Marinated Flank steak

We like the Flank steak very much, unfortunately it can be a bit difficult to find in the local food store but should be possible to find at larger stores or in food markets. This is a thin piece of meat from the belly of the animal. There are two things to remember when you use this meat, first of all do not overcook the meat, an inner temperature of 55 C gives a perfect result. The other thing to remember is to cut the meat in thin slices across the meat fibres after the cooking, if you cut along the fibres you get a very very chewy piece of meat. This meat is also perfect for marinating we really recommend that for best result and that was what we did the other day, here comes the recipe.

Flank steak, about 600 gram for 4 persons.

Marinade

1/2 dl soya

1/2 dl balsamic vinegar

1/2 dl olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

2 tbs of fresh thyme

Method

Mix the ingredients for the marinade. Cover the meat with the marinade and let it stay in the refrigerator for at least two hours. Heat a grill pan to very hot and quickly roast the meat on both sides. Put a steak thermometer in the fattest part of the meat and transfer it to a frying pan that is kept on low to medium heat and let the meat fry until inner temp is 55 C. Put the meat on a cutting board and let it rest for about 10 minutes before you cut in about 5 mm thick slices. Serve with your favorite potatoes and some nice green salad.

*
Beef ready for the refrigerator.

Marinated beef heart

Beef heart is a delicious and easy to make beef, just remember to keep it between rare and medium rather than medium to well done. If you fry it too long it will get a bit hard and taste a bit towards liver.

Ingredients:

One trimmed beef heart (Make sure to take away all fat and tissues, should only be meet left.)

Marinade:

1 dl Japanese soya

Juice from one lemon

Juice from two limes

2 tbs tomato puree

2 tbs honey

chilli according to your preferences

2 garlic cloves finely chopped

1 tsp cumin crushed

1/2 tsp liquid smoke

Method:

Mix the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl and let it rest for a while. Trim the heart and cut the meat in 1 cm thick slices across the fibres. Add the meat to the marinade and mix the meat and marinade making sure the meat has been covered with the marinade. Leave the meat in the marinade for at least two hours, up to 8 hours. Heat a grill pan and grill the meat about 2 minutes on each side. We served the heart together with raw fried potatoes and vegetables.

Table bread

 
Pers baking day, today he is baking a straightforward white table bread. This is a little bit special dough to handle but if you do it right the resulting bread is very nice. So some words of precautions, this is a very very wet dough that needs a lot of kneading at high speed to change from floating to a somewhat more jelly state. It also requires a strong, high protein, flour. Best is to use Manitoba Cream if you can find that in the shop. In Sweden it should be easy to find. It is important to use a flour with a high protein percentage, otherwise it may be difficult to get the dough together. You also need a machine that can knead the dough at high speed.

Table bread.

500 grams flour (high in protein)
500 grams water (room temperature)
12 grams yeast
12 grams salt
5 grams butter (room temperature)

Resolve the yeast in the water and then add the flour and salt. Knead the dough in the machine at highest possible speed until the dough start to leave the bowl. This can take between 15 to 20 minutes depending on what kind of machine you use, sometimes it may take longer time but it is important that you work the dough until it starts to bang the walls of the bowl. As soon as it shows signs of leaving the bowls bottom add the butter and let the machine go for about 4 minutes more.

When the dough is ready transfer it to a plastic bowl or container that has been oiled with some neutral food oil. Cover with a lid or plastic wrap. Let the dough rest for about one hour.

Put plenty of flour on the baking tray, this is a very wet dough and will stick to everything it can stick to if you don't cover the surface with flour. It is important to handle the dough gently so that the bubbles stay inside the dough. Carefully let the dough pour out of the plastic container on top of the flour. Fold the edges on to the centre of the top of the dough, so you end up with a flour covered round dough. Cut the dough in two pieces and carefully close the wet area by pushing the flour covered sides up over the wet surface so that you end up with an almost loaf shaped dough. Put the dough pieces on a baking paper with the closed area down. Use your hands to shape the loaves by carefully pushing the dough, sort of under itself, from the sides. Let the loaves rest for about one hour. After 30 minutes preheat the oven to its highest temperature. If you have a pizza or baking stone place that in the lower part of the oven, otherwise put a baking plate in the oven to make it hot.

Transfer the loaves to the stone/plate gently, spray plenty of water with a squirting bottle in to the oven. Put the oven temperature to 250 C. After 10 minutes lower the temperature to 200 C. Let the loaves stay at least 30 minutes in the oven after that. I like a crispy crust so I let them stay around 50 minutes in the owen. It is also good to open the hatch after 20 minutes to let some steam out, and then repeat that with 10 minutes intervals until the bread is ready. Let the loaves get cool on a grid.

This is what I use, I use a scale because I like to get the same starting point every time I bake this bread. Of course you can also recalculate into volumes instead of weight.

This is how the dough looks like after 5 minutes of full speed kneading.

This is how the dough looks like when it is close to ready. As you can see the dough has started to leave the bowl. Now I put the butter in and let it go for 4 minutes.

The dough is ready.

Lid on, now rest for one hour.

After one hour.

Baking tray is waiting, much flour.

After folding the "wet part" into itself you get a flour covered dough.

Loaves shaped, somehow.

Loaves after one hour.

Loaves after 50 minutes in the oven.

This is how they came out this time.

Pancake day buns

Shrove day and we made those buns from this recepi at svt.se: http://www.svt.se/gomorron-sverige/jespers-smarriga-semlor Maybe ours was not just as perfect looking but still tasted very good. Happy pancake day all friends!

Stracotto alla Fiorentina

 
 As you can see from our blog description, we are big fans of Italian food. We also  like to visit Italy as often as we can. One of Paulas favorite regions in Italy is Toscana. Following a visit there she picked up a cook book  with recepies collected from Toscana. The title of that book is Flavours from Toscana. The recepi for the Stracotto alla Fiorentina comes from this book, we made this dish with a few adjustments.

 Stracotto alla Fiorentina.

1.2 Kg beef (We used flank steak.)
0.5 dl  olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped in small peaces
2 carrots, chopped in small peaces
2 cloves of garlic (We used more, we really like garlic.)
50 grams dried boletes (Mushrooms, we did not have those.)
2 bay leafs
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
4 sprigs of fresh sage
3 dl red wine
1 liter beef stock
seasalt
blackpepper

Season the beef with salt and blackpepper. Frie quickly to brown the surface and then transfer the beef to a plate. Put the onion together with the garlic, mushrooms, carrot, celery and the herbs in a pot on the stove.  Poach at low temperature, blend for about 15 minutes. Add the wine to the pot and warm to get the alkohol out. Add the beef stock and blend. Then add the beef to the pot. Cover the pot with baking paper and a lid before putting it to the owen at 175 degrees for at least 3 hours. When ready take up the beef and slice it. Put the rest of the contents in the pot in a mixer and mix it. Heat the sauce and add spices if you like. Pore the sauce on top of the meat. Serve together with nice Italian country bread.

We served polenta together with this dish. We used a recepie from a Jamie Oliver book. We used flak steak as beef in this dish but you can use many different kinds of beef. Don´t forget to put in the celery, it gives very good flavoring to this dish. 

Per likes to bake and has found a nice and simple way of baking an Italian style country bread. Next we will but that recepi here.