Simply Recipes: Low Carb

Glazed Oxtails

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:31:57 -0800

"Now this is how oxtails should taste," my father declared after taking a bite of these glazed oxtails. I couldn't agree more. We have a thing for oxtails in our family. Oxtail stew was a favorite winter dish my mom prepared when we were growing up. If you are unfamiliar with oxtails, they are tails of steers, typically sold cut into segments. Most of what you buy is bone, and the meat is well exercised and fatty, so oxtail preparations lend themselves to slow cooking. Much like short-ribs, but in my opinion, even better. Think of the best pulled pork imaginable, but with beef. In this recipe the oxtails are first browned, then slow cooked with red wine and stock. Then the segments are removed so you can strip the meat off of them and the liquid is reduced to a glaze. It's actually pretty easy to make, most of the cooking time is hands-off while the oxtails are simmering.

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Blanched Cabbage with Butter and Caraway

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:40:55 -0800

Gobsmacked. I thought I was pretty well versed in what one could do with cabbage, addicted to the stuff as I am. Whether it's braised, in stewed, stuffed, boiled, or made into coleslaw, we eat cabbage in every which way around here. But this my friends, this has to be the easiest way to prepare cabbage and still have it taste great. (Boiled cabbage is probably the easiest, but then what you have is just boiled cabbage.) My mother made something like this the other day with curly cabbage. You just simply blanch the torn or roughly cut cabbage leaves in boiling salted water, drain them, and toss with butter, and seasonings. Butter and cabbage together? A dream team. And caraway and celery seeds just make them dance.

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Veal Goulash with Sauerkraut

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:10:54 -0800

Years ago in Manhattan, there was a rather famous German restaurant by the name of Luchow's. It was established in 1882 and operated continuously for a hundred years, finally shutting down in 1984. In its heyday Luchow's was well known as a hang out for musicians and entertainers such as Steinway, Dvorak, and later, Oscar Hammerstein. It even had a room named after Diamond Jim Brady, a regular.

I don't recall how it happened, but my father came across a used copy of Luchow's German Cookbook, a compilation of recipes from that now long gone restaurant. He quickly zeroed in on the recipe for an Austrian goulash with sauerkraut, also called Szegedine Goulasch in the book. I often accuse my dad of having sauerkraut in his veins, and not without reason. He just can't pass up an interesting recipe that calls for that fermented cabbage. This "goulash" is chunks of veal, cooked with onions and tomatoes in a paprika sour cream sauce, served over sauerkraut. So so good.

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Beef Roast Braised in Zinfandel

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 03:59:59 -0800

Updated from the recipe archive. First posted 2006. Enjoy!

"This isn't your everyday pot roast," my father declared as we sat down for dinner to enjoy the roast that he had been cooking all afternoon. No, indeed it isn't. The sauce includes an entire bottle of bold red Zinfandel wine. The vegetables in the sauce are cooked until every ounce of flavor is extracted from them, and then the sauce is pressed through a sieve and reduced even further. The beef, braised for hours is fork tender. Enjoy.

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Saut�ed Kale with Tahini Sauce

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:59:26 -0800

Oh my, this is a good one. I never would have thought to pair kale with tahini (thank you to my friend Peg for the suggestion), but it's great. Sort of reminiscent of a popular Japanese dish with spinach and sesame gomasio. The slightly bitter green kale does a happy dance with the acidic lemon and salty richness of the tahini sauce. Very easy to pull together. Would make an excellent addition to a Thanksgiving or holiday spread. Enjoy. (And as my dad says, eat your greens!)

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Green Beans with Bacon

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:19:40 -0800

There is nothing better than garden fresh green beans. Even when my parents abandoned their garden beds for ten years, they still had their green bean "tee-pees" every summer. My father is rather picky about his beans. They must snap and break when you bend them, not wiggle around like a rubber band. That's how you know they're fresh. I have a couple rows of green beans this year, planted from seed right after I pulled out the fava beans and spring peas. (BTW, if you grow green beans from seed, it helps to soak the beans over night in water before planting them, or place them between two layers of wet paper towels for a couple of days, so they germinate first.) They like heat, and at least in our part of the world, come into their own in August and September. When I left for vacation the plants were only a foot high, two weeks later they are climbing over the fence.

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Zucchini and Spinach Gratin

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:38:06 -0800

Another week, another refrigerator drawer filled to the brim with garden zucchini. Sound familiar? To take a break from our usual (almost daily in the summer) way to cook up the zucchini (see mom's summer squash), we prepared a classic French gratin, with grated zucchini, spinach, onions saut�ed with bacon, a persillade of parsley and garlic, all bound together with a few eggs, tossed with Parmesan, and baked until golden brown.

Zucchini has never tasted so good.

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Beef Kebabs

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:17:49 -0800

How is it that two people can remember things so differently? If you ask my mother she'll say she's only made beef kebabs a couple times in her life. If you ask me, one of my favorite childhood memories is my mother's kebabs, cooked over the little cast iron hibachi grill my parents had on the back porch. My most vivid memory of them was the time I was recovering from pneumonia, hadn't eaten anything for 3 weeks, and was allowed for the first time to sip some broth. And sip I did while the rest of the family ate beautiful, smoky, meaty, hearty, beefy kebabs. It. Was. So. Unfair. I can still smell them now. There was nothing I wanted more in the world at that moment than those kebabs. Sigh.

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Spicy Garlic Cashew Chicken

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 09:51:05 -0800

Updated, from the recipe archive. First posted July 2007.

My father first found this recipe in the New York Times in 2007. We thought the combination of cashews, garlic, cilantro and jalapenos intriguing and worth a try. When my 9-year old visiting nephew proclaimed, "Hey, this chicken is good!," we knew we had a keeper. I've since made this recipe several times, with great results. Note the reader comments. People have subbed almonds and walnuts for the cashews, and parsley for the cilantro. Great for a summer cookout!

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Poached Chicken

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:50:48 -0800

As fond as one may be of bacon and butter, sometimes the body just wants something light. What do you make when you want a light meal? I've taken to poaching chicken, using a pretty cool method taught to me by Hank Shaw. The method reminds me of sous-vide, but you don't need any fancy equipment, just plastic wrap and a big pot of hot water. You take a strip of boneless, skinless chicken breast, season it, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and then drop it in hot water. That's it. So easy. The result is tender, moist, perfectly cooked chicken, with no added fat.

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Grilled Tri-Tip Steak with Bell Pepper Salsa

Sat, 28 May 2011 23:29:11 -0800

From the recipe archive, just in time for Memorial Day weekend. Originally posted 2007. See our archives for more grilling recipes! ~Elise

Tri-tip roasts are popular here in California; it's a flavorful cut, perfect for barbecuing and grilling. Triangular in shape, it is also called sirloin tip, culotte steak, triangle steak, and Santa Maria-style. The tri-tip cut is rather lean and can get tough if over-cooked. So, don't trim the fat before cooking (it will be needed to keep the steak tender), and use a meat thermometer and stop the cooking at 130�F. This cut can be hard to find outside of California, though I understand that both Costco and Sam's Club carry it. You can also use this recipe with a flank steak.

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Egg Nests

Fri, 20 May 2011 11:28:40 -0800

It all started with a book. A whimsically illustrated French children's book about cooking, called La cuisine est un jeu d'enfants, or "Cooking is Child's Play". First published in French in 1963, a version that included both the original French and the English translation was published by Random House in 1965. I first stumbled upon this book a few years ago and have been buying up used copies wherever I can find them, as gifts for my young friends who like to cook.

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Grilled Asparagus

Thu, 05 May 2011 04:03:22 -0800

Mmm. Asparagus. You can steam them, boil them, roast them, but I don't think anything beats the flavor of asparagus that are simply grilled. The smoky flavor, the char marks. Tender, but still with a little crunch. Seriously good. I could (and have) eat them like French fries. Yum.

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Steak Diane

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 02:00:35 -0800

Updated, from the recipe archive. First posted 2006. Enjoy! ~Elise

Steak Diane is tradtionally made with a thinly pounded steak, and a cognac, butter, and shallot sauce that is flamb�ed right before serving to great dramatic effect. Doing some research into Steak Diane, I found that the "Diane" part refers to Diana, the Greco-Roman goddess of the hunt, and "a la Diane" sauces were typically served with venison and game meat in centuries past. It was probably New York hotels that popularized the flamb�ed steak version.

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Shrimp Scampi

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 10:35:32 -0800

Do you have a favorite meal for those need-something-quick-and-don't-want-to-have-to-plan-or-work-too-hard days? I like keeping a bag of shrimp in the freezer just for those times. I'll put some frozen shrimp in a bowl of ice water, and if I'm serving them with pasta, by the time the pasta water has come to a boil the shrimp are defrosted enough to cook. Shrimp scampi has to be one of the easiest ways to quickly prepare shrimp. We simply saut� the shrimp with garlic in butter and olive oil, splash it with white wine, let the wine reduce while the shrimp cooks, and then toss it with fresh parsley, lemon juice and black pepper.

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