Chile Verde

There are a ka-jillion variations for Chile Verde con Carne, or green chile with meat.  Some call for tomatillo, some for tomato, some for potato, some have lots of spices. Some are for beef, some for pork.  Everybody has one, as they say.  Including my Dad.

Dad makes himself a big pot every week or so in the retirement apartment where he lives.  He then eats it several times during the week  for lunch.  He never gets tired of it, and although I wish he ate more vegetables, it's a healthy, low fat meal.
His recipe is:  chile, round steak cut into pieces, potato, and onion.  Sometimes garlic, sometimes not.  Water with beef bullion cube. Salt and pepper.  He cooks it a long time on low.  That's it.  He doesn't brown the meat or the vegetables and he uses only round steak.   He learned from a butcher that a local Mexican restaurant always used round steak, because the cooked meat held together and didn't disintegrate into vague beef-ish stuff.   His weekly batch definitely needs to hold up.

I use round steak as well, but sometimes I'll cut up a tri-tip or a chuck roast because I like the flavor.  You could certainly use "Stew Meat". 

Personally, I like Chile Verde that doesn't have potato.
Here is how I like to make mine:
You will need;

(for 6 servings)

2 1/2 lbs. of trimmed round steak.
seasoning (I like Great American Steak Seasoning) and flour
6 (minimum) green chiles, peeled and seeded.
1 small can of tomato sauce
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
oregano
1 bottle or can of beer or 2 cups  of water.
Cooking oil for browning the meat and vegetables.
1.Season the meat with seasoning and flour lightly. Cut into bite sized pieces.
2. Heat up a heavy dutch oven and put a small amount of oil on the bottom. ( I use peanut oil for browning)
3. In batches, brown the meat well.  Remove from the dutch oven. 





4. Cook the chopped onion, garlic and chile and 1/2 tsp. oregano until it's slightly browned.












5. Return the meat to the pan.
6. Add the can of tomato sauce and the water or beer.
7. Cover and put into a 300° oven.

 8. Check after 2 hours for tenderness and add liquid if you need to. You can cook this all day if you want to.


Serve with flour tortillas.

Mom's Recipe Box

I was going through my mother's recipe box this morning.
She had gotten very confused around  the time they moved off the farm, and complained a lot about not finding her recipe box after the move.  About not finding anything after the move, dammit!
However, when my sister and I were cleaning out the house later, I came across it in a kitchen cabinet.
I was hoping to find many of the everyday recipes that she cooked often; but of course those weren't ever written down, ...she just cooked!  Maybe I could find her recipe for chile con queso?  Nope.
What I did find were about 13  variations on chicken/broccoli casserole,  11 kinds of  "impossible" or "unbelieveable" pie,  8 kinds of apple cake (I wonder which one was her favorite?) , and lots of praline, brittle and fudge recipes.  Mom had a sweet tooth, for sure.
A good many of them were cut out of the newspaper.  That Ann Landers must have been some cook.  And Heloise had some goodies, too.  I am definitely going to make that Jamaican Barbeque sauce.

Also,  almost every single one of these recipes calls for either "oleo" or "Crisco".   It's a wonder we are still alive,  having consumed so much trans-fats in all that time.
In the end, what I found that interested me the most were recipes from her lady friends that had their names on them, in their own writing, or else written by my Mom on a scrap of paper.  Now, you know that if Mom had asked right then for the recipe, it was good.

So, first up, Esther Claire Brown's "Flemish Steak".  This just sounds wonderful.

Flemish Steak, serves 6
Melt 1/4 c. butter and pour it into a large covered casserole.  (Restaurant supply steam tray pans are fabulous)
Slice 3 onions and put them over the butter.

Pound 1/4 c. flour (and I added some steak seasoning) into 3 1/2 lb. of round steak, (trimmed, of course)  I learned the hard way that pounding flour into a piece of steak could turn into an "I Love Lucy" mess if you didn't put the steak into a plastic bag before you pounded it.

Place on top of of onions and bake at 450°, uncovered 35-40 minutes until browned.

Reduce heat to 325° and add:
1 bay leaf
2 whole cloves (I used a pinch of ground clove)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. rosemary and......
2 bottles of beer. (all the recipes I found that remotely resembled this used good Ale)
(I added 1 tsp. of dijon mustard)
Cover and bake at 325° until tender.  This might be 1-2 hours.  Or more.
Arrange on a platter, top with juices and chopped parsley and chives. (or serve on a plate)

Really rich mashed potatoes are called for with this, dontcha think?  This recipe actually turned out to be  all I thought it would.  The Ale and the spices made it so flavorful!  Mom, thanks for asking for this recipe.  And  I'm so glad you kept it.

Resurrection Soup

My mother used to make this when the situation was dire.  DIRE.  When she was really worried about someone, or when that someone was broken-hearted and had had impacted wisdom teeth dug out and had contracted the  flu at the same time and and they were scary skinny.  And this soup would make me them much better.  The idea of this soup would make you better.  It had bones and gristle and marrow and good Scotch barley in it.  It smelled and tasted like you would survive if you ate it.


First, you need some soup bones.  Your up-scale type grocery stores will not have these good soup bones.  Trust me. 


These bones  must have some meat  on them, but most importantly, a big patch of marrow in the bone.  Mmmm.  Mmmmarrrow.

I start out the fancy-pants way by browning the soup bones, but my Mother didn't.  So it isn't really necessary.

Chop up some onion, carrot and celery put it on the browned meat and add some water or broth.   I had some julienned carrot for this batch on hand and so I used that.  Y'all know I love my pressure cooker and so this is what I use to make it.  Cover it with water and batten down the top.  Let it rip.  Let it cook for at least 30 minutes in the PC or an hour and a half just barely simmering on the stove top.   If you abuse your meat on the stove top it will get back at you by being very tough and taking twice as long.
When the meat is tender, or as tender as it is ever going to be,

take it out of the broth and cut the meat off of the bones.

Make sure all the marrow is out of the bones, too.  Put that all back into the broth, along with some salt, about a half-dollar's worth.

Then add your pearl barley.  About a cup.

Let that cook for a while longer, about 30 minutes on simmer.

Then you are done.  Some might want to skim some of the fat off, but if you are really sick, don't do it.  It will cure what ails'ya.