Where's the Beef? (It's In The Sauce, Baby, It's All In The Sauce!)

The thought of something a little different for dinner today had my mind racing when I woke up this morning. I was thinking some kind of a beef sauce over either noodles or boiled potatoes. Once my morning rituals/routine was over with, I went to the freezer and pulled out a package of sirloin steak. One large piece of meat! I put it in the microwave to thaw. Four and-one-half minutes later I pulled it out and set it out to rest for a moment. I then poured some EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)(thanks to Rachel Ray for that signature word!) into a non-stick skillet and let that start to warm up on medium high heat.

Next I took the meat and cut off all portions of the fat and sliced it into strips and then smaller 1 to 1-1/2" pieces. Laying the pieces out on the cutting board, I then sprinkled them with kosher salt, pepper, and Cavender’s seasoning, turned them over and repeated the same on the other side. (Never be afraid to salt the meat, it needs it to bring out the true flavors!) Next, I filled a large flatter bowl with flour (about 1" deep) and tossed some pieces in and rolled them around in the flour. Once they were thoroughly coated, I laid them out in the hot pan to begin to sear and brown (at about medium heat), repeating the process until all the pieces were coated with flour and were dropped into the pan. Before turning and once the pieces began to show that the flour on the top side was “melting” I next sprinkled a thin layer of sugar over the top of the pieces. Sugar. . . yes, sugar. I do this as it aids in caramelizing the pieces of meat. You just lightly sprinkle them, and, no, they won’t take on a sweet taste (but it does aid a little in the flavoring of the sauce). Once they were sprinkled with sugar, I then turned them over to brown the top side.

When all the pieces were browned (and still pink in the middle) I then went to my cupboard for beef broth. And, unfortunately, I didn’t find any. Fortunately, though, I did have chicken broth. I have found that you can easily substitute chicken broth for beef broth. All you need to do is add some beef bouillon cubes, if you have them (which I always have on hand) and/or add some Kitchen Bouquet. I did both, in this case. I turned the heat down to a medium low, and added about a cup of chicken broth and then dropped in three beef bouillon cubes and drizzled some Kitchen Bouquet over the top. The KB gave it a darker, richer looking sauce. I let this meld together for about 10 minutes and then turned the heat to low once I knew the bouillon cubes were dissolved. I gave the mixture a good stir to mix things up, put a cover on it, turned it on low simmer and let it simmer for an hour and a half. Midway through the process, I added about another half cup of chicken broth.

Next I waited for Bob to come in to decide which way to go – noodles or potatoes. He said he was sick of potatoes at the moment so wanted noodles. So I put some water on to boil and once it came to a boil added some salt and then the wide dumpling noodles. (How much you might say, it was about half a bag). Once the noodles were cooked, I drained them and placed them into a larger flatter bowl/platter. I then poured the beef mixture, (which by now had turned into a dark, rich, thick velvety sauce) over the noodles and tossed them a bit to mix the sauce in with the noodles. I then topped them with a sprinkling of shredded Parmesan cheese and then a thinner layer of shredded Romano cheese.

I served this with some warm rolls and buttery kernel corn.

When Bob comes in from outside and I am in the midst of “experimenting,” he will always pick up the covers off any pans on the stove (or peek in the oven) and always, predictably always, gives me the same old wrinkled up nose routine of “what the hell is this?” Most of time he is very pleasantly surprised at the finished product. This produced quite a bit of food, but by the time we were done eating today, there was only a small bowl of leftovers. Even though he won’t usually say the words, that is his way of saying “not bad, baby, not bad!”

I have to say that I thought so myself today, too . . . not bad, baby, not bad!