Beef and Root Vegetables Salad (Russian Salad Variation) | You've Got Meal!

This dish is a version of a mayonnaise-folded salad that is extremely popular in Eastern-Europe and in post-soviet countries. It is usually prepared during the winter, for special occasions like Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve. It is  a great recipe for winter because it uses meat, potatoes, root vegetables and pickles, so all ingredients were and are easy to find during winter. This version is most similar to the Romanian version, that has a fancy, French name "salata de boeuf", although the inspiration is not French, but Russian, from Salad Olivier  or Russian Salad. As popular as it is, everybody seems to have their own version. Some use chicken breast, some beef, some don't even use meat, some add peas, some are totally against peas...Being such a simple salad, it is delicious in any way.

I think is that delicious because it has everything it needs: the meat, the neutral taste (potatoes), the sweet (carrots and parsnip) and the sour (pickled cucumbers). It can be useless to give exact measurements, it all comes down to preferences, but usually you will need relatively equal quantities for the four components above.  All that topped with delicious home made mayonnaise.

 Ingredients:

• 400 g beef meat
• 5 potatoes
• 3 carrots
• 1 parsnip
• 4-5 pickled cucumbers
• home made mayonnaise made from 1 yolk
• salt

1.  Boil the meat and the boiled vegetables separately. 
2. Dice the meat and the vegetables. Dice small the pickled cucumbers and squeeze the pickles to remove some of their juice, or the salad will be too watery.
3. In a bowl, place all the diced ingredients, add salt to taste and  mix them.
4. Add mayonnaise to the diced ingredients and toss and mix well. Always taste, you might not need to add all the mayo.
5. By now, you can traditionally place the salad in a pretty bowl and cover with another layer of mayonnaise (optional). It can also be decorated with hard-boiled eggs or vegetables.
6. Decorated or not, it is delicious served chilled as a spread, as an appetizer on crusty bread or salad leaves, or even as a side dish for fried or grilled meats.

Enjoy,

Beef Steak with Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

One of our favorite dinners in the YOUVEGOTMEAL kitchen is a tender, juicy, delicious beef tenderloin steak. And when paired with some crispy on the outside, tender on the inside potatoes, these 2 make for a memorable dinner (red wine also helps- it ALWAYS helps). We had 3 pieces of beef, about 150 grams each, 500 grams of potatoes, cut into wedges and washed 2-3 times in cold water, 4-5 garlic cloves, a couple tbs. of fresh rosemary, olive oil, 2-3 tbs. of red vinegar, salt, pepper. 

This whole meal screams comfort food, and you can choose to add some ingredients both to the meat or to the spuds -  for example use some herbs to crust the meat or change the flavor package for the potatoes (I’m gonna get to that in a while). 

Take the meat out of the fridge at least 30 minutes before cooking it, heat up a non-stick pan with 2-3 tbs of olive oil and fry the steak on medium-high heat for 1 minute on all sides. Next, pop the meat in the same pan that you’ve seared it in for 7-10 minutes (depending on how rare you want it)- make sure the pan doesn’t have plastic components.

The potatoes- put them in salted water and boil them for 7 minutes, then remove them and let them steam for 3 minutes- make sure you give each wedge plenty of room. Next, put the potatoes in an oven tray, again, making sure, they have enough room, and give them a small splash of olive oil, salt and pepper. Cook the potatoes on medium heat for 20 minutes. 

Meanwhile, lightly crush the garlic cloves and mix them with the rosemary leaves and the vinegar, plus a little more olive oil. Sprinkle this mix on top of the potatoes and cook them for another 10 minutes. 

We served everything with a fresh and crispy salad made of salad leaves (something lettuga bowl) and  endives with a simple lemon-olive oil dressing. Sometimes, less is more, even in the kitchen.

Enjoy,

Bourbon Beef Steak with Blistered Broccoli and Napa Cabbage

You know those shirts that say:“I cook with wine, sometimes I put in my food”?. Think of that and replace wine with bourbon for this recipe. You would be surprised how versatile good old Jack can be not only for the meat, but also for the side dish. So let’s start breaking this recipe down.

The meat- grab yourself a nice piece of beef steak. Now, I wanted to mix things for the meat so I did a super easy and delicious trick that can give a real lift to any steak. Cook your meat to your desired result (remember that test to check your meat by comparing to different variations of your clenched fist? Use it!). 

With one minute or so to spare throw in the pan 20 grams of bourbon and flambé the meat. Also, it will impress anyone else in the room making you look like you performed a Holywood-like stunt. What can I say? The ladies enjoy a live flambee…. Back to business, let the meat rest for 3-4 minutes, lightly brush one side with some spicy mustard (try and get the type that has horseradish in it) then grab the meat and put the mustard side in some ground pepper. This will give your meat a strong, pregnant peppery taste and you can always use this trick to cover one or more sides of a steak that didn’t really came out your way.

So where should we use more bourbon you ask? Why, the sauce, of course. 

Grab yourself 75 grams of butter, 

some shimenji mushrooms (or whatever type make you happy on the inside), 

50 grams of whisky, 

50 grams of stock and 

the same amount of cream. 

Start of by melting the butter in the same pan that you cooked the meat in. Add in the mushrooms and cook them for 3 minute on high heat, then pour in the whisky. Take advantage of this occasion to perform some more pyrotechnics, cook for another minute, then reduce the heat and add the stock and cream. In about 3 minutes add the salt and pepper and remove from heat. 

For the side dish, I served the meat with some blistered broccoli and stir fried Napa Cabbage. Regarding the last ingredient, it was a nice surprise for me as its taste proved to work very nice with the meat. Simply cut it any way you want and throw it in a pan with a couple tbs. of olive oil on high heat. Cook for 2 minutes and add just a touch of bourbon to, you guessed it, flambé the cabbage, cook for another 2 minutes. Touch of salt and pepper and you’re done.

The other vegetable didn’t get the bourbon treatment, but I can’t complain: Mrs. G liked it a lot, so much that I can’t cook broccoli in any other way. What can I say? Broccoli can do that to a woman. I found this recipe on Instagram, on the @bonappetitmag account. Cut the veggie into florets making sure you keep a long enough stalk for each floret.

Then cut each one in half so you have a flat surface for each broccoli. Heat up some olive oil on high heat, put the veggie with the flat side down in there and cook until you get a dark brown color. Flip the broccoli and place the pan in the oven for 10 minutes. Plate the broccoli and add a splash of lemon juice, some chili flakes and garlic slices. Absolutely delicious. It’s a wonderful way to give broccoli a nice twist, similar to a Ottolenghi recipe for a broccoli salad that applied similar that technique, but in which you first blanched the veggie before grilling it on a super hot grill.

So, that was our bourbon beef dinner, but feel free to use whisky instead of bourbon. As a suggestion here, go for Islay whisky, some Laphroaig would really hit the spot with its peaty, rich taste.

Enjoy,

Meatball Madness (II) Italian Style Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

Meatball madness! What? Again? You can't escape the madness! Especially when you have a lot of them hanging in your fridge, in wich case you can make them shine again with an easy and super delicious sauce. 

Now, the results of the original madness were some meatballs with a definite sweet touch, so I wanted to make a more sour sauce. 

Ingredients: 

the juice of 4 big, ripe, red tomatoes(just use a grater), 
1 medium onion, 
2 garlic cloves, 
200 ml of red wine, 
250 grams of tiny cherry and plum tomatoes, both red and yellow, 
half a handfull of basil leaves, 
salt and pepper

Saute the diced onion and garlic in some olive oil, add the wine and let the liquid reduce by half. Next put in the tomato juice and the tomatoes, chopped basil, salt, pepper and bring to a simmer on low heat, pop in the meatballs and cook with a lid on for about half an hour. a very simple but great tasting sauce that brings a wonderfull zing to the meatballs, so get your madness on and start cooking those meatballs.

Enjoy,

Meatballs Madness (I) Meatballs with Ricotta and Sun-dried Tomatoes

Did you ever think about who was the first person who thought of saying meatball madness? Who ever saw an indefinite amount of meatballs and screamed: This is madness! I keep imagining some 17th century dude, in his tight pants, being absolutely bedazzled by the sight of meatballs. So, with that image in mind, I decided I need to have  reason to say meatball madness, thereforeI had to cook some tasty  beef meatballs. 

I used: 

• 500 grams of minced beef, 
• 1 medium onion, finely diced, 
• 3 cloves of garlic, 
• 150 grams of ricotta cheese,  
• 100 grams of sun dried tomatoes and about 3 tbs of the oil they were kept in, 
• parsley,  
• thyme, 
• 2 eggs, 
• flour, 
• salt, 
• pepper, 
• some oil for cooking. 

Just mix all the ingredients together really well, except the flour. 

Make sure the onion, tomatoes, garlic and herbs are all finely chopped,  so you can mix then evenly.  Add the flour to thicken the composition, I used around 150 grams, both for putting it in the meat and for lightly flouring the meatballs. Heat up some olive oil on medium high heat, and fry you golf ball size meatballs until golden brown on all sides,  shouldn't take long. 

As a side dish, I just boiled some delicious,  fresh green beans and seasoned them as mentioned here. 

This meatball recipe, with  definite Italian influences is light, fresh and a delicious way to bring some ordinary and common meatballs to the next level. The ricotta make them moist and very light. There is definitely gonna be a next time cooking these.

Enjoy,

5 Spice Beef and Chinese Fried Rice

Initially I was thinking of going for a Thai based rice, with some coconut milk and saffron, but in lack of a proper main dish to go with it, I decided I wanted to show you that Chinese takeout can be done in your own kitchen without a lot of fuss. Now, this recipe requires a lot of fuss… What? No, just kidding, it’s a super easy recipe that you can cook in a flash and impress any Chinese food lover.

For the rice (and this is where I kinda screwed up) make sure you use a type of grain doesn’t stick to one another. Use basmati or jasmine, make sure you don’t try this with Arborio or carnaroli, typical risotto rice. I have to admit that I was too lazy to actually go and buy a bag of basmati so I used the package of Arborio that I already had in my pantry. The taste is good, but it makes things difficult to actually fry the rice. For 1 cup of rice, use 2 cups of water, cook the BASMATI (final warning) rice until it is done or the liquid is absorbed, and set it aside to cool a little.

You will also need: 1 medium onion, diced, 2-3 cloves garlic, 1 thumb sized ginger, diced, some crunchy veggies (peas, beans, water chestnuts, baby carrot, baby corn, etc.), 1 or 2 eggs (depending on how much rice you have), spring onions or chives(optional), soy sauce, sugar, pepper, peanut or sesame oil. You will have to do this in batches, in a wok, so start by cooking the ginger, onion and garlic for 3 minutes in a tsp of oil, set it aside. Next, add in the crunch (you can either get them fresh or frozen, the cooking time is different for each), and stir fry those for another 4-5 minutes tops with the sugar, until they are cooked enough but still hold some serious crunch. Set aside. 

Mix the egg(s)  with 2-3 tbs of soy sauce, beat them together, and cook the eggs like an omelet or scrambled, 2-3 minutes. Set that aside as well. Now, in a tbs of oil add the rice and stir fry it for 2 minutes, then add the other already cooked ingredients and mix them together, add more soy sauce if you feel like it needs salt.

For the beef, again, super easy, just rub the meat with some sesame oil, salt and 5 spice condiment and cook in a hot searing pan for 3 minutes on each side or for how long you want, depending on what degree of rare you want. I used a piece of tenderloin that I cooked roughly 3 minutes on all sides for a medium rare outcome.

Plate the meat, sliced, the rice (with some chives or spring onions on top), and, if you care for it, some wasabi paste to kick things up.

Enjoy, 

Beef Burgers, Corn on the Cob and Spicy Broccoli Salad

… or how to smoke your neighbors out of their apartments and into yours…. Or how I discovered I need a new grill.

Good news everyone! (welcome back Futurama) We cooked again and it was delicious, and with a very nice feedback from our neighbors that, despite the smoke, asked us what we were cooking. This recipe feels like it should be cooked outside, but we managed to pull together nicely (sort of) with our trusty, old grill.

For the burgers: 

500 grams of minced beef meat, 

1 large egg, 

1 tbs of chopped fresh thyme, 

salt, pepper, 

spicy smoked paprika, 

1 tbs of mustard, 

4 tbs of bread crumbs. 

Mix all the ingredients together by hand, until they are all evenly distributed. Next, make some golf sized balls of the meat, that you flat into patties of about 2 cm thickness. Put them on a plate, sprinkle with olive oil and put in the fridge (this helps the ingredients bind). Cook the burgers of a very hot grill, medium heat, for 4-5 minutes on each side.

For the corn, drum roll please: you put it on a very hot grill and turn it when it starts to get some nice charred marks. For the corn, I mixed up some butter with some dried chipotle flakes, salt and dried garlic powder and topped the cob with this mix. 

The spicy kick and the also slightly sweet and smoky texture of the chilli went really well with the charred corn and the garlic taste, definitely something I will cook again.

For the salad: 

200 grams of broccoli flowers, 

200 grams of green beans (I used both yellow and green), 

half of a large, ripe tomato, 

lemon juice, 

olive oil, 

salt, pepper, 

dried chipotle flakes (or a fresh medium hot red chilli, finely diced), 

2-3 garlic cloves. 

Creating this may require some timing so, try and get everything to the finish line in about the same time. Boil the beans in salted water until they are just al dente, max 15 minutes, it takes considerably less if the beans are freshly picked or very young; remove from the water and set aside. 

For the broccoli, boil them in the green bean water for 2 minutes, leave them to dry out a bit, the coat them with oil and chipotle flakes and grill the broccoli flowers on the super hot grill until you get some nice marks. Cut the garlic into fine slices and fry them for 30 seconds in hot olive oil, quickly remove from the oil, the garlic will continue to cook even then and you want to make sure you get some nice (tiny) golden garlic chips. Cut the tomato, put the broccoli, beans and garlic on top and sprinkle some chopped sour weed (sheep's sorrel, red sorrel, field sorrel), after which pour some lemon juice and olive oil on the salad (don’t forget the salt and pepper and the red chilli, if you’re using that). 

The heat from the beans and broccoli will almost melt a very ripe tomato and sourness of the sorrel will bring a very nice kick to the dish.

Plate everything and grab yourself a nice, cold beer, you deserve it. After all you’ve made the neighbours notice you, and that can only be good…. Right?

Take care,

Mr. G.

Beef Strips with Worchester Sauce Coating and Oven Baked Vegetables

Talk about a long title. Nonetheless, it was the only (reasonable) title that I could think of without sounding silly (not that is a genuine concern of mine). Again, this dish is one that represents one of my core beliefs about cooking: versatility. This meat you can cook and use for salads, serving as steaks, sandwiches or wraps and it’s super easy to make (you can also cook it in advance and store it for a day or two), and the vegetables make it justice with a simple saffron yogurt dressing (oh, yeah, the title could have been longer).

So, the meat, use a 3-4 cm thick piece of beef, that would be nice to be flat and even. Season your meat with some pepper, toss it in your dried herbs of choice (you can use rosemary, thyme, parsley, coriander, tarragon) and pop it in a preheated pan with 2 tbs of olive oil. The reason for using a less thick piece of meat is because we are gonna turn it once every minute or so for about 5 minutes, so we kinda make sure that the heat stays in all the time and it doesn’t dissipate through the meat. 

So, on high heat, meat in, turn it every minute for 5-6 minutes, depending on your desired taste and meat size and then add a generous amount of Worchester sauce (4-5 tbs). The thing is the sauce will caramelize very fast, and you need to make sure you coat the meat with it on both sides. After that, take the meat out and let it rest. 

For the veggies, it’s a matter of choice, I went with carrots, courgette (both diced), onion (sliced in rings), and I also used 3 garlic heads (I used a sort of baby garlic, not that it was small in size, but it was very young, without all of layers formed, it has a much sweeter taste with a bit of a green, grassy take). Mix everything (except the garlic) with some olive oil, salt and pepper and put them (including the garlic) in an oven, on high heat, for 20-25 minutes, after which you just have to put the veggies on a plate and sprinkle some chopped parsley on top. 

For the sauce, heat a up a tiny amount of water (couple of tbs), put in a pinch of saffron and let it infuse for 3-4 minutes. Then, in a pestle squish and bash with a mortar the contents of a baked garlic head (you’ll have a sort of a baked garlic puree, one of the most delicious things ever discovered), then put in the saffron infusion (condiments included), 1tbs olive oil, 150 grams of yogurt (I used the greek type, with 10% fat) and mix everything into a beautiful dressing for the meat.

And, hey, if you don’t feel like sitting at the table for this dish, then don’t: just grab yourselves a tortilla wrap, put the meat, veggies and sauce in and take it on the go, either way, it’s delicious. 

Enjoy,

Mr. G.

Beef Steak with Double Trouble Salad

Sounds good, right? What could it be? To be honest, it’s not something we haven’t cooked before, but the combinations we used this time were really good, with some surprising tastes.

So, the beef, you already know the drill, sear it in a pan on high heat, pop it in the oven for how long it takes to get to your desired taste (for extra help, this is how I do it, it’s really simple and intuitive, and I bet you already knew this).

Now double trouble salad. Kinda cheated here, the 1^st salad is a fried new potato salad, we’ve done it before, it is one of the starts of our kitchen and the combinations of herbs and small, delicious potatoes never ceases to amaze me. So for about 500 grams of potatoes I used 1 handful of chopped parsley (the curly leaved type one), 1 handful chopped tarragon, and about half a handful of chopped spring garlic (only the white part). 

For cooking the potatoes, bring to a boil a pot of salted water, pop the washed spuds in there (don’t bother peeling them, just wash and clean them with a towel) with a bunch of parsley (don’t chop it, put the whole thing in there). Let it boil for 4 minutes, remove from water (discard the parsley), let it dry for 1-2 minutes, and the put the potatoes in a heavy base pan with a generous amount of olive oil, on high heat (make sure the oil is nice and hot; for an extra kick you can also fry the potatoes with one or 2 chilli, the spuds will infuse with their hotness). Cook like this for about 5 minutes, coating the potatoes with the hot oil, the reduce heat to medium high, cover the pan and cook for another 10-15 minutes (or more, depending on the size of the potatoes). 

After they are done, transfer them to a big bowl, drop the herbs on them, mix everything together and add some more salt and pepper.

Now for the second salad. In my opinion this one brought the whole dish together, with some very nice and green combinations of flavours. So take around 6 baby carrots, same amount of small cucumbers (not the big, watery kind, use the small, hard ones), about of 2 tbs of chopped fresh mint, 1 tbs of grinded cumin seeds, and about 25 grams of fried pine nuts. Use a veggie peeler, cut the carrots and cucumbers in thin strips and mix it with the mint, cumin, salt and pepper. 

Prepare a simple lemon juice olive oil dressing (for 1tbs of olive oil, we use 2 of the lemon juice), fry your pine nuts, and mix everything together. The result is a very fresh, nutty salad that goes really well with the meat and the potato salad. Pair it with a nice bottle of Syrah, and you got yourself a very nice dish.

Almost forgot, you can make ahead a very nice and easy sauce for the meat: just wisk together 100 grams of cream (I used 24% fat), about 1 tbs of English mustard (tried this recipe with Dijon, liked the English one better), 1 tbs of olive oil and 2-3 tbs of lemon juice (feel free to add more if you feel the sauce is to heavy), salt and pepper. Mix it up and store it in the fridge until the meat is done, super easy and very nice in this combination.

Enjoy!