Beef
869 recipes found
Craig Claiborne's Beef Stew
It would be hard to find a simpler meal than Mr. Claiborne’s hearty beef stew, which goes beautifully with buttered noodles and a stout glass of red wine. (Or, for the children, a glass of milk.) A small scattering of cloves adds a floral note to the gravy, augmented by just a little thyme, and the combination pairs beautifully with the carrots you add near the end of the cooking process, to prevent them from going mushy in the heat. Sprinkle chopped parsley over the finished dish, of course, a nod to the past that rewards in beauty and flavor alike.
Garlicky Steak With Carrot, Walnut and Dill Salad
Any steak benefits from a quick marinade, but especially a flank steak. Fairly tender on its own, it becomes its best self when bathed in oil laced with lemon, garlic and coriander. The trick here is to set aside a teaspoon of this potent marinade to stir into yogurt, to dollop or serve alongside. This marinade and the garlic yogurt also work well on chicken or pork, tossed with almost any grilled vegetable or even drizzled over toast. The salad, made from long strips of carrots, is a light, sophisticated side that's as at home on your Tuesday night table as it is at weekend brunch.
Albóndigas de la Familia Ronstadt (Ronstadt Family Meatballs)
Fragrant with mint and cilantro and a hit of oregano, these delicate Mexican meatballs have served Linda Ronstadt’s family for generations. They were lunch for her grandfather, or a soup course when the family gathered at her grandparent’s house. The recipe, published in her memoir-cookbook hybrid “Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands” (Heyday, 2022), is different from many traditional albóndigas recipes, which use rice or soft vegetables like potatoes or carrots to bind the meatballs. It may seem like the meatball components won’t come together when kneading at first, but stick with it. The poaching liquid becomes a broth, which benefits from skimming off the little bit of foam that appears before serving. A variation of the Ronstadt family meatballs first appeared in The Times in 1989.
Lady Bird Johnson's Pedernales River Chili
This recipe, from former first lady Lady Bird Johnson, was featured in the 2011 exhibition “What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?” at the National Archives in Washington.
Churrasco (Grilled Marinated Skirt Steak)
Like so many of the best Puerto Rican dishes, churrasco — garlicky wood-fire-grilled steak served with chimichurri — starts by tenderizing a tougher cut of meat (skirt steak) with a flavorful marinade. Although its origins are Argentinian and Brazilian (the word churrasco encompassing grilled meats in both Spanish and Portuguese), variations on the dish are Latin American staples. This recipe kicks up a classic Puerto Rican marinade with a bit of adobo seasoning, and then served with wasakaka, an herbaceous sauce from the Dominican Republic using lime juice. The steak should be grilled over an open fire (the smoke is key), but a gas grill will do, as will a cast-iron skillet. Serve with adobo roasted potatoes, maduros, white rice or arroz mamposteao, plus fresh tomato and avocado slices.
Choucroute Loaf
This recipe for choucroute loaf, vaguely Alsatian in its addition of smoked ham, apples, mustard and caraway to the usual mixture of ground chuck, veal and pork, makes astonishing meatloaf and terrific Sunday lunch sandwiches afterward. Paired with sauerkraut, the dish winks at real choucroute and in some ways is even more delicious. For finicky kids, provide a side dish of mashed potatoes.
Guava-Glazed Jerk Pork Tenderloin
Jerk is a powerfully complex blend of spices and aromatics redolent with cinnamon, allspice, cumin and chiles. Historically, it’s tied to Maroons fleeing enslavement in the Jamaican foothills, and is among the most iconic flavors of the Caribbean. True jerk is grilled over an open fire, and is as much a seasoning as it is an action, because you can “jerk” pork, goat, chicken and even fruits and vegetables. It’s often applied to dark, often gamey or gristly cuts of meat that stand up to complex flavors. While not traditional, this leaner, lighter pork is an excellent vessel for jerk. It’s especially good when marinated overnight and grilled, but is so simple to prepare it can easily be made for a weeknight celebration. A simple jelly glaze at the end adds sweetness and tang, caramelizing under a quick broil. Pair with rice and peas, maduros or a bright, fresh garden salad.
Rib Steak With Marrow and Red-Wine Sauce
Tteok Mandu Guk (Rice Cake Soup With Dumplings)
You can eat a bowl of tteok guk, rice cake soup, as South Koreans do on New Year’s Day (by the Gregorian or Lunar calendar) and freeze any leftover broth for multiple soul-soothing meals in the new year. The soup sometimes includes mandu, as it does here, and those dumplings also can be frozen. An aromatic gochugaru oil turns this ordinarily snow-white dish crimson, flavoring the bold, spicy-sweet kimchi dumpling filling and tingeing the final broth with its heat. The tteok, rice cakes, here come in the form of thick, cylindrical pieces rather than soggy coins, and are added at the last moment to maintain their pleasurable chewiness.
Birria de Res (Beef Birria)
Birria took off in the United States as a soupy style made with beef and as birria tacos, popularized by birria vendors in Tijuana. The chef Josef Centeno, who grew up eating beef and goat birria in Texas, makes a delicious, thickly sauced version based on his grandma Alice’s recipe, mixing up the proteins by using oxtail, lamb on the bone and even tofu (you can, too). Preparing the adobo takes time, as does browning the meat, but it’s worth it for the deep flavors in the final dish. The best way to serve birria is immediately and simply, in a bowl, with some warm corn tortillas, which can be used to wrap the meat for tacos. But make sure to put any leftovers to work: Extra meat, pulled from the bones, can be shredded for crisp quesabirria tacos, fried in the birria fat for cheesy, lacy edges. And the leftover broth, or consomé, is ideal for a comforting bowl of birria ramen, with an egg and some fresh herbs on top.
Menudo
Menudo is magic in a bowl — sporting tripe, a deeply spiced broth, and the choice of many different seasonings, the Mexican soup is a gift. Also known as pancita, the dish is amenable to many variations and this version from Mely Martínez’s book, “The Mexican Home Kitchen” (Rock Point, 2020), is especially soothing. Most menudo recipes follow a similar blueprint: protein (usually tripe) is simmered in broth until it reaches a silky completion. Your choice of meat sits nestled in a base which can be as spicy or soothing as your tolerance and preference allows. On the side, lime, oregano and onions are among the accoutrements to season your dish — and hominy can be a hearty addition to the bowl, complementing the textures that have been stacked atop one another.
Potato Korokke
Korokke, or Japanese croquettes, are comforting oval-shaped staples. The dish was introduced to Japan in the late 1800s and is said to have descended from French croquettes. Now, you’re as likely to find these crunchy-creamy cakes in a neighbor’s kitchen as at a butcher’s shop, street vendor or convenience store counter. Potato korokke consists of mashed potatoes folded into a mixture of onion and ground beef, but that formula is a platform for endless variation. Kabocha korokke substitutes potatoes with Japanese squash; kani cream korokke is filled with crabmeat and bound by bechamel; kare rice korokke eats like a distant cousin of arancini; kon kurimu korokke uses corn and cream. Leftover korokke can be reheated and eaten with toasted milk bread for a miracle sandwich.
Middle-School Tacos
Here is a taste of a time when Mexican food was not as widely available in the United States as it is today, when parents and sports bars looked for food to serve children and those who eat like them, when the combination of crunch and fat and silk was divine. It still can be, if you avoid the taco kits of yore and make your own picadillo, then put it in hard-shell tacos and top how you like. For those who want to avoid prefabricated taco shells, make a form out of aluminum foil, fry fresh corn tortillas in shimmering neutral oil and then allow them to cool into shape on their aluminum saddle. Taco night. You can’t eat just two.
Cheese Enchiladas
Enchiladas are an essential component of Houston’s ebullient, dynamic foodways. Mexican in origin, while distinctly Tex-Mex at the same time, the dish adapts to its surroundings. Each enchilada recipe is deeply local: The style ubiquitous in Monterrey, Mexico, will be different from those found in San Antonio or El Paso or Mexico City. But from enchilada to enchilada, the common denominator is deliciousness. In “The Enchilada Queen Cookbook,” Sylvia Casares notes, “for Tex-Mex-style cheese enchiladas, yellow cheese, such as Cheddar, is the traditional choice” yielding “the quintessential Tex-Mex enchilada.”
Rendang Daging (Beef Rendang)
Rendang is one of the national dishes of Indonesia, and its tender, caramelized meat is usually reserved for special events, such as weddings, dinners with important guests, and Lebaran, the Indonesian name for Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. Bathed in coconut milk and aromatics like galangal and lemongrass then reduced until almost all moisture is evaporated, rendang can be served with turmeric rice. Rendang, a dish designed to keep for hours on a journey, has traditionally fed young Indonesians leaving home for the first time on merantau, a right of passage that teaches them about the bitterness and sweetness of life. Created by the Minangkabau, an ethnic group native to West Sumatra, this version from Lara Lee’s cookbook, “Coconut & Sambal,” is a nod to the multiple iterations of rendang across the nation, culminating in a rich and hearty slow-cooked meal. Rendang keeps in the fridge for several day or frozen for up to three months; to reheat, cover the beef with foil and heat in the oven at 300 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until piping hot, or microwave uncovered for three minutes stirring halfway through.
Boeuf à la Mode
At the apogee of cooking in vino is this dish, which involves a whole beef roast. As befits a thing that humans have been eating since before computers, before cars, before guns — perhaps before science itself — boeuf à la mode tastes less invented than it does discovered. The best strategy is to cook it a day before you plan to serve it; it tastes better reheated than immediately, and the seasoning is most even and best distributed when it has time to spend in its rich broth.
Tacos al Pastor
Tacos al pastor, a Mexican street-food staple, are a perfect synthesis of local flavors (pineapple, chiles, annatto), Spanish influence (pork, adobo), and Middle Eastern technique (a spinning, shawarma-style vertical rotisserie). The synthesis comes from Mexico’s history, but perfection comes from the combination of sweet pineapple, spicy meat and fragrant corn. This recipe, from the chef Gabriela Cámara, provides an easy way to make it at home; try boneless chicken thighs if you don’t want pork. Either way, make sure to blot the meat until very dry before cooking it so you get a hard sear that mimics the char of a grill.
Reuben Sandwich
Like many classic dishes, the Reuben sandwich has multiple origin stories: Some accounts trace its origins to the since-shuttered Reuben’s delicatessen in New York City, where Arthur Reuben created a special for one of Charlie Chaplin’s leading ladies in 1914, using ham, turkey, Swiss cheese and coleslaw on rye. Another origin story points to a customer, Reuben Kulakofsky, who was said to have ordered a corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich at Blackstone Hotel, in Omaha, where Bernard Schimmel obliged by rounding it out with Thousand Island dressing, Swiss cheese, rye bread and a hot grill. Today’s Reuben sandwiches feature corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and a healthy smear of Russian dressing between toasted, buttered rye. Homemade dressing has a brighter, fresher flavor than the bottled variety, and comes together in just a few turns of a whisk. To achieve the prized crispy crust and gooey cheese, keep the heat low enough to allow the buttered bread to toast while the cheese melts.
Carne Asada Cheese Fries
The Piper Inn is one of the oldest, oddest and friendliest restaurants in Denver, loved by bikers and hipsters alike. It’s been owned by the Levin family since opening in 1968, but because so many different cooks have passed through the kitchen over fifty years, it has a Chinese-American-Mexican menu that is entirely unique. Carne asada fries, French fries topped with the fillings of a carne asada (steak) taco, are a California-Mexican classic. The Piper Inn adds a Midwestern-style beer cheese sauce to its popular version.
Pineapple Pork
Sonoran Carne Asada Tacos
If you’re trying to replicate the carne asada experience in Sonora, there are rules to follow: Diezmillo (chuck roll) and palomilla or aguayón (top sirloin) are the traditional meats of choice. The first brings a deep beef flavor and a sturdy chew, while the second has a milder taste and a tender bite. Use one or the other, or a combination. Either way, they need to be sliced to 1/2-inch thickness, grilled over high heat, and seasoned with a generous amount of salt — and only salt — right as they are thrown on the grill. They should be flipped just once, when meat juices rise and start to bubble, allowed to rest covered, and then thinly sliced or diced into bite-size pieces. There is no carne asada just for the meat, though the meat turns out as tasty as can be, but it should end up in a taco that should have trouble closing (with its proper accompaniments of refried beans, guacamole and salsa) and should be eaten in good company.
Gungjung Tteokbokki (Korean Royal Court Rice Cakes)
This savory-sweet rice cake dish is similar to the tteokbokki that was served in the Korean royal court during the Joseon Dynasty. Its spicy gochujang-rich younger cousin is better-known, but this milder version was created before the introduction of chile peppers to Korean cuisine. Gungjung tteokbokki has a complex sauce of roasted sesame oil, soy sauce and aromatics. Beef, vegetables and chewy-tender rice cakes, which are sold in the refrigerated section of Korean markets, are simmered with the sauce until it reduces to a velvety glaze. For a vegetarian meal, simply omit the beef. (The mushrooms add plenty of meaty flavor.) Mung bean sprouts add texture, but they can be left out, if you can’t find them.
Stuffed Flank Steak (Matambre)
Matambre is a contraction of the Spanish words for "kill" and "hunger" -- it's the hunger killer. It's beef traditionally stuffed with vegetables, herbs, hard-cooked egg and seasonings. I cannot abide hard-boiled egg in cooked meat dishes, so I've substituted olives. It is often served as a kind of cold cut in Argentina, where it was created, but it can also be served hot.
Grilled Pork Escabeche
You can use any cut of pork or chicken. The marinade is also good with mackerel or other fish (floured and sautéed or fried before marinating).