Beef with Onions

This one I adapted from a little book on Chinese food. The original recipe had green peppers.

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons oil
1-inch piece gingerroot, peeled and chopped
1 lb beef tenderloin, very thinly sliced
1 onion, sliced
salt, if necessary

Sauce:

1/4 cup vegetable stock
1 tablespoon soy sauce (better if using dark soy sauce)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch mixture (prepare with 1 part cornstarch, 2 parts of water)

Preparation:

In a wok, heat oil, add gingerroot and fry for 1 minute. Add beef and quickly stir-fry for 2 minutes just until color changes.Stir in onion and stir-fry for 5 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix together sauce ingredients. Stir into beef mixture. Cook, stirring, until lightly thickened. Add salt if needed.
Serve with white rice.

Easy Grilled Indoors New York Strip Steak

I make these for my kids when it's winter and we cannot barbecue outside. They are quick and easy.
For them, you have to use a gas stove and a cast iron grill. The most important thing for this type of pan is that, everytime you wash it, dry and immediately season with oil or cooking spray.

Ingredients:

2 New York strip steaks
coarse salt

Preparation:

15 minutes before starting to cook the steaks, sprinkle them with the coarse salt on both sides. Let them rest.
Around 5 minutes before cooking the steaks, put the cast iron grill pan on the gas stove and, if possible, turn on the 2 burners below the pan, in medium-high heat. Let the grill pan get hot.
It's cook time: remove most of the coarse salt from the steaks by scraping them with a knife. Don't worry if some granules cannot be removed. Put them on the hot grill pan. Let them cook for some minutes. Turn them around, cook for some more minutes. Using a fork, put them both up on one side, let them cook for 1 minute. Turn to the other side, cook for one more minute or so, until they are browned on the 2 longest sides. If possible, do the same for the other 2 sides (shortest ones), by holding the meat for a while with the fork.
Then put each steak to cook with the flat sides down for 1 or 2 minutes on each of these sides, on a different position, so they get those nice crossings from the lines of the iron pan.

Be careful not to overcook the steaks. If you are not sure, get a sharp meat knife and cut a thin slice on one side. If it is a bit red but it doesn't look too raw, then they are done. They will be juicy inside, and when you transfer them to a plate to cut slices, they start to let some of these juices flow. You will want to use your finger on the plate and lick them....

Note: After seasoning the steaks with coarse salt, DO NOT let them rest for much more than the 15 minutes unless you come and scrape the most of the salt. Otherwise they will get too salty.

This is the way most Brazilians season their meat for barbecue. You can do the same way for barbecueing in a gas or charcoal barbecue grill, in Summer, or if you live in a good weather place (not like us, in Michigan, under all that cold and snow...)

We eat this with rice, potato salad and Brazilian style vinaigrette sauce (I will give the recipe in a later post).

Easy New York Steak in the Oven with Coarse Salt

Yesterday I was too lazy (and busy on the internet) to cook a long and laborious meal. I am still under the "finish-all-there-is-in-the-fridge, freezer-and-pantry" mode. So I got a huge NY steak chunk that I had in my freezer for some days (bought in Costco), and thawed it during a whole day. Actually, I had it in a tight closed zip bag, and dipped it into cold water for that period. This is important: the meat should be thawed completely before cooking. If not, it gets hard.

Another important thing: after cooking, you should cut very thin slices of this meat. Don't let your folks cut the meat for themselves, they might get thick slices, and therefore, complain that the meat is hard.

If you think the meat is too red inside, after you start slicing it, you can take it to the oven to cook a little bit more.

This is the most common way Brazilians barbecue their meat: only COARSE SALT on it. And the fat in the meat will melt all over the meat, giving it a brown juicy appearance. I can't barbecue right now, we are in 11 F and my barbecue is covered with snow... Also, if you think the meat slices are too dry, try filling a little bowl with some of the dripping liquid and use it as gravy over the meat.

Ingredients:

A large piece of  New York Steak, whole
coarse sea salt

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 F.
In an roasting pan with a rack, pour a little water (about 1/10 of an inch in height, maximum).
Sprinkle coarse salt throughout the meat. Don't worry, it's not going to get very salty, unless you do this a long time before the start of the cooking (so the salt melts and penetrates the meat).
Place meat on rack in roasting pan, with the fat up. This way, the meat will be "basted" with the liquid that comes from the fat.
Cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and let bake another 20 to 40 minutes, depending on the size of the meat. If you think that the meat is too burned on the outside, cover it again with foil to finish cooking.
Remove the meat, bring to a cutting board. Cut into very thin slices. Serve.