Cooking today:
I was just cooking a bit and I've made some observations about my attempt that I feel like documenting.
What I had:
Ground beef
1/2 a green bell pepper
1/2 a red onion
wheat bulgar
misc other crap that a single guy has in his fridge (think penicillin)
oh yeah some domain des cassagnoles, an inexpensive French white that is excellent, although the only one I can get, 2003, is a bit young and takes a while to breathe.
Basically it goes like this,
Check bank account, not good.
Look in freezer, the ever present ground beef patties are there. Should have gone for the chicken breast.
Veggies, bell pepper and onions, excellent sauted with some beef. Or in a burger or whatso, but I wanted some kind of dish.
Chopped up some of the onion, about a fourth, and the half a green bell pepper that I had. Beef + veggies, I used about 16 oz's of beef, which is a bit much unless you have more veggies.
I am loathe to use much oil to saute veggies when I am making something beef based, so I usually cook with the meat and use the meats juices. This is simply my personal preference, usually if you are using relatively fatty ground beef, this helps you make use of the absurd amounts of grease coming off the stuff. I'm 22, I am not worrying yet.
Ok, while sauteing, I am considering my options. Beef like this is traditionally pretty bland, but beef is hard to spice usually. If you stew it FOREVER it will mellow out a bit, but ordinarily your options are mostly garlic, pepper and salt. You can uses sauces to accent it, but with beef as an ingredient your options are limited.
My goal is to make this dish about something other than the beef. The vegetables are woefully inadequate, so I add the other quarter of an onion that I have. I add water once it's cooked a bit to stew it a bit, hopefully blend the flavors, but into what? Rice or wheat bulgar... Never used the wheat bulgar. High in fiber, so that's good right?
So we have wheat bulgar plus the water and let it slow cook for a while. When I come back it's oooooh so bland. Dreadfully bland. It's like what your friends parents shoved down your throat as a kid. Well, I'm not having it. So, I get a vine ripened tomato, chop it up and add it. I'm hoping to smooth out the flavors a little with the sweet of the tomato, it works relatively well.
What made this dish finally really good was that I broke down and used some garlic and onion powder. I try to avoid either of these because people use these ingredients to disguise the fact that they have no idea how to cook foods individually. (not me of course) So, I add these and a bit of the white to it... I know white wine with beef? It blended well, it's a sweeter flavor and it brought out the tomato a bit which was not easy considering the proportion of beef in the dish.
All in all it was decent, I'd put it at about a 7 considering my available ingredients. I COULD have sauted the veggies on their own, which would have added a good flavor. Although I needed a whole bell pepper and a whole onion for 16 oz's of beef. Mushrooms would have MADE this dish, I'm thinking getting closer to a stroganauf. Sour cream, sliced top round, beef, mushrooms, a little red wine, green peppers and onions, add some egg noodles.
If you wanted to make it the same genre but good, with mostly the same ingredients. Saute green peppers, onions, mushrooms and garlic, with these flavors, olive oil would be fine, but any could be used. Cook up some ground beef in a pan so you get the juices. Once the beef is browned, add the sauted veggies, cook these together until the beef is pretty well cooked. If you used really lean beef and it won't cook well, you could use a little oil.
Add water to this and lets just stick with the wheat bulgar, enough to get about half the water to soak up. Chop up a couple of tomatoes and add this, let it all stew. The tomato will not be very noticeable. It will mostly be a somewhat softer mushroom, beef and veggie flavor. You should be able to really taste the vegetables. I would think that wine would really add a lot to this flavor. That would take 16 oz's ground beef, one red onion, one green bell pepper, two tomatoes, about 16 oz's of mushrooms, a few good sized pieces of garlic, probably about 1/2 cup wheat bulgar.
Who knows? At least I'll be able to see what I've tried here.
I was just cooking a bit and I've made some observations about my attempt that I feel like documenting.
What I had:
Ground beef
1/2 a green bell pepper
1/2 a red onion
wheat bulgar
misc other crap that a single guy has in his fridge (think penicillin)
oh yeah some domain des cassagnoles, an inexpensive French white that is excellent, although the only one I can get, 2003, is a bit young and takes a while to breathe.
Basically it goes like this,
Check bank account, not good.
Look in freezer, the ever present ground beef patties are there. Should have gone for the chicken breast.
Veggies, bell pepper and onions, excellent sauted with some beef. Or in a burger or whatso, but I wanted some kind of dish.
Chopped up some of the onion, about a fourth, and the half a green bell pepper that I had. Beef + veggies, I used about 16 oz's of beef, which is a bit much unless you have more veggies.
I am loathe to use much oil to saute veggies when I am making something beef based, so I usually cook with the meat and use the meats juices. This is simply my personal preference, usually if you are using relatively fatty ground beef, this helps you make use of the absurd amounts of grease coming off the stuff. I'm 22, I am not worrying yet.
Ok, while sauteing, I am considering my options. Beef like this is traditionally pretty bland, but beef is hard to spice usually. If you stew it FOREVER it will mellow out a bit, but ordinarily your options are mostly garlic, pepper and salt. You can uses sauces to accent it, but with beef as an ingredient your options are limited.
My goal is to make this dish about something other than the beef. The vegetables are woefully inadequate, so I add the other quarter of an onion that I have. I add water once it's cooked a bit to stew it a bit, hopefully blend the flavors, but into what? Rice or wheat bulgar... Never used the wheat bulgar. High in fiber, so that's good right?
So we have wheat bulgar plus the water and let it slow cook for a while. When I come back it's oooooh so bland. Dreadfully bland. It's like what your friends parents shoved down your throat as a kid. Well, I'm not having it. So, I get a vine ripened tomato, chop it up and add it. I'm hoping to smooth out the flavors a little with the sweet of the tomato, it works relatively well.
What made this dish finally really good was that I broke down and used some garlic and onion powder. I try to avoid either of these because people use these ingredients to disguise the fact that they have no idea how to cook foods individually. (not me of course) So, I add these and a bit of the white to it... I know white wine with beef? It blended well, it's a sweeter flavor and it brought out the tomato a bit which was not easy considering the proportion of beef in the dish.
All in all it was decent, I'd put it at about a 7 considering my available ingredients. I COULD have sauted the veggies on their own, which would have added a good flavor. Although I needed a whole bell pepper and a whole onion for 16 oz's of beef. Mushrooms would have MADE this dish, I'm thinking getting closer to a stroganauf. Sour cream, sliced top round, beef, mushrooms, a little red wine, green peppers and onions, add some egg noodles.
If you wanted to make it the same genre but good, with mostly the same ingredients. Saute green peppers, onions, mushrooms and garlic, with these flavors, olive oil would be fine, but any could be used. Cook up some ground beef in a pan so you get the juices. Once the beef is browned, add the sauted veggies, cook these together until the beef is pretty well cooked. If you used really lean beef and it won't cook well, you could use a little oil.
Add water to this and lets just stick with the wheat bulgar, enough to get about half the water to soak up. Chop up a couple of tomatoes and add this, let it all stew. The tomato will not be very noticeable. It will mostly be a somewhat softer mushroom, beef and veggie flavor. You should be able to really taste the vegetables. I would think that wine would really add a lot to this flavor. That would take 16 oz's ground beef, one red onion, one green bell pepper, two tomatoes, about 16 oz's of mushrooms, a few good sized pieces of garlic, probably about 1/2 cup wheat bulgar.
Who knows? At least I'll be able to see what I've tried here.
posted by Eean at 8:49 PM
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