Easy Forking Great Roast Beef

Several times a year the supermarkets will have Choice Grade Eye Round on sale for less than for $3.00 a pound. That is when I prepare Roast Beef…..I usually buy a 7.5 pound package of it that I cut in half. I Do Note THE RECIPE WON’T WORK if the pieces of beef differ from the 3-4 pound size. Of course you can purchase two smaller packages but I never find them in the right size so I don’t think they come that way….so I buy the full package. Sometimes I have to trim a lot of hard fat and skin off.

I’m not the greatest at trimming but if I can do it then you can do it too. I cut the beef in 3-4 pound pieces. Then they get rubbed with oil and next my spice rub. Use 1/2 the spice rub on each beef. You don’t actually rub the spice into the meat…..I put the meat in a bowl, oil it and sprinkle the spice all over like a crust. This time I put the beefs in pans lined with a few carrots as a rack.

The meats then go on the middle rack in a 500 degree F oven for 15-18 minutes. DON’T OPEN THE OVEN or you will FORK IT UP! ……Shut the oven off and LEAVE the beefs in the oven for 2 1/2 hours. Pull them out and let them rest a half hour. Slice the beef and you will be FORKING AMAZED on how FORKING Delicious, Tender flavorful and Moist the beefs come out.

I didn’t invent this method for doing Roast Beef…..but a million people on the web do take credit for this method. The only difference is that everyone’s rub recipe will differ. I saw this method for roast beef on a bunch of TV Shows (including Rachel Ray) This method has been around forever but it is a great method. I’ve done it a bunch of times now. After doing it several times I suggest 15-18 minutes of 500 degrees F before you shut the oven off. REMEMBER 15-18 minutes at 500 degrees F and shut the oven off WITHOUT OPENING THE DOOR FOR 2 1/2 HOURS or you will FORK it up!

The Beef below was in the oven at 500 degrees F for 18 minutes. Oven was shut off without anyone opening the door…and stayed in for 2 1/2 hours.

Here is my recipe for the rub I did this time (and it might have been my best).  I note I didn’t measure exact so this is a guesstimate.

Ingredients for about 7 1/2 pound eye roast

1/3 cup canola oil

1/4 cup kosher salt

2 Tablespoons black pepper

2 Tablespoons granulated garlic

2 Tablespoons paprika

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

big pinch of ground cloves

I promise that you will thank me for this recipe. You also should save the juice that is sitting in the pan. Use it for reheating the beef.

Easy Forking Great Roast Beef

The Forking Truth

Richard Blais Style Ginger-Orange Carrots with Furikake

Richard Blais does some incredible things with carrots…..I enjoyed a very special Carrot dish at his restaurant Juniper and Ivy in San Diego CA a little while back that was to die for actually everything was great there….but those almond wood smoked carrots were.. Forking Amazing! The very BEST carrot dish I ever tasted in my life…..I found another Richard Blais Carrot dish called Ginger-Lime Baby Carrots. WOW if you come a cross a Richard Blais recipe you show most definitely try it!  I had to make a few minor changes…NOT TO CHANGE Richard Blais’s recipe but due to what I already had at home…(I was all out of limes….so I thought oranges would work..I used $2.00 carrots instead of $5.99 carrots w/tops and so on…)…..His recipe is so Forking Good that it came out really great anyway! It came out FORKING Delicious!

Ingredients for about 4 servings

12 average size carrots -preferably organic so you can leave skin on. Peel them if they are not organic.

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1/2 Tablespoon minced fresh ginger

big pinch cinnamon

1/2 cup vegetable stock

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter

1 orange – the fresh squeezed juice and also the zest (separate)

1/4 teaspoon sriracha

1 Tablespoon furikake

course sea salt – for boiling water

Directions

In a large sauce pan get salted water on to boil and add carrots….Cook carrots till tender crisp. Timing will differ due to size of carrots.

In a large skillet heat the olive oil. Add the carrots,  ginger, and cinnamon and cook over moderate heat tossing occasionally till the ginger is fragrant, about 3 minutes, Add stock and boil at moderately high heat until reduced by half, about three minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat and let cool 30 seconds. Swirl in the butter,  orange juice and sriracha. Either you are done with carrots at this point and just top them with the furikake and orange zest. OR you can slightly brown the carrots and put them on a sheet pan on the top rack of the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes and then serve the carrots in the Ginger-Orange Sauce and then top with furikake and orange zest.

I note my pan looks dry but I had a good amount of sauce on the carrots.

It’s really a delicious sauce….I think it would also be amazing on chicken or fish.

Richard Blais Style Ginger-Orange Carrots with Furikake

A special THANKS! to Richard Blais for coming up with this GREAT RECIPE! and putting out there on the web so we all can prepare it! Thanks so much..it’s like a gift!

The Forking Truth

Spicy Avocado and Orange Salad

This is a chunky salad of avocado, a couple types of oranges tied together with guacamole type seasoning. I used home made pickled jalapeños and a very special pepper called chile pequin to heat things up. You will have no trouble finding chile pequin at WinCo or any Mexican Grocery Store. The chile pequin pepper is very small and very mighty. It’s delicious and doesn’t seem hot at first but it builds. It’s very similar to the very expensive chitepin pepper. ($23.00 for two ounces). Anyway this is a tasty topper for tacos, nachos or grilled meats. This Avocado salad seems lightened up some with all the sweet oranges in it. I think the oranges cut the richness of the avocados and give this topping a unique flavor. I note that I used all small sized produce so your results may differ due to the size of fruit used.

Ingredients for about 6 servings

3 avocados (smaller sized)

2 garlic cloves – ground to paste

2 clementines – peeled with a knife so the out side of the fruit is skin free and slice and peel out the segments. (In this step it’s very easy to remove the membrane)

2 smaller oranges – supremes (that means skinless if you can do it if not just peel the skin off with a knife so you remove most of the skin – then slice the orange across a few times. When you pull apart the segments you can also remove most of the orange membrane.

1 lime – just the fresh squeezed juice

1/4 cup sweet onion chopped

2 home made pickled jalapeños -preferably my recipe on site or use someone else’s home made pickled jalapeños

2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro – chopped

2 Tablespoons fresh parsley – chopped

2 chile pequin

1/2 teaspoon course sea salt

Directions

Get a medium size bowl.

Supreme the oranges. You basically are peeling the orange with a knife and are removing the outer membrane of the orange. Then slice into each segment to remove it from the orange.

I wasn’t able to supreme the clementines but was able to remove the outer membrane like from the orange. Then I just sliced the clementine across a few times and removed the segments and peeled the membranes off.

Put the oranges and clementines in your bowl.

Add the chopped onions, pickled peppers, cilantro, parsley, salt.

Cut the avocado in half around the pit. Score the flesh with a knife all the way but not threw the skin. Remove the avocado flesh with a spoon.

Add the avocado to the bowl.

Sprinkle the bowl with all the fresh lime juice.

Take the chile pequin and rub it with your fingers over the bowl and break it down the best you can over the bowl. Repeat with the second chile pequin.

Stir very gently and try not to mash things up.

Taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

Spicy Avocado and Orange Salad

I made tacos and use sliced jicama for the shells and this topping went really great with them! The next day over maui maui….both were really great and the salad stayed fresh and didn’t brown.

The Forking Truth

Chinese Mustard Cabbage

I was at the Pinnacle Peak Farmer’s Market and Crooked Sky Farms usually has something interesting to try. I saw these really BIG Greens. I had no idea on what they were but I thought I’d try them. I asked the man at Crooked Skys what kind of green it was and not for all the money in the world can’t I remember the name of this vegetable but is is some sort of Chinese Cabbage. In studying pictures of Chinese Greens this one most resembled one of about 50 kinds of Chinese Mustard Greens. The most popular way to use Chinese Mustard Greens is to pickle and jar them. The second most popular way to to stir fry them simply with a Thai Chili little oil and some Garlic…..but it was suggested at www.ChinaSichuanFood.com to blanch the vegetable first. I prepared the cabbage similar to what and how www.ChinaSicuanFood.com did but I added a few extra ingredients for my taste.  In my research I don’t recall where I read this but someone suggested adding half a teaspoon of baking soda when you blanch the greens for when the stems are thick. So I prepared the vegetable and in the end this once bitter tasting green now taste very similar to spinach. I do note you might have to cut back on the Thai Chili peppers, garlic and sesame oil if your green is smaller than mine or for your taste.

Ingredients for about 6 servings

1 Chinese Mustard Cabbage (a really big one) – all cleaned up and chopped up like in pictures below. Put the pieces with wide stems in a separate bowl.

a few drops oil (this is for blanching. I used canola)

1/2 teaspoon salt (for blanching)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda (for blanching)

5 garlic cloves – chopped fine – or to taste

3 Thai Chili peppers – chopped fine – or to taste

1 Tablespoon canola oil

2 teaspoons sesame oil – or to taste

fresh ground black pepper to taste

fresh ground sea salt to taste

Directions

Put a pot of water on to boil with the few drops of oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.

Chinese Mustard Green

REMEMBER Wide Stems in a separate bowl!

Dogs are very interested…could be because I just browned up some chicken to go with the greens and rice.

The wide stems need to boil 10 seconds. Take them out with a strainer or a wide slotted spoon and place in a bowl of ice bath. Mostly ice a little cold water.

The leafier parts only need 2-3 seconds. You will notice that the water left in the pot smells very unpleasant. You just removed this taste from the greens. Then take the greens out and they get the ice bath too.

Then put all the greens in a colander to drain.

Get your wok hot on high heat and add the Tablespoon of canola oil and the chopped garlic and Thai Chili peppers.

then stir in the greens.

season with salt, pepper and sesame oil. Mix well and serve.

Chinese Mustard Cabbage

They taste great and are suppose to be very healthy for you! A special Thanks to www.ChinaSichuanFood.com for directions on how to work with this type of green and another special thanks to Crooked Skys Farms for offering such great produce at The Pinnacle Peak Farmers Market too!

The Forking Truth

www.ChinaSichuanFood.com