingly.

4-5 lbs. fresh beef brisket (NOT corned beef brisket)
2 medium white onions, chopped
3-4 large garlic cloves, chopped
2 c. full-flavored red wine (Cabernet is good), separated in half
1 c. cranberry juice or orange juice
1 c. beef stock or chicken stock or water
2 T. flour
2 bay leaves
3 T. fresh rosemary, chopped (or 1.5 T. dried), separated in half
1 c. dried cranberries
1/2 c. dried shiitake or Chinese mushrooms, reconstituted and sliced thinly.

Separate out the wine and rosemary. You’ll use half later. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Brown the brisket in a deep skillet over medium high heat in a couple tablespoons vegetable oil. Remove brisket and place in dutch oven, fat side up. Turn down the temperature to medium, then brown the onions in hot oil. When onions are golden brown and slightly caramelized, turn down the heat to medium low, add three or four garlic cloves, chopped, and the flour. This is called making a roux, a thickener, but in the very lazy way. Mix and cook for a few minutes, until the flour starts to change to a golden color. Don’t burn the roux.

Add the onion roux to the brisket to the dutch oven. Add 1 cup wine, stock, juice, bay leaves, 1.5 T. rosemary, and some freshly ground pepper.

Cover dutch oven and braise in the oven for about 3 hours.

When the brisket is soft and pliant, take out of the oven and add the cranberries, reconstituted mushrooms, and salt and pepper. Let brisket cool enough to handle.

Take the brisket out of the pot and slice it across the grain in long, thin slices. Note to brisket virgins: this is important. If you cut it in chunks or shred it, you will look like a caveman at a mastodon roast trying to eat it. It is only tender when you slice it across the grain.

Place the slices back in gravy and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. About 45 minutes before serving the next day, heat up brisket on medium low heat, adding a cup of wine and the rest of the rosemary. Adjust seasonings and simmer for 30-40 minutes. The flavor improves greatly the next day.

Serve with egg noodles, mashed or roasted potatoes.

 

eating behind the orange curtain

Having survived in Orange County for three years and lived to tell my silicone-free, pudgy tale, I find the place mostly horrific and sometimes amusing. But is making fun of the nouveau riche ever really funny? I mean, it’s like poking fun at George W.’s butchery of our native tongue: shooting oversized, resource-wasting, born-again fish in a gilded oil barrel. But. Having grown up in a place where I doubted that the beach culture and Beverly Hills ridiculousness actually existed, convinced it was a TV fantasy, I feel obligated to share with the world that Southern California is real, and there are still plenty of guffaws to be had on every street corner.

I bring you Exhibits 1 and 2.

A Gucci suit and a Baccarat gazelle, to match your Baccarat chandelier, of course. In my triennial trip to South Coast Plaza, the absurdist-dream-come-true megamall in Costa Mesa, where I discovered to my great dismay that replacing my wine glasses, purchased 10 years ago from my wedding registry at Williams Sonoma, had jumped in price from about 7 bucks a glass to 18 with a proportionate reduction in quality, I snapped a few shots for posterity. My friend Miss C was surely mortified, and I’m sorry for that. I need GAUDY, I snapped, waving around my camera, work it, girlfriend, work it! We also managed to find similar-looking wine glasses to mine at Crate & Barrel, plain, sturdy, all-purpose balloon glasses that were made for breakin’ at 5 bucks apiece. The glass quality isn’t fine, but it also isn’t Ikea, either, if you know what I mean.

I called Retrogrouch to brag of my success. You didn’t buy varietal glasses, he warned dangerously, because I will divorce you if you wasted my money to buy varietal glasses. With a sigh, I stopped lustfully fingering the Riedel Riesling glasses, and reassured him I hadn’t. And decided to wait before telling him about the shoes.

But this is a post about eating behind the Orange Curtain, not the travails of being a Crate & Barrrel multipurpose glass girl in a Baccarat crystal gazelle world. And eating there, friends, is not at all bad. Sometimes it is even sublime.

Again with the Exhibits. The first is, without question, Thai Nakorn in Stanton (near Garden Grove) the best Thai restaurant I’ve ever patronized, except for well, maybe one vegetarian one in Bangkok.

But why is it that I’m always eating Thai with vegetarians? Although my companion generously offered to share a meat dish (if I recall correctly, she was drooling over Thai sausage), I told her to preserve her chastitity; I could deal. So we ordered Pad Thai and Chinese Water Grass with Bean Sauce, and I partook in the Crab Egg Roll, which was a fresh crab stuffing inside a tofu skin roll. So much yum. I’m only devastated that I’m just now discovering I lived so close to such a wondrous place.

But we couldn’t stop there. We also ate at Felix’s Continental Café in Orange for breakfast, just because we couldn’t fit in one more dinner, one more lunch. Felix’s has terrific roasted meat, one of my raisons d’être, but the breakfast isn’t bad, either. We were able to sit outside on yet another beautiful day, right smack dab on the circle in Olde Towne Orange, looking at the peaches, er, oranges growing impossibly on the trees around the central fountain. Soon enough we stopped noticing the people, and dug into our carbohydrate-laden grub. That’s me with the Eggs Hussarde, with not only Hollandaise but also

Marchand de Vin sauce. Oddly, Felix’s replaces the latter with their bittersweet, orange-marmaladey white wine interpretation, but it was still good, and the fried potatoes and eggs were divine. For dessert was a picture-perfect fruit fritter with some kind of red berry glaze, but not being much of a sweets girl, I only nibbled at it. My lovely companion chose smartly: Cuban huevos ranchero with black beans, rice, and extra sauce. And dear heavens, did I mention the price?

And I can’t forget to mention Taco Rosa in Newport Beach, for that Cali-Mex upscale cantina taste you (inexplicably) can’t find anywhere but Cali. Carnitas Baked in Banana Leaf with Pibil Sauce and a corn tamale, Portobello mushroom quesadillas, and a trio of bocadillos (marinated carrot, a tostadita with beans, a mini beef chimichanga) sure do go down easy with a few margaritas.

But believe it or not (o ye who knowst me), I didn’t eat at my absolutely favorite Orange County fine dining establishment, Wholesome Choice Supermarket. If it weren’t for my adorable ex-roomie and departmental homegirl sublettor who made me dinner in the ‘hood, Irvine’s graduate ghetto, I would have. (My ex-roomie, a Chilean, is a fantastic cook, and one of the main reasons I survived my return to The OC last fall. We ate Chilean comfort food — a type of shepherd’s pie and homemade bread, and a big Greek salad, and I got to spend an evening with two beautiful ladies, so who’s complaining? )

But I must speak on the wonder that is the Persian hot food deli counter at Wholesome Choice. I have eaten so many kebabs from the Persian deli there that I swear to you that at least 50 lbs. of my body is made of fillet mignon seasoned with a juiced half-lemon and sumac, topped with yogurt-cucumber dressing, and snuggled up next to buttered Basmati rice pilaf with a crust of fried Persian bread and rice.

This time, however, this last time I might ever be in Irvine, I merely took a longing look and said my goodbyes with a bag full of citrus salt pistachios, Persian pistachio-rosewater ice cream, and a big jar of Morello cherries in syrup. Could there be a better way to say thanks to my last, best graduate school? I think not.

 

while the cat’s away, the mouse will eat garlic chicken

When I eat garlic, it lingers on my breath for days. For some reason, I am extra sensitive to its effects. It oozes out of my pores. I leave a faint (or not so faint) whiff of garlic as I breeze through a room. Because this is unpleasant to my close associates (read: my husband), I am forbidden to indulge in some of my favorite binge eating. Do other people do this, too? I wonder what the taboo foodstuffs are in other relationships.

Sometimes, I dream of being single again. When I lived alone, I used to roast a head of garlic or two and spread the creamy, carmelized cloves on hunks of baguette. Now I just save these gloriously gluttonous moments for when Retrogrouch goes away for several days. I’m very responsible about it, too. I plan for mid-week, so I’ll have a couple of days to clear the stuff out of my system.

This week, I decided to binge like a mofo. I started planning for a Thai garlic pepper chickenfest. I haven’t had much chicken since I taught the food politics class in the fall. The articles we read, and the papers my students wrote, really made me re-evaluate eating cheap chicken. But suddenly, I wanted good chicken, and I wanted it with garlic, and I wanted it NOW.

One of the miracles of Thai food is garlic pepper squid — squid flash-fried with white pepper and a bit of coating, then mounded over lettuce leaves with a huge pile of fried, chopped garlic. A friend took classes with the celebrated Bay Area Thai cookbook author and teacher, Kasma Loha-Unchit, and then he practiced on us. My eyes nearly rolled back in my head when he introduced us to this dish.

I soon discovered you can make this with any seafood or meat, but chicken is particularly good. I think tofu would work as well, but since it takes a longer time to fry up golden than meats, be sure that the pieces are small. And by all means, check ahead to confirm that your dining companions and loved ones are ok with garlic eau-de-cologne.

And sorry, sweetie, I know you’re in England, where the food is not exactly jolly good, and I know you love this dish, too, but believe me, I’m doing it for our relationship.

Love,

me

Thai Garlic Pepper Fried Chicken

(adapted from Kasma Loha-Unchit’s recipe in It Rains Fishes: Legends, Traditions, and the Joys of Thai Cooking)

4 chicken half-breasts (i.e., one small package)

2 heads as-fresh-as-possible garlic, chopped

2 t. ground white pepper, or more to taste

2 T. fish sauce

2 t. cornstarch

3 T. white flour

vegetable oil for frying

Slice chicken breasts into thin strips. Chop all the garlic by hand into small pieces. Smashing the cloves with the back of a cleaver first will help make this process easier. Add to bowl with chicken. Add rest of ingredients to bowl, and mix thoroughly, being sure that each piece of chicken is coated well. The chicken and garlic will look dry. If it looks wet, add a bit more flour.

Fry chicken in several batches to avoid over-crowding in a wok with about a cup or two of vegetable oil. Watch carefully, since the garlic can burn. When chicken and garlic are golden brown, remove to dish with paper towels, then transfer to platter lined with lettuce leaves. Between batches, be sure to remove ALL stray garlic pieces with a fine strainer so they don’t burn in the oil. The oil can be cooled, strained and reused in stirfries, since it will pick up a nice garlicky odor.

Serve with other, more reasonable dishes with vegetables and jasmine rice. Or, if you’re completely alone and without hope for future alliances, half the recipe and serve with kimchi radish pickles and rice. I like to wrap up the chicken pieces in the lettuce with bits of garlic. Heaven.

Serves 2-3, if you can restrain yourselves.

 

dining with Porkchop and Meatball

My husband had two imaginary friends when he was little: Porkchop and Meatball. I decided to give them an honorary banquet yesterday. Or rather, eat them at an honorary banquet yesterday.* Inspiration is a treacherous thing. And yet, it all looks so normal, donnit? The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie.

Le Menu

Moroccan carrot purée and pita

Harissa spiced meatballs with lemon sauce

Green herbed couscous (kale, dill, parsley, scallions)

Pan-seared brined porkchops over white Russian kale with Noris butter and garlic

Retrogrouch’s salad with lemon mustard dressing

Store-bought cookies, Dagoba chocolate, and Coconut Bliss vegan ice cream

 

 

 

(Not pictured: Meatball.)

We had over a colleague from his work, and the evening was full of wine. I’m now feeling too full and lazy to post recipes, so I won’t.

And I’m so full of CSA love right now…I had never prepared Russian kale before, just regular, and it’s much more tender and pretty, with ruffly, small leaves. I used CSA dill in my couscous, their carrots in my purée and in the meatballs, their garlic and their kale, and their lettuce for the salad. Yay for local vegetables! Yay for nutritiony goodness!

The Russian kale was fantastic. I seared the pork chops, then sauteed the kale in the same pan, so it picked up the drippings. If you’re not going to simmer greens in pot likker with ham hocks, this is a method I would absolutely suggest.

*Hey, my imaginary friends were cats. It could be worse.

 

 

couscous for the slow cooker, in desperation

I make couscous frequently. It’s one of our favorite meals. It can be vegetarian or carnivorous, depending on what’s at hand. One can make bountiful substitutions and it still tastes good. In fact, every time I make it it’s a new dish. The bright colors and root-veggie goodness are fantastic pick-me-ups in the dreary PNW late-winter, like little chunks of sun we’re promised will come again.

Last year, after we bought our fixer-upper house, a cute little post-WWII cottage with great bones but needing a major face lift, I discovered that the worthless previous owners had been cooking on a stove that had caught on fire. The wires connecting the burners were frazzled and burnt. The electrician advised not using the stove, wisely, so I waited for a couple of months until we could afford to convert to gas and buy a new unit.

This was the middle of a cold winter, so, with trepidation, I bought a slow cooker for my winter stews. The crock pot was a major feature of my childhood. We had crock pot meals all year ’round, at least twice a week. Sometimes the reek of sauerkraut and kielbasa would be so bad that I’d get a headache, because there’s nothing quite like cooking sauerkraut all day long, even if you live in a large two-story house. I still associate crock pot smells with nausea. It’s so deeply ingrained in me that I actually felt a bit sick when the odor of my couscous permeated the house. Ah, le temps perdu. Proust had his madeleines, I get crock pot meals.

Anyhoo. The couscous turned out pretty well, and I’m far more sensitive now to those with compromised kitchens. For those of you who are similarly compromised, or if you just like the crock pot, the adjusted recipe follows.

I’ll have to admit that I like couscous better on my new stove, so I give notes that allow you to cook this recipe on the stove, as well. Lately, I’ve been forgoing the meat and simplifying the spices to only cinnamon, salt, red pepper flakes and cumin. We also had a version adding ground lamb and green beans that was good. See? Flexible as can be.

Slow Cookin’ Couscous Stew

Note:  I usually cook this stew on the stove, so you can easily modify it for stovetop cooking by browning the beef and onions, then adding stock/water and seasonings.  The root vegetables should be added after about an hour (if you’re using chuck beef) and the other vegetables near the end of cooking (about two hours or so).

2 lbs. cubed beef chuck (or pork shoulder, or lamb, or chicken thighs…)
1 large onion, chopped

Seasonings: 1 T. cinnamon, 2 t. salt, 1 t. coriander, 1/2 t. turmeric, 1 t. cumin, 1 t. allspice, 1 t. onion powder, ground pepper.

At least 3 root vegetables, 1 each, cut into largish (2-inch) chunks. I use turnip, rutabaga, yam, white potato, winter squash, leeks, carrot, parsnip. Cabbage works too, cut into 3-4 inch wedges, but it isn’t very pretty because the wedges fall apart. Russet potatoes and sweet potatoes will dissolve and make broth thicker, which is fine, but may be disappointing if you want chunks.

1 andouille sausage, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 can chick peas, drained
1 cup large raisins (white ones if you can get them)
3-4 dried red hot peppers

1 zucchini, cut into 2-inch long fingers
1 red pepper
1 green pepper (Retrogrouch likes these — I’d rather use roasted pasilla peppers I keep in the freezer or nothing at all)

harissa

about 4 cups chicken stock or water

In a 6-quart or larger slow cooker, layer beef, onion, seasonings, root vegetables, sausage, chick peas and raisins, in that order. Don’t mix. Add enough chicken stock or water to cover most of the vegetables (about 1/2 full?). Cook on high for first hour or so, then cook on low for 5-6 hours.

In last hour of cooking, mix in zucchini, red pepper and green pepper, plus a spoonful of harissa and some chopped preserved lemon, if you have some. Taste for salt and heat. Serve with couscous. If you want to be fancy, mix couscous with cilantro and chick peas. Makes a huge pot.

 

chilly! my staples: midwesternish chili

It’s snowing in Eugene, and the Californian in me shoved aside the Midwesterner and ran outside to take pictures. We only get snow like this once every couple of years here, and it makes me happy because I remember the sound and the smell of snow, so hopeful, so vivid.

And being chilly, I made chili. This is one of my favorite recipes, and the best Midwest-style chili I’ve ever had. It’s particularly lovely because you can make it with almost all pantry ingredients, so it’s perfect for a day you’re snowbound. You can make it on the stove or in a slow-cooker. The recipe is a significant modification of one in a cookbook put out by the graduate students in my first grad school. It was called “Peanut’s Plebian Chili,” after a dog named Peanut. I ditched the Peanut, for obvious reasons, and made my own class-based value judgments. And I welcome you to do the same.

Almost Plebian Chili

(A)
2 lbs. Hamburger meat (lower fat better)
1 large yellow onion, chopped

(B)
1 T. chili powder
1 t. black pepper

(C)
1 28-oz. can chopped tomatoes with puree (or substitute can of diced tomatoes and a half-can of tomato paste)
2 15-oz. cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed (try to buy ones without added sugar)
3/4 c. steak sauce AND 2 T. catsup (this is the “almost plebian” part)
2 T. Dijon
1/2 lemon or lime, juiced
3 or 4 canned chipotles in adobo, plus some sauce, chopped (don’t omit)
1 T. sesame seeds
1 T. dark soy sauce (especially if you’re not using beer)
1 bottle beer or 1 cup water

Brown (A) on high heat in a dutch oven, preferably in two batches, but I’m not lookin’. Drain meat of extra grease. Turn down heat to medium low and add (B) to coat meat. Stir in (C), then cook for about 1 hour, covered, at a simmer. Tastes better the next day. Add salt only if necessary. Usually doesn’t need it, but if you use low-salt kidney beans or use less processed substitutes for the steak sauce and catsup (which I don’t recommend in this recipe), you’ll need salt. Serve with a dollop of sour cream, if that strikes your fancy, and/or pickled peppers. I prefer straight-up saltines and a beer chaser.