Prime Roast Beef

Ingredients:
One standing rib roast, 3 to 7 ribs (estimate serving 2 people per rib), bones cut away from the roast and tied back to the roast with kitchen string (ask your butcher to prepare the roast this way)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
1 Remove roast from the refrigerator, loosely wrapped, 3 hours before cooking. Roasts should always be brought close to room temperature first, before they go in the oven.

Cookbooks often call for the excess fat to be removed. By "excess" fat they mean any fat more than an inch thick. The fat is what provides the flavor and what you are paying for with prime rib, so you want to leave it on. Your butcher should have removed any excess fat.

If your butcher hasn't already done so, cut the bones away from the roast and tie them back on to the roast with kitchen string. This will make it much easier to carve the roast, while still allowing you to stand the roast on the rib bones while cooking.

2 Preheat your oven to 500°F, or the highest it will go (our oven only goes up to 450°F). Generously sprinkle salt and pepper all over the roast.

3 Insert a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the roast, making sure it doesn't touch a bone. (Some meat thermometers require that you poke a hole first with a skewer, and then insert the thermometer.) Place the roast, fat side up, rib side down in a roasting pan in the oven.

4 After 15 minutes on 500°F, reduce the heat to 325°F. To figure out the total cooking time, allow about 13-15 minutes per pound for rare and 15-17 minutes per pound for medium rare. The actual cooking time will depend on the shape of the roast and your particular oven. A flatter roast will cook more quickly than a thicker one. So make sure to use a meat thermometer. This is not a roast to "wing it". Error on the rare side.

Roast in oven until thermometer registers 120°F for rare or 130°F for medium.

Check the temperature of the roast using a meat thermometer a half hour before you expect the roast to be done. For example, with a 10 pound roast, you would expect 2 1/2 hours of total cooking time (15 minutes at 500° and 2 1/4 hours at 325°). In this case, check after 2 hours of total cooking time, or 1 hour 45 minutes after you lowered the oven temp to 325°.

Once the roast has reached the desired internal temperature, remove it from oven and let rest 20 minutes, covered with aluminum foil, before carving. The roast will continue to cook while it is resting.

5 With a knife or scissors, cut the strings which attach the meat to the bones. Remove the bones (save for making stock for soup. Then, using a sharp carving knife, slice meat across the grain for serving, making the slices about 1/4-1/2 inch thick.

Making gravy

To make the gravy, remove the roast from the pan. Place pan on stove on medium high heat. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the drippings to a separate container. Into the 2 tablespoons of drippings in the pan stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour. Stir with a wire whisk until the flour has thickened and the gravy is smooth. Continue to cook slowly and stir constantly. Slowly add back the previously removed drippings (remove some of the fat beforehand if there is a lot of fat). In addition add either water, milk, stock, cream or beer to the gravy, enough to make 1 cup. Season the gravy with salt and pepper and herbs. (See also How to Make Gravy.)

Yorkshire pudding

Where's the Yorkshire pudding???


You'll need 2 eggs, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of milk. Mix well and let it get to room temperature. Shortly before you bring your roast out to rest, pre-heat the oven and heat 1/4 cup of the drippings (add Crisco if you don't have enough) until it's REALLY hot. Add batter and bake 35 minutes. It will puff up and be impressive to look at. Serve with lots of good gravy.

Christmas roast beef

This year we gonna cook roast beef for a Christmas:

Ingredients:
3 to 3 1/2 lbs of Boneless Rump Roast (pick a end cut with a lot of fat marbling)
Olive oil
8 slivers of garlic
Salt and pepper
You will need a meat thermometer

For the gravy:

Red wine, water, and or beef stock
corn starch

Directions:
1 Start with the roast at room temperature (remove from refrigerator 1 hour before cooking - keep it wrapped). Preheat the oven to 375°F.

2 With a sharp knife make 8 small incisions around the roast. Place a sliver of garlic into each incision. Take a tablespoon or so of olive oil and spread all around the roast. Sprinkle around the roast with salt and pepper. Place the roast directly on an oven rack, fatty side up, with a drip pan on a rack beneath the roasting rack. This arrangement creates convection in the oven so that you do not need to turn the roast. The roast is placed fat side up so that as the fat melts it will bathe the entire roast in its juices.

3 Brown the roast at 375°F for half an hour. Lower the heat to 225°F. The roast should take somewhere from 2 to 3 hours additionally to cook. When the roast just starts to drip its juices and it is brown on the outside, check the temperature with a meat thermometer. Pull the roast from the oven when the inside temperature of the roast is 135° to 140°F. Let the roast rest for at least 15 minutes, tented in aluminum foil to keep warm, before carving to serve.

Serves 4-6.

To make the gravy:
Remove the dripping pan from the oven and place on the stove top at medium heat. Note that if you are pulling the roast out early, for rare or a medium rare level of doneness, you may not have a lot of drippings. Hopefully you will have some. If not, you may want to leave the roast in a little longer at even lower heat, 175°F, to ease some more drippings out of it. Add some water, red wine, or beef stock to the drippings to deglaze (loosen the drippings from the pan). Dissolve a tablespoon of cornstarch in a little water and add to the drip pan. Stir quickly while the gravy thickens to avoid lumping. You can add a little butter if there is not a lot of fat in the drippings. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mom adds some fresh thyme too if she has some. (See also How to Make Gravy.)

Source

Сухарики

Мы с Катей открыли для себя новые сухарики с тремя сортами сыра.
Первое пришедшее в головы канапе: жареные грибы, тертый сыр, майонез, петрушка, соль-перец перемешиваются и выкладываются на сухарик. М-мням!

Постный торт

Рождественский пост на дворе, а у ребенка именины. что делать? пироги уже надоели, торт с вареньем в качестве прослойки тоже не впечатляет...
На помощь пришли веганы. Вот пару из проверянных рецептов шоколадного торта. Готовили вместе с Катей - легко и быстро, а главное, оказалось очень вкусно. Так что побалуйте себя и своих близких сладеньким в новогоднюю ночь :)

Vegan Chocolate Cake #1

INGREDIENTS (NB: for 2 layers cake (like in the picture) double ingredients)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1 cup water

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease one 9x5 inch loaf pan.
Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add the oil, vanilla, vinegar and water. Mix together until smooth.
Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Rich Chocolate cake #2


Ingredients
3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup all purp unbleached flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup good cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain soymilk
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/2 cups pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 9 inch springform pan with non stick cooking spray.

Sift together flours and baking powder and baking soda.

In a saucepan, heat the soymilk on low-medium heat. When it is slightly bubbling, add the cocoa powder and wisk well until it is dissolved. Remove from heat.

Combine the other liquid ingredients in a bowl and whisk well. Add the cocoa mixture and combine. Add the wet ingredients to the dry.

Pour batter into prepared pan, bake at 350 F for 25 minutes until a toothpick or butter knife comes out clean. Let cool completely and frost with your favorite frosting.

Chocolate icing (my favorite - на 1-ой фото):

Ingredients:

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup 100% dark cocoa
1/4 cup soy milk (any flavor)
2 tbsp of margarine
1 tbsp veg oil
1/2 to 1 cup of powdered sugar
dash of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
OPTIONAL - chocolate and/or coconut shavings

Directions:

Mix grandulated vegan sugar and dark cocoa in saucepan. Stir in soy milk, oil, salt and margarine and heat to boiling. Continue to boil for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let mixture COOL completely.

After mixture is cool, stir in vanilla. Beat in the powdered vegan sugar a little at a time until desired consistency is reached.

Feel free to add coconut shreds or chocolate shavings in the frosting, or simply sprinkle on top of frosted cake. Sprinkling powdered vegan sugar on top of the chocolate frosted cake is also attractive.

Frosts one 9 inch cake.

Засолка рыбы

1.5 литра кипяченной остуженной воды
4 ст.ложки соли
2 ч.ложки меда
корица
2 ложки специй по вкусу

с замороженной рыбы снять кожу, порезать на кусочки, сложить в маринад и поставить на холод.
Рыба готова через 2 суток. каждый кусочек обмакнуть в раст.масло, сложить в чистую банку и убрать в холод. (можно заморозить)

Salmon Quiche

Наконец то, после множества проб и ошибок, я нашла идеальншй рецепт моего Salmon Quiche :)


Ingredients:
1 unbaked pie shell (deep dish)
3 eggs beaten lightly
6 ozs.(175g) shredded cheese (swiss,colby,farmers,brick or gouda)
1 can salmon (7 1/2 ozs
1 tbsp each finely chopped onion,celery,and parsley.
1 tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp salt,1 cup light cream
1 tbsp grated parmesan cheese


Directions:
Heat oven 375
Toss together, cheese, salmon, onion, celery, parsley and salt.
Put into unbaked pie shell.
Combine eggs and cream, pour over salmon mixture.
Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Bake 35 minutes or till the knife comes out clean.

Jambon persillé или холодец по-квебекски

Недавно налетела на телешоу для любителей поготовить. Готовили Jambon persillé. оказалось что это тот же холодец, только в порубленное мясо добавляют рубленные же соленные (или маринованные)огурчики, петрушку и репчатый лук, пассированный в бульоне из-под мяса (свинной ноги). Потом формочку прокладывают plastic wrap закладывают туда полученный фарш и ставят в холод. Бульона в квебекском варианте практически не добавляют. через денек, достают застывший брусочек жамбона, режут кусочками и намазывают на (сырные) сухарики :)

Жареная корюшка

Долго просил меня мой благоверный пожарить ему рыбки... Семга нам уже надоела, форель тоже... вот и пришлось найти замену :)
Знакомьтесь, корюшка!



Ingredients:
3-6 dozen fresh or thawed smelt, depending on your appetite
Kosher salt
Olive oil for frying, about 1/4 cup
--------------------------
1 cup whole wheat flour (you can substitute all-purpose)
1 T. kosher salt
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. cayenne (or more to taste)
1 t. mustard powder
1 t. fresh ground black pepper

Directions:
Make the seasoned flour by mixing all the ingredients. It should not taste overpowering -- the seasonings are there to accent the fish, not hide it.

Lay your smelt out on a platter and salt them well.

Heat a large frying pan over high heat for a minute or two. Turn the heat down to medium-high and add enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan by about 1/8 inch. You do not want the smelt swimming in oil. Let this oil heat up for 2-3 minutes, or until you see it begin to ripple on the surface.

While the oil is heating, dredge your smelt in the flour and set aside on a dry spot. Lay out some paper towels to drain them later.

When the oil is hot, arrange your smelt in one layer with room between each one and fry over medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Turn and fry for an additional minute, maybe two.

The trick here is to do most of the cooking on one side, giving you that pretty golden crust. You give the other side less time because you don't want overcooked fish inside that pretty golden crust.

Set your smelt aside and add the chard. Turn and stir it constantly, while sprinkling in the garlic powder and a bit of salt. The chard will release a lot of water, so when it does, turn the heat up to high and keep stirring until it is all wilted -- about 3 minutes.

To serve, lay down a bit of chard and arrange the smelt on top. Serve with lemon wedges for a bit of acidity.

What to drink? A hoppy ale or a pilsner is perfect here, as would a sparkling wine such as Prosecco. You could also go with a crisp white; I like chenin blanc or verdelho.