Category Archives: 14. Main Dishes

Jun17

Blanquette de Poulet

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chickens

Blanquette de Poulet

Serves 4-6

My mother was not that crazy about cooking however, every Sunday, this is what she made.  So, of course, I grew very fond of it and now have to make it so as to remind myself about the good and sociable Sundays that she created around this dish.  She teamed this up with fresh veggies or sometimes, I hate to say, canned, a nice salad and her really splendid rice, a sort of risotto. To top off our mid-Sunday repast, she served her excellent open faced apple tart or a zabaglione or some home made meringues with ice cream.  To start off the whole affair, it was either a slice of cantaloupe or canned fruit cocktail. The cantaloupe would be doused by our European friends with sugar.  So, now when I mention the canned stuff, you’ll know that the era was the 40’s and 50’s.  This is not a complicated dish and it’s the sauce that makes it—or at least that’s what I think. Blanquette equates to a totally white sauce in French culinary terms. There is also a more famous version of the blanquette—Veal en Blanquette. The recipe for that is a bit different.  Anyway, here’s to memories and I hope that you’ll enjoy this dish.

 

Ingredients:

  1. 1 nice sized whole chicken, rinsed
  2. Water–enough to cover the whole affair
  3. 2 or 3 carrots, peeled and cut into large pieces
  4. 2-3 celery stalks, washed and cut in half or thirds
  5. 1 onion-peeled and cut into quarters
  6. Several cloves of garlic-peeled and chopped
  7. 3-4 sprigs of garlic
  8. Some peppercorns
  9. A couple sprigs of fresh thyme or tarragon or rosemary—your choice of one
  10. S&P to taste
  11. 2 Tblsp. flour
  12. 2 Tblsp. butter
  13. 1 C. heavy cream (but ½ and ½ will do it except it won’t taste as wonderful)
  14. 2 egg yolks put in a small bowl that will also hold the heavy cream
  15. 1/2 Lb. small mushrooms, sautéed in a bit of butter (optional)

 

Instructions:

  1. In a large pot, place the chicken, water to cover and the ingredients mentioned from item #3 through item #10.  Bring to a boil and simmer, covered for at least one hour or till chicken is done. (You can also put all of these ingredients except the carrots in a large cheesecloth bag and place that in the stock).
  2. Set aside the chicken and carrots. Strain the stock, discard the strained ingredients (or the cheesecloth bag) and put the stock back in the pot.
  3. Bring stock to a boil and reduce to a slower boil until broth is reduced about 2/3rds.
  4. In a small bowl, cream the butter and flour (I do this with a fork) and add a bit of the hot broth and mix well till smooth and no lumps remain.
  5. Add the flour/butter mixture to the broth in the pot and boil 1-2 minutes.
  6. In the meantime, mix the cream with the yolks with a whip. If you wish, you can add some lemon juice to this mixture.  As I remember, mother didn’t.
  7. Reduce heat of broth till barely simmering and add the cream/yolk mixture. DO NOT LET BOIL or it will curdle (YUK!)
  8. Whip the broth until it’s nice a smooth.
  9. Place the chicken on a platter with the mushrooms and carrots around and pour the sauce over all.  Or if you would rather, serve the chicken, carrots and mushrooms plain and put the sauce in a gravy boat and let your guests pour the sauce themselves on their individually plated dishes.

 

P.S.  There are many other excellent and a bit more complicated recipes for Blanquette de Poulet however the one I gave you is the one my mother made and frankly, I enjoyed the simplicity of it because it made the sauce really stand out.    

Jun16

Veal Stew With Mushrooms, Cauliflower, Onions and Sour Cream

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veal stew in skillet

stew on plate

Veal Stew With Mushrooms, Cauliflower, Onions and Sour Cream

6-8 servings

I do love veal.  It’s a bit pricey but it has such a delicate flavor (as opposed to its parents) that I’ll many times bend my budget to accommodate it.  There are a lot of good recipes for veal, however, this is one that I really like because it makes the dish go round a bit more; that’s because there are plenty of good included veggies here.  So here you go:

Ingredients:

  1. 1/4 or more C. of flour for dredging
  2. S&P to taste to add to the flour
  3. 3 lbs. boneless veal stew meat
  4. 1/2 C. olive oil
  5. 3 medium onions, peeled and cut into quarters
  6. 1 C. sliced celery
  7. 1 ½ C. hot water
  8. 1/2 C. white wine or vermouth
  9. Thyme to taste (dried or I used several threads of the real stuff)
  10. 1 small head of cauliflower, broken in small flowerettes
  11. 12 small mushrooms, quartered
  12. Butter
  13. 1 C. sour cream
  14. 1/4 C. chopped parsley

Directions:

  1. In a medium sized bag, shake the flour with the S&P and then put the veal pieces in it and shake some more to coat them all evenly.
  2. In a heavy deep skillet, add the olive oil and heat.  When heated, add the stew meat and brown on all sides (about 5-8 minutes).
  3. When meat is browned, add the onions, celery, hot water, wine and thyme.  Simmer stove stop with a tight lid for 1 ½ hours.
  4. After 1 ½ hours, add the cauliflower and simmer for 1/2 hour more.
  5. Before the stew has finished simmering for the 2 hours, in another skillet, add and heat some butter so that you can brown the mushrooms.
  6. When the stew is cooked and the mushrooms browned, add the mushrooms to the stew along with the sour cream and parsley.  Stir so that the mixture is well blended BUT DO NOT LET BOIL!!
  7. This is excellent over rice or noodles.

 

For easy access and printing of this and past recipes, visit Margot’s blog http://blog.tempinnkeeper.com  Call Margot for personal cooking help or hosting

 @ 721-3551.

Margot is a self-taught enthusiastic & passionate cook. Having been an inn-keeper for 5 years at her own inn, she accumulated a lot of good recipes which she loves to share.

 

Jun11

Fusion Veal Stew

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Fusion Veal Stew-(a little Italian, German, Greek, Vietnamese, & Mexican Influencing)

Serves 6

Fushion Veal

Now, don’t turn up your nose at this combination because it really tastes good and is pretty healthy as well.  Fusion is fun and often can yield wonderful results.  This is a yummy veal stew that I served over Vietnamese My-Tho Large Noodles (Wide Oriental Style) to save calories.  They are half the calories of normal noodles and were easy to prepare (noodles was the German/Vietnamese influence).  I used fresh cilantro,( I sort of always think Mexican for this green topping even though I know a lot of other nationalities use it for their culinary cuisine as well)  for the topping because I didn’t have fresh parsley and it turned out to be a nice tasty addition. The olives are the Greek or Italian influence.  So, here’s the recipe for you brave and adventuresome readers:

 

Ingredients for the stew:

  1. 2 Lbs. lean veal stew meat (I found some very well priced at Atkinsons’)
  2. Flour for dredging
  3. S&P to taste and to add to the flour for the dredging
  4. 1/4 C. olive oil
  5. 1-2 Cloves garlic-chopped
  6. 1 Small onion, sliced
  7. 2/3 Tsp. dried rosemary or twice that amount of fresh
  8. 1/2 C. dry white wine (I used white vermouth)
  9. 1 Tblsp. tomato paste
  10. 1 C. or more of  hot chicken stock
  11. 12 pitted black ripe olives, sliced
  12. Chopped parsley or cilantro

 

Directions for the stew:

  1. Pre-heat oven to 300
  2. Dredge the veal with the flour, S&P
  3. In a heavy oven proof skillet, over medium high heat, bring the olive oil to a light sizzle.  Add the veal to it and brown well over medium heat (about 5 minutes). Then add the onion and garlic and cook 3 minutes more stirring often.
  4. Add the rosemary, wine, tomato paste and the hot chicken stock so that the veal is totally covered with the liquid.
  5. Cover and bake two hours.  After one hour peek in to see that there is enough liquid and if not, add more wine and chicken stock.
  6. After 2 hours add the sliced olives and bake half hour more.
  7. Sprinkle parsley or cilantro over before serving.

rice noodles fusion veal

Directions for the My-Tho Wide Large Noodles:

  1. Place the amount of the dry noodles you wish to serve in a tall container (I used a juice container that would safely hold boiling water).
  2. About 5-10 minutes before you will be serving the veal, pour BOILING water over the noodles and stir every minute or so.  Keep tasting because you don’t want the noodles to get mushy. When they are firm but just right to eat (5- 10 minutes) drain them in a colander and run cold water over them so as to stop their cooking.  Put them back in the container and add some olive oil.  Stir well.
  3. They won’t be really hot but when you put the stew on top, you won’t notice the difference except that they will be half the calories of regular noodles.

 

For easy access and printing of this and past recipes, visit Margot’s blog http://blog.tempinnkeeper.com  Call Margot for personal cooking help or hosting

@ 721-3551.

Margot is a self-taught enthusiastic & passionate cook. Having been an inn-keeper for 5 years at her own inn, she accumulated a lot of good recipes which she loves to share.

May5

Bouillabaisse–Quick and Delicious

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quick bouillabaisseBouillabaisse-Quick and Delicious

Serves 4

 

 

 

 

OK—if you don’t like sea food, don’t even bother looking at this recipe. But if you do—well, here’s an uncomplicated (don’t let the 20 listed ingredients scare you) and delicious way to make what many consider the Cadillac of fish stews. There are so many different versions and recipes for an original and good bouillabaisse; many take hours and a huge amount of various ingredients to make. However, the following recipe results in my opinion in a delicious dish that is not complicated, particularly if you can procure all of the few ingredients that I have mentioned. Please know that you can use fresh or dried seasonings but if you use the fresh variety, it’ll take twice as much of the recipe’s called upon amount as it calls for the dried variety. Fish wise, this dish can be a bit pricey to make if you get fresh non-farmed fish from the fish monger, however if you get the frozen variety (and some of it is wild caught) it can be a lot less expensive. So, here’s a dish that you can make fast, fast for guests, for your family or just for your lonesome and then have some delicious left-over’s.

Ingredients:

  1. 1-2 Tblsp. olive oil
  2. 1 medium yellow onion peeled and cut into eighths or if you wish, rough chopped by hand or food processor.
  3. 3 large peeled garlic cloves, rough chopped either by hand or in a food processor along with the onions.
  4. 2 celery stalks fine chopped by hand or food processor along with ingredient # 1 and #2.
  5. One 15-oz. can of whole tomatoes rough chopped if you want bigger chunks or even a can of commercially chopped tomatoes. Whatever, be sure to save the liquid to include in the recipe.
  6. 1-2 ears of unshucked corn, priorly soaked in water for about 1/2 hour and then microwaved for 2 minutes (for each ear) and then shucked and kernels cut off cob. Now you can use frozen corn or even rinsed canned corn. (optional)
  7. 3-5 baby red or white potatoes—cut in 2 inch pieces. (optional)
  8. 2 -8-oz bottles of clam juice and/ or seafood stock or a combination of both and actually you may want a bit more if you want a “thinner” potage.
  9. 2 Tsp. ground fennel
  10. 1/2- 3/4 Tsp. ground thyme
  11. 1-2 Tsp. dried parsley
  12. 1 Bay Leaf
  13. 1/2- 3/4 Tsp. dry basil
  14. 1/4 to 1/2 Tsp. Saffron powder
  15. S&P to taste
  16. 8-oz. combination of monkfish, swordfish, halibut, snapper or sea bass cut into large pieces.
  17. 8-oz. clean squid bodies, cut into rings and threads cut in large sections when unfrozen. (I found fresh frozen squid and they were delicious.)
  18. 10 to 15 whole unfrozen cooked medium sized or could even be small deveined shrimp with or without tail on. Sometimes I think it’s fun to present a dish which people have to actually participate in, ie, taking the shrimp tail off. And actually, some people like to munch on the tail.
  19. For last minute topping, freshly chopped parsley or even cilantro.
  20. Crusty French Bread to dip into your fish stew. If you wish, you could broil the bread spread with a bit of butter or olive oil and garlic.

 

easy bouillaibaisse

Directions:

  1. If your fish, squid and shrimp are frozen, unfreeze them per package instructions.
  2. In a large deep pot heat the 1-2 Tbslp. olive oil over medium heat. Then add the garlic, onion and celery and sauté till they are soft and slightly golden (about 5 minutes.)
  3. Then add ingredients # 5 to # 15. Also add in the potatoes if you are using them. Stir well and bring to a slow boil. Place a top on the pot, turn the heat down to medium and simmer with a top on for 30 minutes.
  4. Add the cut fish when the sauce is ready and cook covered for an additional 5 minutes or till the fish is fork ready.
  5. For your very last minute or two of cooking over medium heat and with a top on, add the squid and shrimp and the optional corn.
  6. You can top this all, when serving, with additional freshly chopped parsley or even cilantro.
  7. And don’t forget the crusty French bread and wine, like a rose(accent over the e).

 

Apr29

One Very Easy and Healthy Complete Chicken Casserole

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breasts ready for oven corn unshucked and breasts dish ready to eat plated

One Very Easy and Healthy Complete Chicken Casserole

Serves 4

Very often I don’t have any specific plan or recipe in mind however one always seems to pop up.  Atkinsons’ had some very delicious looking and well priced whole (with bone and skin) chicken breasts which I had bought. That was my main ingredient.  I also had bought some fresh California corn (2 ears for $1), fresh organic red chard and for an additional side goodie, some huge CA artichokes (2 for $5).  At home I had some garlic heads, yellow onions, and one red and one white new potato.  So, there you go————I took out my 13 X 9 Pyrex dish and below is what I came up with.  I made it just for myself, but it’s a nice complete dinner for 4 and I envision a busy mother or dad being very happy to make something so healthy but yet so easy for the family—or even for guests because it did look very pretty.   Also, it’s a fun dish to eat because part of it entails just using your hands.  Be sure to have some extra bowls set on your table for discarding the artichoke leaves and corn husks.

 

Ingredients:

  1. 2 large whole chicken breasts, with skin and bone—rinsed and pat dried
  2. 1 large bunch of red or white chard, washed and rough chopped
  3. 1 large yellow onion, peeled and sliced
  4. 2 or 3 large new potatoes, thick sliced
  5. Olive oil and/or olive oil spray
  6. Fresh ground pepper to taste and salt if you wish
  7. Several generous squirts of one of your favorite hot sauce—I used a hot mango sauce
  8. 1 C. vegetable or vegetarian broth
  9. 4 whole heads of garlic
  10. 2 ears of corn, soft end slightly cut off, left in most of its shucking and soaked in water for 10 to 15 minutes.

Directions:

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 375.
  2. Spray your 13 X 9 Pyrex dish with olive oil and layer first with the onion slices, then the potatoes, and last the chopped chard.  Sprinkle some hot sauce over it and then pour the broth over it all. Then place one chicken breast at each end—on top of the greens, etc.  Sprinkle the chicken with fresh ground pepper/salt and some more of your favorite hot sauce and place the whole garlic heads at each corner.
  3. Put the dish on the middle rack in your preheated oven for 30 minutes.
  4. After the initial 30 minutes, take the dish out, turn the oven down to 350, and place the two un-husked presoaked corn ears in the middle of the dish.
  5. Cook for half-hour more and everything should be done just perfectly.
  6. Take the corn out with gloved hands and remove the husks.  Break each ear into two and place back on top of your dish.  If you wish place a small pad of butter on each corn ear.
  7. As I said, I served this with a side of artichoke.
  8. As always, bon appetit
Apr18

Chicken, Dumplings and Peas

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chicken dumpling

Chicken, Dumplings and Peas

Serves 6

 

I love dumplings and I also love chicken and peas—so if you do too, here’s a simple recipe you’ll love.  I bet the family and kids will love it too.  I made it real simple and just used peas for the veggies, however, if you wish, you can add or substitute carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms, ———-and————well you get the picture.

 

If you add carrots, let there be two diced; celery, another 2 diced; onion, 1 large diced; mushrooms as many as you wish for the last 15 minutes.  If you decide to add the additional veggies, brown the chicken and set aside on a plate; then brown the above mentioned veggies (except for the mushrooms) until softened (about 5-7 minutes) and then add the liquids.  For the last 15 minutes, add the mushrooms and peas.

 

Imagination my dear———and I hope that I didn’t confuse the issue to much.

 

Ingredients:

For the stew:

  1. 2 lbs. whole skinless or with skin chicken breasts or thighs
  2. 2/3 C. all purpose flour
  3. 2 Tbls. Olive oil
  4. S&P to taste
  5. 3 roughly chopped peeled garlic cloves
  6. 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary or 1 tsp. of dried rosemary
  7. 1 C. water
  8. 3 ½ C. vegetarian broth
  9. 1 ½ C. frozen or fresh peas

For the dumplings:

  1. 1 C. whole-wheat flour
  2. 1/2 C. all purpose flour
  3. 1/2 Tsp. baking soda
  4. S&P to your taste
  5. Fresh or dried rosemary to taste
  6. 3/4 C. buttermilk ( if you don’t have that, try milk and 1 Tblsp. lemon juice or vinegar that has sat for about 10 minutes)

Directions for the stew:

Cook the stew for a total of 60 minutes

  1. Toss chicken with the 2/3 C. all purpose flour mixed with S&P to your taste.
  2. In a large deep skillet, heat the oil over medium high heat; add the chicken to the pot and brown for about 5 minutes.
  3. Stir in water, broth, garlic cloves, rosemary and S&P to taste; bring to a boil and turn down the heat to medium so that the broth is just simmering.  Stir every now and then.
  4. Add peas and dumplings the last 15 minutes.

Dumpling directions:

  1. Whisk flours, baking soda, S&P, and rosemary in a medium sized bowl.  Quickly add the buttermilk and spoon the dough 1 Tblsp. at a time over the simmering chicken stew.  Makes about 18 dumplings (about 3 per person).  These dumplings are the hearty kind.  You won’t need another starch but a nice salad would be nice to have as an additional side dish.
Apr18

Stuffed and Rolled Flank Steak

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prerolled stuffed flank stuff flank steak for ONE stuffed flank steakStuffed and Rolled Flank Steak With 2 Different Stuffings

Serves 4

Here are two delicious stuffed flank steak recipes given to me by a good friend.  I used to make this dish often for my family years ago and honestly, I hadn’t thought about the flank steak for a long time.  So, I was delighted when Pat brought this recipe back to my attention because it immediately brought back very fond memories.  With this recipe, don’t feel limited to just these 2 recipes; stuffed and rolled flank steak is extremely versatile and is usually always delicious with an inventive stuffing.  As I remember, my children always were enthused about this dish so it’s a good family offering; but honestly, now that flank steak costs a bit more, I wouldn’t feel embarrassed about serving it for a nice guest dish as well.  And, I have added a picture to show you that yes indeed, you can make this for ONE.  I paid $5 for a nice steak and actually got 2 meals out of it.

 

Ingredients:

  1. 1 flank steak, pounded VERY thin
  2. Here’s 2 yummy easy stuffings–#1:
    1. Portobello mushrooms sliced and sautéed in olive oil
    2. Fresh Spinach-washed and kept whole (can be the baby kind)
    3. Pesto to taste
    4. Parmesan cheese( optional)
    5. Minced onion and/or garlic (optional)
  3. Stuffing # 2
    1. Provolone Cheese or another kind of your favorite cheese
    2. Thinly sliced Prosciutto or ham
  4. 1 Egg, well beaten
  5. 3/4 C. (more or less) Italian bread crumbs

 

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Place stuffing down the middle of the beef.  Roll it tightly and hold it with toothpicks or tied with some good cooking string.
  3. With stuffing # 1, line the beef with the spinach and Portobello mushrooms, spread pesto on top and add some Parmesan if you choose.
  4. With stuffing #2, line the beef with the Prosciutto or ham slices and the Provolone slices and then roll.
  5. When the flank steak is rolled and tooth picked or tied with some good cooking string, roll the whole steak in one beaten egg and then in the Italian bread crumbs.
  6. Place the steak in a well oiled baking dish and bake at 375 degrees for half hour or more until the roast is pink for medium or well done for those who wish it so.
Apr10

Rick’s Slow Cooked Pork

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slow cooked pork roast

Pork with spinach and potatoes

spinach pork and top

spinach on top pork

Rick’s Slow Cooked Pork

Serves 6-8

Two of my guests at my bed and breakfast inn decided that they wanted to move from Tahoe to Paso.  So, they resided in my cottage for well over a month.  They were a lovely young couple and I loved their company.  Christy eventually became the manager at an exclusive winery; Rick though always loved to cook and he ended up working at an exclusive restaurant.  This is one of his recipes and I love the ease and simplicity of it.  It is sort of a pulled pork recipe so if you look at comparable recipes, you can also add vinegar, etc. but honestly, I think that Rick’s way is the best.  So here it is:

Ingredients:

  1.  One 3-4 lbs. Shoulder/butt (NOT LOIN) I used a 3.44 Lb. Fresh Boston Butt Pork Shoulder Roast that was priced very nicely.
  2. Olive oil—I used at least 1/2 C.
  3. S&P
  4. Fresh thyme

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 275.
  2. LIBERALLY, and I mean that, spread olive oil over the whole roast. I sprayed with olive oil a large Pyrex dish first and placed the roast in it.
  3. Salt and pepper the roast to your taste.
  4. Spread fresh thyme, as much you would like, over it all.
  5. Cook the roast, uncovered, for 6 hours.
  6. That’s it and believe me, moist and delicious is what you get.
  7. Now, I had some freshly washed spinach waiting to be cooked and I thought, well, why not about 1/2  hour before the pork is done to pile it on top of the pork, sprinkle some red pepper flakes and Parmesan on top of the greens, place a top (or aluminum foil) on top and put it back in the oven. But even before that since I also had a left over cooked baked potato,  I had cut that up in small bits and had added that around the roast before I did the spinach bit.
  8. When I took the roast out, I arranged the spinach and potatoes nicely around the roast and it looked gorgeous.
  9. Of course, this kind of pork also goes very well with potato salad and/or beans.
  10. Rick also said that you can cook very thick pork chops like this as well.  He said to cook them for 1 ½ to 2 hours the slow way.
Mar29

Shrimp a la Dijon

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shrimp dijon 2Shrimp a la Dijon

Serves 4

 

For my taste, this recipe results in a truly delectable dish.  It’s a quick and easy one to serve however looks and tastes like you might have spent hours on it.  The sauce in particular is divine.  You can serve it over rice, pasta or with crusty French bread and a nice light green salad.  It’s perfect for last minute guests or just for last minute family dinners or even just for your lonesome.  Just make sure that you have some dried mushrooms or frozen pre-cooked mushrooms and uncooked peeled and devinne with tail on shrimp in the freezer.  You can even substitute for the shrimp left-over chicken.  You also can add chopped light tasting veggies like chopped yellow squash (not broccoli, Brussel Sprouts and such), when sauteing the onions and mushrooms.

Ingredients:

  1. 12 Oz. Shrimps with tail defrosted per package instructions
  2. Butter and/or olive oil to amount to 3 Tbls. (I use a bit of both)
  3. 1 ½ C. sliced mushrooms
  4. 1/4 C. finely chopped onions and/or 3 finely chopped garlic cloves
  5. 1 Tblsp. flour
  6. 3/4 C. very warm chicken broth
  7. 1/4 C. dry white wine (I used dry vermouth)
  8. 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
  9. 1 Tsp. crushed dry tarragon and/ or a heaping 1/2 Tsp. fennel seeds
  10. 1/4 Tsp. paprika
  11. 1/4 Tsp. ground pepper
  12. 1/4 C. heavy cream (you can use ½ and ½ or milk if you wish to lighten the load)

Directions:

  1. In a large measuring cup, combine the chicken broth with the white wine, Dijon mustard, and tarragon or fennel seeds, paprika and ground pepper.  Let sit while you do the rest of the steps.
  2. In a large skillet, heat the butter and/or oil till it is hot.  Add the mushrooms and onions/garlic and over medium heat, sauté till the mushrooms and onions/garlic are soft, limp and glistening. Stir in flour till all is well mixed and no more flour white remains.
  3. Add the chicken broth mixture and stir till thickened and the mixture bubbles.  Reduce heat to medium low.
  4. Stir in the cream and shrimp.
  5. Cook covered for 2 minutes or till shrimp is done.  Don’t overcook or shrimp will become tough.
  6. Garnish individual plates or platter with lemon slices and sliced tomatoes and top with parsley or herbs.
Mar23

Southern Steak and Milk Gravy

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Southern Steak and Milk Gravy (just in case you are not familiar with this easy and economical dish)

Serves 4

 

Every now and then, I think that it’s nice to give a heads up on an easy and relatively inexpensive family dinner to make. This recipe is for the busy Mom or Dad; it even is easy enough for a carefully adult observed youngster to make. I also think that kids in particular like this dish. It’s nice to serve with mashed potatoes and a side of some good fresh vegetable.  You can also saute some sliced mushrooms and place those in the gravy or as a topping for your plated steaks.

 

Ingredients:

  1.  4 pieces of cubed steak
  2. 2 Tblsp. olive oil
  3. 1 C. flour or plain bread crumbs (I use crumbs) that you have seasoned with S&P to taste to coat the steaks
  4. 1/4 C. more flour to make the gravy
  5. 1 beaten egg with a splash of water in it (if one egg doesn’t seem like enough, use two)
  6. S&P to taste
  7. 1 ½ C. milk

 

Directions:

  1. Place the flour or bread crumbs on a platter. Place the platter by your frying pan.
  2.  In a wide enough bowl to hold the steaks, beat the egg and the splash of water. Place this by the frying pan.
  3. Put the oil in a frying pan and heat it over medium heat till a drop of water will sizzle in it.
  4. Dip your steaks first into the egg mixture and then dip it in the flour or breadcrumb mixture until it’s well coated.
  5. Place your coated steaks in the frying pan and sauté until nice and brown on both sides.  Remove steaks to a pre-warmed platter and place aluminum foil over to keep them warm—or place them in a slightly pre-warmed oven.
  6. Still over medium heat, in your frying pan, place 1/4 C. flour and some more S&P to taste and stir until the flour is SLIGHTLY browned.  Slowly pour the milk stirring constantly with a wire whisk (to get rid of the lumps).  This will happen quite quickly.  If you prefer thinner gravy, add a bit more milk.  To this mixture you can also add some chopped parsley.
  7. Now, return your steaks to the pan and turn them to coat both sides.
  8. Place the steaks and the gravy in a pretty serving bowl or if you would rather plate them, you can place them individually with a side of mashed potatoes and serve the gravy in a gravy boat.
  9. Don’t forget your fresh veggies!!!

 

For easy access and printing of this and past recipes, visit Margot’s blog http://blog.tempinnkeeper.com  Call Margot for personal cooking help or hosting

 @ 721-3551.

Margot is a self-taught enthusiastic & passionate cook. Having been an inn-keeper for 5 years at her own inn, she accumulated a lot of good recipes which she loves to share.