Category Archives: Meat

Meat

Tripe

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Tripe

Not everyone likes tripe and I suppose that’s understandable. Some people just eat the potatoes and dip bread in the sauce and that’s OK. It makes a very tasty sauce.

Maybe it’s something you had to grow up with. I was just a kid the first time I ate it and I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t ask and my mother didn’t tell me. For some people, their mother’s meatloaf is comfort food. For me it’s tripe.

 

tripe and potatoes

tripe ingredients

Preparation:

Slowly cook the onion in ¼ cup of oil, salt and pepper, until soft and transparent. Add the tripe (cut it into 1 ½ by ½ inch strips), mix with the onions and let simmer for a few minutes. Add the wine and simmer for a few more minutes. Add the tomatoes and bay leafs, stir and check for seasoning. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes, add the potatoes and simmer for another 20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Serves 4 as a main dish.

Note:  Buy cleaned beef honeycomb tripe. Rinse it thoroughly in cold water. Place it in a pot and cover with water and add one onion cut into wedges. Boil it slowly for 2 hours. When tender, run it under cold water and cut it into 1 ½ by ½ inch strips.

tripe
Honeycomb Tripe

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Meat

Steak a’ Pizzaiola

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Steak a’ Pizzaiola

Roasted tomatonnnn

Steak a’ Pizzaiola Preparation:
Heat olive oil in pan and brown one side of steak (or veal or pork chops). While its browning sprinkle top side with S&P, finely chopped garlic and dried oregano. When the underside is brown turn the meat over making sure that there is enough oil so that the garlic doesn’t burn. Immediately cover with a large can of crushed tomatoes and simmer for 20 minutes.

Optional – Add a small can of drained baby peas (or fresh or frozen and cook accordingly) and maybe some chopped parsley (one or the other) in the last 5 minutes.

You can serve this alone, as a main course or use some of that sauce on a side of pasta.

Some restaurants include peppers in this sauce – DON’T! (and no cheese either).

FYI – a Pizzaiola is a woman who makes pizza.Pizzaola

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Meat, Poultry

Cacciatore

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Cacciatore

cacciatore 2

Cacciatore is Italian for “hunter” and alla cacciatora means “hunter-style,” or how my grandmother would pronounce it in her Salernitano dialect, cacciadode. The idea of this recipe is that a hunter could prepare it in one pot on a camp fire in the field. The meat was whatever game that was hunted, mushrooms and rosemary were picked nearby and the other ingredients, wine, garlic ,etc., were easy enough to carry. Alla cacciatora works well with domesticated fowl as well as game birds and rabbit.Doc1

The Cacciatore you get in American Italian restaurants is usually done with a heavy tomato sauce. This version is much more basic and simple.

Chicken or Rabbit Alla Cacciatora

Cacciatore INGREDIENTS

mushrooms and rosemary

  1. Brown seasoned chicken (or rabbit) in oil and remove.
  2. Brown mushrooms (any type available) in the fat and oil in the same pot.
  3. Add garlic, rosemary and tomato. This isn’t a “red” sauce. The tomato is just there for moisture. You can use ½ cup of water instead. Return meat to pot.
  4. Raise heat and add red wine vinegar and cover and steam for 5 minutes.
  5. Add red wine, I use Chianti, and simmer for 15 minutes uncovered.

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Meat

Ox Tail Stew

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Ox Tail Stew

The rich got the prime cuts of beef and the poor got the organs and the tail. And they figured out ways to make that tail taste good. The tail has bone, marrow, gelatin and collagen – everything you need for a perfect stew. Serve ox tail stew with small pasta or spätzle.

ox tail stew

Ox Tail Stew list of ingredients

ox tail stew ingredients

Season ox tails with salt and black pepper and bring it to room temperature. Brown them in a stew pot and remove. Add onion, lightly brown then add garlic. Stir in tomato paste. Add wine, stock and water. Bring it to a boil and return the ox tail. Lower heat, cover and simmer for 2 ½ hours. Add the carrots and cook for another 15 minutes. You can end it here if you like the sauce a little soupy. To make it thicker, mix the flour with a little water and add it and the butter and stir for a few minutes.

ox tail stew on stove

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Meat

Robber’s Steak

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Robber’s Steak

A simple recipe that you can make on a charcoal or gas grill or a grill pan on a stove.

Robber steak ingredients

 

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Sirloin coated with paprika
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Ready to grill

Preparation:

Start by soaking bamboo skewers in water for a few hours so they don’t burn when they’re on the grill. Season the sirloin with salt and black pepper, then sprinkle liberally with the paprika. Refrigerate for 3 – 4 hours. Cut the pancetta and pepper into 1 inch squares. Cut the onion into rough slices. Bring all ingredients to room temperature and arrange on skewers alternating meat and vegetables.20160127_184221 (2)

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Meat

Venison Giambotta

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Venison Giambotta

When my grandmother’s family arrived in New York in the early 1900s, some of them couldn’t get used city living like she did.They were southern Italian farmers and felt more comfortable living in “upstate” rural areas. They farmed and often hunted. When visiting my grandparents they’d bring Concord grapes, apples and sometimes venison. My grandmother came up with this recipe. It originally contained deer heart but I substitute chicken hearts. (A heart isn’t like other organs. It’s a muscle just like a steak or chop.)

ingredients

Venison Giambotta ingredients

Preparation:

  • Sear strips of seasoned venison in a very hot pan (no oil) and remove.
  • Do the same with the chicken hearts

venison

  • Cut unpeeled fingerling or Yukon Gold potatoes in ½ in. slices. Add oil and lightly brown enough slices in same pan to cover the bottom of the pan, S&P and remove.potatoes
  • Fry the green pepper until soft and lightly browned in a deep pot
  • Add 1 small roughly chopped onion to the pepper and sauté in the same pot
  • Clear a hot spot and add 1/2 small can (3 ozs.) of tomato paste and caramelize then mix with peppers & onions.

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  • Use some stock to deglaze the pan and pour liquid into the pot. Add about 1/2 of the remaining beef stock to the pot and add the bay leaves. You won’t need all of the stock.
  • Add meat and potatoes to the pot, stir and simmer on low, covered for 10 minutes.
  • Add more stock if necessary to get a stew like constancy.20151018_185104

Buon Appetito!

venison

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Meat

Tomato Beef Sauce

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Tomato Beef Sauce

I know some people don’t get Italians referring to tomato sauce as Sunday gravy. In this case it’s justified because there’s so much beef flavor in it.

beef bones

The key to this one is using the right cuts of beef. It has to have lots of collagen, that is, connective tissue which is water soluble and breaks down in slow, moist cooking. I’m using short ribs and ox tail – collagen, bones and marrow. With that as the flavor base you can add, sausage, meatballs, etc.

cooked beef bones

Some tomato sauces can be a simple as the 4 ingredient marinara sauce included in my Eggplant Parmagiana  post. This one is more complex.

beef tom sauce ingr

Season the room temperature meat with salt and pepper and brown on all sides in a pot with olive oil. Remove meat and sauté the onion. Deglaze the pot with the liquid released by the onion.

saute onion

Add the tomato paste and mix with the onion. Add the crushed tomatoes, wine, beef stock and stir. Add the sachet and return the browned meat with its juices. Simmer on medium heat, partially covered for one hour.

Sachet Ingredients
Sachet Ingredients

This is enough sauce for one pound of pasta. Since this is meat sauce and not seafood, serve with grated cheese.

 

 

Meat

Schaller and Weber

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Schaller and Weber

An easy and tasty meal and I got it all from a butcher shop. Schaller and Weber is on 2nd Avenue near 86th Street. They have fresh and smoked meats, goose and venison and all kinds of German wursts. The also make their own salads and other prepared food as well as carrying European imports like preservers, pickles, spätzle, coffee and candy.

I had lunch at the Heidelberg yesterday. I sat at the bar and ordered a Bitburger and steak tartar – light on the onions and heavy on the Tabasco. The barmaid served my beer and then walked out of the front door. She returned a few minutes later and waved a small package wrapped in butcher paper at me.

“Here’s your lunch,” she said as she brought it to the kitchen.

It was the freshly double ground sirloin from Schaller and Weber for my steak tartar. The Heidelberg only serves it during the hours that Schaller and Weber is open and can supply the fresh meat.

store-today

After lunch I went next door and did a little shopping. I got bauernwurst, bratwurst and knockwurst as well a few sides – red cabbage, sauerkraut, German potato salad, cucumber salad and mustard. The only thing that needed to be cooked was the wursts – simple.20150813_185403.20150813_185945

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Meat

Cervello dei vitelli (Calf Brains)

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brains 2

Cervello dei vitelli (Calf Brains)

More serious cucina povera.  This isn’t for everyone. When my daughter Kristina was about 10 years old, I gave her $5.00 to try it. She took one bite, took the money and never touched brains again. But some people love them. The worst part is the preparation. My wife leaves the kitchen until I’m finished (she won’t eat them either). Another hard part if finding calf brains in a market. I live in New York City and any butcher on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx carries them. If you want to try this, ask your butcher to make a special order. Baked Calf Brains Ingredients

Preparation:

Clean the brains – Remove any of the really ugly parts, i.e. brain stem, membrane, etc. Rinse them in cold water for 10 minutes. Bring some water to a boil and put the brains in it for 5 minutes. Change the water and do it again. Now they’re ready to prepare for cooking.

Pat them dry and season with salt & pepper. Coat them with oil and roll them in plain breadcrumbs. Pack them snuggly in an oiled baking pan or cast iron frying pan. Cover the top of them with the following mix: breadcrumbs mixed with finely chopped garlic and salt and pepper. Drizzle, or better yet, spray oil over the top until the breadcrumbs are well saturated then sprinkle the capers over it. Bake them at 350o until the breadcrumbs brown. Serve with lemon, Italian bread and salad.

brains 1

Meat

Chili

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Chili

Where ever you go you’ll get an argument about how chili should be made – with beans/without beans, ground meat/cubes, etc. Here are 2 recipes from both ends of the chili spectrum. Both good but different. Try each and then improvise.

  Cowboy Chili

cowboy chili

The idea of this one is that a cowboy always had access to some beef that he could fry in its own fat and he could easily carry a few dried peppers in his saddle bag. And maybe he could find a wild onion out on the range.

onion

Boil to rehydrate 6 or 7 anchos in 1 ½ cups water. Strain, saving liquid. Remove stems and chop roughly.

Green = Poblano
When it’s fresh and green it’s a poblano.
Dried pobano = ancho
When a poblano is dried it’s an ancho.

Cut 1 lb. sirloin (cowboys has access to good cuts of beef) into cubes and brown lightly over high heat (add some oil if you need it) with salt and pepper and remove. Lightly brown small chopped onion (optional) and add the chopped peppers.  Return meat and juices and simmer 5 minutes on low heat. Add ancho liquid and stir, scraping up brown bits from pan. Simmer another 5 minutes and it’s ready.

North East Chili

north east chili

I got this recipe from a friend from Massachusetts. Then I made it for someone from Colorado and asked her what she thought of it. She said, “Not bad – tastes like North East chili.”

This recipe can serve a large group – cut it in half if you want. It’s good left over.

In batches, brown 2 lbs chopped beef and 1 lb. of cubed chuck (seasoned) in oil and remove. Brown  1 large chopped onion, 2 cloves chopped garlic and salt and pepper.

Add 1 28 oz. can plum tomatoes and 1 sm. can chili powder. Return meat and juices.

Simmer 2 hours and then add 3 cans of beans (1 each pinto, kidney and black). Simmer another 20 minutes. It’s better made a day in advance and then re-heated and served.