March 2018 > Hay Creek Stock Farm

Excellent NYT recipe. Chunked-up Hay Creek grass-fed beef chuck roast holds it’s own in the intensely flavorful sauce. Fat Tire “Belgian Style Ale ” worked well in the recipe and as an accompaniment. I used dried parsley and thyme and chopped-up bay leaves coarsely with knife and left them in with the beef. Sourdough bread went well with; thinking maybe a sourdough rye would work even better. Dijon good too!

Update: Nice with Artisan Sourdough Rye . Divine with pan-fried garlicky red potato slices.

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon kosher salt, more as needed
1 teaspoon black pepper, more for garnish
6 bay leaves
2 teaspoons sweet paprika, more for garnish
4 pounds boneless beef stew meat, cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, more as needed
4 Spanish or very large yellow onions, thinly sliced
6 sprigs fresh thyme
4 sprigs fresh parsley, plus chopped parsley, for garnish
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon ground coriander
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 cups beef or chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 cup beer, preferably Belgian-style or brown ale
Flaky sea salt, for garnish
Dijon-style mustard, preferably extra-hot, for serving

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PREPARATION

In a large bowl, combine salt, pepper, bay leaves and paprika. Toss meat to coat, then cover, refrigerate and marinate at least 2 hours or overnight.
Heat oven to 325 degrees. In a large (8-quart) Dutch oven or other heavy pot, heat butter and oil over medium-high until shimmering. Working in batches, brown beef on two sides until dark and crusty, transferring to a bowl when browned (reserve bay leaves). As you cook, add more oil and adjust heat if necessary to prevent burning.
When all the meat is browned, add onions to the empty pot and return the heat to medium-high if you lowered it. Cook, stirring and scraping up the brown coating on the bottom of the pan as the onions release their liquid.
Continue cooking until onions are deeply golden brown and soft, 20 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, make a bouquet garni by tying thyme, parsley and reserved bay leaves together with kitchen string (or just throw them in the pot and warn your guests not to eat them).
Push the onions to the sides, then add tomato paste, coriander and cinnamon to the bottom of the pan. Cook, stirring, 1 minute, until paste is darkened and fragrant. Stir in flour, cook another minute, then add stock, beer, 1 cup water and bouquet garni. Return beef and any juices in the bowl to the pot, bring to a simmer, then cover and transfer to oven. Cook until beef is tender, about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, turning it over halfway through.
If the sauce seems thin, remove the meat with a slotted spoon; cover with foil to keep warm. Return pot with liquid to stove and simmer until thickened to taste, 5 to 10 minutes. Return the meat to pot and stir to heat through. Serve from the pot or a platter. Garnish with chopped parsley, flaky sea salt, pepper and paprika. Serve with mustard on the side.

Tip

To make this in an electric pressure cooker, reduce stock to 1 cup and cook at high pressure for 35 minutes. If using a slow cooker, cook on low for 5 to 7 hours.

Dry aging (hanging carcass beef in a cool, climate controlled environment) has a long history but the modern beef industry has abandoned it in favor of a poor substitute deemed “wet aging” where all the excess fluids associated with a beef primal cut are supposedly captured with it in vacuum sealed plastic. Dry aging is more costly because this excess water is evaporated during the aging process and does not contribute to finished yield. Producers who don’t explicitly claim to practice dry aging are NOT using it.

Here is what Hugh Fearnley -Whittingstall, a British small holder , livestock raiser and food writer ( The River Cottage Meat Book) has to say: “What happens to the meat during hanging (dry aging) is that the natural enzymes begin to act on the fibers of the muscle meat, making them softer and more elastic so that the meat becomes more relaxed and tender.” “The meat will also begin to lose moisture as it hangs. Paradoxically this is a good thing when it comes to cooking. Wet, fresh, underhung meat carries too much water, which expands as the temperature rises during cooking, stretching the fibers of the meat and leaching out between them-especially when the meat contracts again after cooking and during carving. This means that wet meat actually ends up drier after cooking and vice versa.” “In general, another great but rarely discussed benefit of proper hanging… is that dry aged meat will emerge from the freezer with far greater credit than immature, wet meat. Again, moisture is a key issue. Water expands as it freezes so that ice crystals will tear and push apart the fibers of the meat.Not only will dry aged meat contain less of the damaging moisture but the more elastic fibers will cope better with the expanding ice crystals. So, as the meat defrosts , and again as it cooks , there will be less tendency for water to leach out.”

I tested this idea by comparing moisture loss of pan -fried ground beef patties made from Hay Creek dry aged beef and Australian (AU) grass fed organic ground beef referred to in another post. The AU ground beef is distributed unfrozen with a moisture diaper so is almost certainly NOT dry aged. Both samples were frozen once and thawed fully prior to pan frying under identical conditions to a medium rare done-ness (just past spatula press “squish” point). The AU burger had a ring of “pan boogers” around it while cooking where excess juices were evaporating off and lost an incredible 19.3 % of it’s raw weight. It shrunk in diameter quite noticeably and had a somewhat dry, chewy eating texture. The Hay Creek burger fried w/o forming “pan boogers”, very little diameter shrinkage and only 9.0 % moisture loss. Much more tender and moist upon eating . Way juicier than any of the much-overrated Juicy Lucy contenders in town.

Remember that “dry meat” (dry aged) is “moister” than “wet meat” (fresh or wet aged) every time you discard the costly tray bib/diaper thing saturated with excess moisture from a package of grocery store beef.