Venezuelan Paleo Pulled Beef

Years ago I had a roast beef dinner in a crappy cafe in Dublin. It was juicy and delicious, unlike most roast beef I have eaten which is usually overcooked and dry. Since then I had my eye open for a cut of beef that I could cook this way. I noticed it in a butcher shop window in Dublin recently. 'For Pulled Beef' the sign said.

I have had great success with pulled pork shoulder over the last year having read Cooked by Michael Pollan. The trick with pulled pork is to use a tough cut like shoulder and cook it low and slow. This softens up all of the connective tissue in the meat which gives great flavour and moistness to the cooked meat.

So back to the 'Pulled Beef'. This turned out to be brisket. I had a bad experience with brisket last year: a pricey joint that I had to order and which did not cook well. Brisket by the way is the chest of the cow. Cows don't have breast bones, so the brisket muscles have a lot of work to do to support the animal as it stands. For this reason it's a tough cut and ideal for my needs. I was determined to get it right though so I had a bit of a trawl on the internet.

I like Tom Kerridge. He is an English Chef with a Michelin Star who I had seen on Saturday Kitchen. He cooks to excess, so his recipe for a pulled beef sandwich seemed like a good place to start. He cooks the meat on a grid over a pool of beef stock. He covers the whole lot in foil to keep the moisture in. This gives a soft end product without drying during the long cooking time. You can find his full recipe here.

Tom's dish is a sandwich. We mainly eat paleo and although we have some treats at the weekend, bread is almost never on the list. Especially not a white roll as in Kerridge's recipe as nice as it sounds! So I needed to adapt the recipe a bit to make it into a full meal for our family.

One of my coworkers is from Venezuela and when I told him I was cooking brisket he told me about a traditional recipe he used to have when he was younger. It uses skirt steak 'falda' in Spanish, which is another pretty tough cut and I think resembles brisket a bit.

This is the recipe we found together on the web which most matched what he was used to. He mentioned that red peppers were also used, so I added them in.

So this is what I came up with. It was absolutely delicious and will definitely be added our list of weekend favourites.

Ingredients

1.5 kg piece of fresh beef brisket
2 red peppers
1 tsp each of cumin, coriander seed, black pepper, salt, sweet paprika and mustard seeds
2 red peppers
2 onions chopped
500 ml of beef stock

Method

Grind the spices together and rub them well into the surface of the meat. It should be tied by your butcher. Leave the string on and just rub the spices on the outside. Sit the joint on a grid in a roasting tray. Pour the hot stock down the side (don't wash off the spice rub) and cover the whole lot in foil. Seal the edges well. You are trying to keep everything moist in there. If the stock dries up it will burn and your sauce will be ruined.
Put it in a preheated oven at 170 C.
It will need 4 to 6 hours depending on your cut. Mine took 5 hours. After about 3 hours lift the foil (try not to tear it) to see if it has dried out. If it is, top it up with boiling water from the kettle. After 4 hours check the doneness of the meat by removing the foil and trying to pull the meat apart with 2 forks. When it is completely done it should pull apart easily.
When it is nearly done you can get started on the stir fried vegetables which will accompany.
Wash and dry the peppers. Light a gas burner and drop the peppers right on the flame. Use a tongs to rotate them to get the skin blackened. This takes longer than you might think, but it worth being patient with. Once the peppers are blackened wash and peel off the burnt bits. deseed the peppers and roughly chop them.
Next stir fry the copped onions in coconut oil at high temperature. When they are nearly done add the peppers and keep everything moving until fully cooked. The pour the juices and stock from the bottom of the roasting tray into the wok and stir everything up.
Pull the beef apart. Place a nest of it on each plate. Smother with the saucy vegetables. I served this with steamed broccoli too.


Whenever we eat like this we are reminded that paleo is not a struggle.

Crispy pork skin snack for paleo dieters

Get your butcher to give you a piece of pork skin with the fat still on. I get about a square foot, but a smaller piece will work fine. Pork skin should be very cheap. I pay about a euro for mine.

Preheat your oven to about 230C.

Wash and dry the pork skin. Drying it important to get it to crisp up. Lay it fat side down on a chopping board and score the skin deeply all the way from top to bottom. Don't cut all the way through to the board as you want the skin side to face upwards in the oven and a single piece makes this easier. Salt the skin side well and lay it fat side down on a grill pan.

Cook it for about 25 minutes. You need it to crisp up fully, but not burn. If you underdo it the skin can be very tough. It can be hard enough to damage your teeth, so make sure you crisp it all up well.

Once it is done let it cool a little and eat some while it is hot. It is fine cold, but best straight from the oven. It can be reheated in the microwave later.

A lot of lard will render from the skin during cooking. Pour this into a mug when still hot. Allow it to cool and refrigerate. It is perfect for cooking omelettes and frying vegetables.

Grilled fresh mackerel with lime salsa and toasted almonds

This makes a nice lunch or light evening meal. No carbs in evidence either unless you are on very low levels and can't eat tomatoes.

Ingredients

2 fillets of fresh mackerel
Juice of 2 limes
2 large tomatoes, roughly chopped
Chopped fresh parsley
2 tbsp Sliced almonds
Salt and pepper

Method

Preheat the grill to its highest setting - 250C in my case. Line a baking tray with foil. Place the washed and dried fillets skin side up on the foil. Season with salt and pepper and place under the grill.
Mix the lime juice and tomatoes in a small serving bowl.
Toast the almond slices in a dry frying pan on a high heat until they start to turn golden.

To serve place a fillet on each plate, sprinkle the almonds over the fish and make a pile of the salsa on the side.

Venison Stew

I was given a leg of venison by my dad. He knows a guy whose son hunts. None of them seem too keen on it, but I am. Have had venison a few times and it is always delicious. Bit pricey and tricky to get, so was very happy with this.

Venison Stew

Ingredients

1.5 kg of venison leg - chopped into chunks
2 Rashers of smoked bacon, roughly chopped
1 Parsnip
5 Carrots
3 Tbsp of redcurrant jelly
1 Onion
3 Sticks of Celery
1 Beef stock cube

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Peel and roughly chop the vegetables. Fry them in a little olive oil in a large pot suitable for the oven.
When they have softened remove them from the pot and put aside.
In the same pot fry the bacon until some of the fat starts to come out. Brown the chunks of venison in with the bacon. Return the vegetable mixture to the pot and cover the whole lot with boiling water from the kettle. Add the beef stock cube and make sure it is dissolved.
Bring to the boil and place it in the oven with the lid on.
It will be ready in about 90 minutes. Check the meat is tender before serving.
I serve this with steamed potatoes and turnip.

Sort of Baked Ziti

I was a fan of the Sopranos and they always seemed to be eating stuff called Ziti. I looked it up and there are as many recipes as there are Italians it would appear, so here is my take on it.

Ingredients

Meat

• 600g Minced beef
• 2 Smoked bacon rashers chopped

Sauce

• 1 Onion chopped
• 1 Red pepper chopped small
• 3 Carrots chopped small
• 3 Sticks of celery chopped small
• 3 Cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 Tins of plum tomatoes
• 2 Tbsp of tomato puree
• Splash of balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp cooking oil (olive is good, but not extra virgin)

Everything else

• 200g Cheddar cheese, or enough to cover the dish generously
• Pasta - I used penne, but anything smallish will do
• Parmesan to serve

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Fry the beef and bacon until fully coloured. Remove from the pot to make the rest of the sauce.

Make a standard tomato sauce. Usually called Marinara. Mine is like this one, but without added sugar. Cook all of the sauce ingredients except the vinegar, tomatoes and tomato purée on a medium heat until the onion is softened - about 20 minutes. Then add the tomatoes and vinegar and stir. Continue to cook until the carrots are soft.

Cook the pasta in plenty boiling water.
Mix the sauce, meat and pasta and pour into a buttered baking dish.
Cover with lots of cheddar cheese and bake in a 200 degree C oven for about 10 minutes. Until the cheese on top is beginning to brown and is nice and chewey.

I serve this with a rocket salad with toasted pine nuts.

Michael Pollan's 'Cooked'

Like everything that I have read by Michael Pollan, Cooked is excellent and thought provoking. It goes through some of the history of cooking and importantly why we still do and don't cook. Some sad trends - watching cooking up, doing cooking down, but some very positive stuff too.

The best thing was when I had finished I felt inspired to make up some recipes of my own. There are 4 recipes in the back, one from each of the main sections of the book, but this book gave me the confidence to try my own stuff out. It's working well so far - well except for the sauerkraut. I don't know if I have the guts to roast a whole pig overnight. Well I do, but my wife might have words with me over that. But a big chunk of meat is getting slowly bbq'ed this summer.

If you like to cook this book is a great addition to your library and it is not just another cook book.

Low Carb Lamb Tagine

This is really just a recipe published by someone else, but I have made a few small changes to make it low carb and simplified it a bit.

Here it is on the taste.com.au website.

So I used lamb pieces from my butcher. 1.5 kg is a huge amount. I think I would use about 1 kg next time.
I did not add the honey or the butter. I don't have a problem with the butter from a diet perspective, but this dish was fatty enough as it was. The Taste recipe involves removing the meat from the sauce at the end and reducing the sauce with the butter. This seems like a nice thing to do, but I did not bother - it looked great as it was. Also I added everything at the start of cooking rather than in stages with the exception of the olives which I threw in at the end and allowed to heat through.

I served it with steamed vegetables and it was delicious. Will definitely be making this again.

Low carb diets gain traction (and Scrambled eggs for lunch)

According to this guy we should be cutting out the sugar and simple carbohydrates and eating more fat. Having watched a bunch of videos and discussed this with a few friends I am inclined to agree. Getting people to accept this notion en masse is going to be a struggle. Not just because it involves cutting out cakes, biscuits and most processed foods, but because of the powerful lobby groups who would like to keep things the way they are - only more so.

The idea however seems to be gaining momentum. There was an Irish Times article this week discussing the idea and Scientific American ran this story in September. The science behind this is compelling and people have been searching in increasing numbers for a solution to weight gain and more recently metabolic syndrome. This may be 'it'. Hopefully all this activity this signals a change.

If the idea does get widespread adoption supermarkets are going to have to change. There are whole swathes of them filled with sugar and simple carbs.

Although this is extremely simple, it tastes great. We only discovered it recently, so I thought it was worth sharing. So with low carbohydrate diets in mind here is a delicious weekend lunch for 1.

Smoked Salmon scrambled eggs

Ingredients:
3 eggs
About 4 slices of smoked salmon
A tablespoon of full fat cream
A large knob of butter for cooking
Pepper

Method:
Beat the eggs lightly in the bowl. Add pepper to your taste, but no salt. Smoked salmon is very salty already. Now tear up the smoked salmon into bite sized pieces. Melt the large knob of butter into a non stick pan on high heat. When the butter foams add the eggs and scrape the bottom of the pan continuously with a wooden spoon until the eggs are almost cooked. Add the smoked salmon and the cream. Mix the whole lot until cooked - don't over do them. Serve immediately as the eggs will keep cooking if you leave them hanging around. No bread to accompany, but it is filling enough in itself.

Ideas for no sugar/ low carb lunches

This is just a list of stuff that I pick from now that I am trying a low carb diet as espoused by Robert Lustig at UCSF.

Smoked mackerel
Smoked salmon
Sardines
Tinned mackerel
Pickled onions - unsugared
Kimchi
Brie
Cheddar
Olives
Ham slices
Peanut butter
Brazil nuts, pistachios, walnuts - all unsalted.
Raw carrot

I basically eat a bunch of this - whatever we have - until I think I have had enough. No bread or other flour in there. This fills me up fine and I might have a piece of fruit in the afternoon between lunch and dinner. I am finding I that after dinner (which I usually supplement with some nuts, smoked salmon or whatever I fancy from the above list) that I don't want to snack later on. This can only be a good thing.
I will add to this list as I find more foods that are suitable for this diet.

Low Carb Beef Stew

This dinner is one of our staples, but a recent change to low carb/no sugar requires a few changes.

Ingredients:

600g stewing beef
1 Tin of tomatoes
Half a celeriac
4 carrots
2 onions
1 beef stock cube - made up as per instructions
3 sticks celery
Handful of sage leaves chopped finely
Small handful of marjoram chopped finely (leave the stalks out)
Small glass of red wine

Method:

Peel and roughly chop all of the vegetables.
Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (not extra virgin) to a large casserole on high heat. Fry the onions and beef for a few minutes until the beef is well coloured. Add all the other ingredients and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to very low and leave it to cook for 2 to 3 hours. Exact time will depend on the cut of beef used.

Differences from 'Normal':

• No potatoes used 
• No tomato puree used - this usually has added sugar
• We just serve this on its own. It has enough veg without side dishes
• It contains more beef than we would normally use for this size of casserole
• Check all ingredients used for sugar
• The red wine might be a bit of a rule breaker, but we add it early so most of the alcohol is gone and besides, it really lifts this dish

No Sugar/Low Carb Lunch

I tend to eat some protein and some vegetables for lunch on this low carb diet. Yesterday I had half a packet of smoked mackerel fillets, some pickled onions, a raw carrot and come coconut. Not a very substantial lunch, but it was enough for me as I was snacking on the coconut during the day.

I have been on this diet for a full week now. No slip ups yet, including the weekend when we went out for lunch. Feel very good.

Weighed myself last weekend and I was just over 11.5 stone. Will weigh in again at the weekend to see if there is any change.

Still not getting much exercise, but this is because I don't want to confound the results of the diet. I can get back to exercising when I have demonstrated that this works.

I watched the end of one of the Robert Lustig videos last night. You can find details on him here. If you are interested in trying this diet out it is well worth your while taking an hour or 2 to watch some of his stuff.

No sugar breakfast

This has been one of the easiest things about cutting out sugar. Breakfast. I have always liked porridge, I just had to have it without sugar. This sounded like it would be rough, but it ended up being very nice. It keeps me full until lunchtime most days. If I am peckish at mid morning I have a banana.

On this type of diet many people eat bacon, eggs, sardines. I like those foods, but don't think they would work early in the morning. So I am sticking with my porridge.

Finding specific consistent information on what to eat while trying to cut out sugar is not easy, so I am taking some liberty with what I have. The diet is not exactly paleo - it includes some grains. Not exactly Atkins - we eat beans and legumes. It's more of our own take on this. The only solid rule is no added sugar. I reckon I have lost some weight in the first week, which is something of a miracle considering how much meat, fish, eggs and nuts I have been eating. Today is day 7, so not even a full week yet. I reckon this will get easier as I get used to making different food choices.

Update, April 13th 2014

The results of this diet have been better than anything i have tried before. My weight dropped from 12 to 11 stone in about a month. And has stayed there. We arent following the low carb diet rigorously,  but mid week we stick to it pretty closely. 
It is not hard to do once you decide on some meal options. We plan on sticking to this in the long term.

Cutting out the sugar

Having watched a bunch of you tube videos on the subject I have decided to cut sugar out of my diet. I am not sure how long this will last, but I suppose that depends on how I feel on the diet. I have been at it for almost a week so far. Not too difficult up to now, but the weekend is a bit more challenging. I suppose we eat more treat type food at the weekend.
Anyway, what has this got to do with a cooking blog? Well I won't stop being interested in cooking just because I am cutting out the sugar. In fact the restriction might just help conjure up some recipes that are a bit different.
To start with a recipe that is not mine at all. Well just a link really. The Hairy Bikers did a series recently where they tried to lose weight while still loving food. One of the things they were doing was cutting down on carbs - the entire focus of my current diet. This is their recipe for Cassoulet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/our_special_cassoulet_05208

I made it today and it smells great. Going to have plenty of steamed veggies on the side to make it a balanced meal, but based on the smell this one seems like a winner.

Superquinn name change - what about the bread?

I read today that SuperValue will finally drop the Superquinn name and rebrand the stores. This was a while in the works I reckon, but is still a bit of a worry. The crown jewels for SQ has always been the bread. Some people go on about the sausages, but they are not the best thing about SQ for me.

I never understood why someone else could not make a good sausage. All the butchers in the country could not beat a supermarket. Bizarre.

Bread on the other hand is a big deal. Irish bread has traditionally been white sliced rubbish. A variety of brands selling the same muck under different names. SQ was different. They had an attitude to bread that made it seem like it mattered. I have tried to find good bread in Dublin before. And have had a hard time of it. There is a bakery near my house, but the bread is no good. I don't know why they bother other than that the shop is already rented. So if you like good bread make sure to buy some in SuperQuinn. We are probably safe though - Musgraves are not going to lower the quality on this without turning a lot of their customers away.

The bottom end of the market is getting crowded in Ireland so the only place for a retailer to go is up.

Artificial Meat

Today the first artificial meat was eaten by humans. The project was paid for by Sergei Brin of Google fame. The idea is to find an alternative to 'naturally' produced meat that avoids the cruelty of factory farming. This seems like a long distance and expense to go when greater strides can be made by reducing the amount of meat that most people consume. This video I think is right on the money. Find ways for most people to eat less meat. This involves teaching people how to cook better vegetarian food - leaving the meat off a plate of meat, veg and starch does not do the job. I also think it is a lot easier to ask people to have a few meat free days per week rather than convince a few to give up meat altogether. Ideology aside the goal should be to reduce the total amount of meat produced and consumed in the world. Doing that by culturing stem cells from a cow seems to way overshoot into the realms of technology rather than plain old home economics.
I have been trying to eat less meat over the last few years and it has gone pretty well. As you can see from these blog entries though I do still eat meat. Quite a bit of it, but a lot less than most Irish people. I think I will stick with this path for now rather than try to 'go veg' completely.

Butler's Coffee in the Swords Pavillion Shopping Centre

Its just a cup of coffee and a chocolate, but considering how many coffee shops mess this up its worth pointing out someone who is getting it right. The walnut ganache chocolate - which is one of the ones that you can pick with your coffee is delicious. Creamy and sweet with plenty of walnut flavour. It is also a big sweet. Plenty for elevenses with a nice cup of coffee. Butlers have been doing this for years and they just keep getting better. Managed to resist putting an outlet on every corner during the boom and are still here - for the long run we hope.

A Burger at GBK in Temple Bar, Dublin

GBK has been in Dublin for a few years now. When they opened first the food was very good. When the economy collapsed people's appetite for pricey burgers, albeit very nice ones, dropped. GBK responded by dropping their prices, but the quality seemed to suffer. Now thankfully they seem to have found a compromise. The burgers were excellent. Big tall constructions that had to be squashed by hand to get them into your mouth. That only cost about a tenner each.

We both had the same thing - cheese and bacon burger in the traditional size - large. Didn't bother with chips and just had tap water. 10 quid each can't be beaten and we will be back soon.

Avoca at Malahide Castle, Dublin

This is not open long, but we had heard good things. I had the idea that this would be shoehorned into a corner of the castle, but its a new build in the grounds. A beautiful building that seems to be getting a lot of use. We had eaten at Avoca Rathcoole a lot before - we used to live out in that direction and it was always excellent. Malahide is no different in that respect. There is a nice shop with plenty of pretty things for the ladies who lunch to buy - not my thing really, but a nice way to get to the restaurant. Like Rathcoole it is a self service style restaurant. There are plenty of staff, so the queues move quickly. The boards with the menus displayed are large and clearly printed on the wall behind the serving area. It's child friendly, so even with a buggy and a three year old in tow we were able to pick up our food and pay in a few minutes. No problem finding a table either even though this was probably one of their busier times - lunch time during the summer holidays.

I had ham and spinach quiche with 3 salads. I rarely deviate from this as it is always so good. The quiche was not overcooked - which would be very easy to do sitting under lights. It is served with a small ramekin of chutney which is really delicious. I had to go back to ask for this as they forgot to give it to me, but that is just me looking for something negative to say. The salads were broccoli and feta with hazelnuts, potato salad with mint and bulgar wheat salad. They were all delicious. 

My wife had salmon en croute with cream cheese and spinach. It was gorgeous too and again not overcooked. 

Our 3 year old had spaghetti bolognese, a child's smoothie and some ice create to finish. 

The bill for the whole lot came to 35 euro. Great value for such high quality food. We are looking forward to going back again.

Beetroot Risotto

The beetroot in the garden is coming along great at the moment. The current batch are about the size of a bunched fist. They cook in about 25 minutes in the pressure cooker and make a great accompaniment to lots of different foods.

I found this list of beetroot recipes on the Guardian website the other day and decided to give the Beetroot Risotto a go. I was not really sure what to expect, but it was superb. 

Here is a photo of my effort. I also fried up the leaves of the beetroot (trimmed of stems) and some chard leaves. The whole lot was served with smoked mackerel. 

Usually I just roast beetroot, but this makes a nice alternative.

Beetroot and Corned Beef hash

I am a big fan of corned beef hash and have made Delia Smith's recipe a few times. I read about adding beetroot and a few other things from The Cooking Thesaurus and so decided to make this.

Ingredients:

Once large beetroot cooked and peeled (I used a pressure cooker, only took 25 minutes) and cubed
A handful of cooked potatoes peeled and roughly chopped
A good bunch of shallots trimmed and chopped finely
1 egg
A couple of gherkins sliced up
Some pickled cabbage
About 200g of chopped corned beef - the tinned stuff is best as it has plenty of fat

Method:

Heat some oil in a large pan. Fry the shallots until they take some colour. Add the potatoes, beetroot and corned beef and fry for a few minutes. Don't mix it more than you have to as it can go a bit mushy.
In another pan fry the egg the way you like it.
Dish the hash into a big bowl and lay the fried egg on top. Place the rest of the ingredients around the plate.