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Recipe: chateaubriand and béarnaise sauce

I think Spring is trying to barge in on our Colorado winter. In fact, it’s practically sitting on our faces. I’ve been wearing shorts in the afternoons and leaving the deck door wide open to cool the house down. We’ve noticed the couple of feet of snowfall from the last storm start to dwindle under the sun and warm temperatures these past several days in the Front Range. If there is a trough sitting over the East Coast (meaning stormy or unsettled weather), there is typically a ridge over Colorado (sunshine and blah blah blah). We aren’t slated to get any storms for at least another week, so it’s skate skiing and backcountry touring for us. Up until now, we’ve taken Neva skiing on wide closed forest service roads which allow her plenty of room to run in front or alongside Jeremy. But this week Neva went on her first ski tour on a narrow trail (in sketchy conditions) and she managed not to pull Jeremy to injury or death (but she did pull – a lot). I’d call that a success!

neva is getting better about sitting when we stop

here’s how our girl does après ski on a bluebird day

To be honest, I don’t mind that the crazy winds have calmed down and that I don’t have to bundle up to the hilt when I go outside for exercise. Spring is a lovely time of year to ski, but… we’re not done with winter yet and if spring continues at this pace, we won’t have any snow to ski when it really is spring. Still, I’ll not stress about it too much just yet. Neva is loving the comfortable temperatures on the deck while I work, and we have been treated to some lovely displays in the evenings.

giant wave cloud at sunset (gold stage)

turning orange

fading to a rosy pink

So Valentine’s Day is coming up. I know people either love it or hate it. I personally think it is a stupid thing with a lot of unnecessary social and commercial pressure, but that’s just me. However, if you were to ask me for a recipe to make for someone special, I’m your girl. I have lots of great recipes to recommend, but this is one I recently tried for the first time and Jeremy made googly eyes at me… or at the steak? Chateaubriand was one of my sister’s favorite dishes to order at fancy restaurants if someone would order it with her – because it is typically served for two people. I may have taken a bite or two in my lifetime from mom’s plate (the other person who went in on it), but it was never something I ordered for myself. I’ve described it to Jeremy ever since we’ve been together, but it wasn’t until this week that he finally tasted it for himself.

Chateaubriand is a pan-seared and roasted center-cut whole beef tenderloin served with a sauce of some sort. It could be a mushroom red wine sauce or what I consider a more traditional pairing – Béarnaise sauce. I happened to have the fat end of a whole tenderloin leftover from the bourbon glazed beef tenderloin (also a fantastic recipe) in my freezer, and decided it was time to learn how to make this classic dish. First, start with the Béarnaise sauce which is rich, buttery, slightly tart, with hints of anise (from the tarragon), pepper, and wine.

butter, eggs (yolks), white wine, black pepper, whole white peppercorns, salt, white vinegar, lemon (juice), shallot, fresh tarragon

Make the Béarnaise sauce first because you want it ready to serve as soon as the steak is carved. I recall trying to make this sauce once in graduate school to accompany beef wellingtons for a dinner party, and it tanked in the most unforgivable way. So now, 15 years later, I think I’ve got the chops to do it right – or perhaps a better recipe. It is in essence an emulsion of acids (vinegar, wine, lemon juice), egg yolks, and melted butter. That’s pretty much it. Don’t let it get too cold – it will solidify. If it’s too warm, it will break (separate) and become oily and sad. In general, I didn’t encounter any problems with the sauce.

chop the tarragon

all of the ingredients measured and prepped

combine the vinegar, white wine, shallots, half of the tarragon, and peppercorns in a small saucepan

simmer down until you have about 2 tablespoons of liquid

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: cocktail meatballs

Sunrise is so late these days that I keep missing it because I’m already up and doing things by the time it happens. But this week I’m still at battle with that not-quite cold. It’s right on the threshold, yet I manage to keep it at bay each day. A little extra rest seems to help, which meant that I was able to see sunrise this morning. So glad that I did. Every sunrise is a gift.

fiery color for a few minutes, then the rest of the day was overcast

The winds have been pretty horrible, too. Sometimes we get nice cloudscapes AND nice weather, but usually the most interesting cloud formations occur when the winds are crazy terrible. That’s life on the boundary layer for you. Life on this part of the boundary layer has been all about wrapping up this year and getting ready for the next one. I dropped by the vet after taking four pairs of skis in for tuning (I hope we’re beyond rock season now), to ask about Neva’s microchip. It appears to have migrated to her front leg. Nothing serious, but they want to be sure that the chip is still scannable. While there, I got to hang out with Aspen, the Giant White Dog of Nederland. Aspen could give Jon Snow’s Ghost a run for his money. Neva looooooves Aspen. Actually, I think she loves everyone. In many ways, Neva channels our beloved Kaweah.

aspen knows how to shake

aspen’s mom gives him a treat (he is as tall as her when he stands up)

Lately, I’ve received the best kind of packages in the mail – the ones that aren’t sent for an occasion, but just because. I say packages, but they are gifts. Gifts that were crafted or grown, and shipped because of friendship and love. Gifts from hearts and hands. Jamie was test driving new equipment in her woodshop and cranked out several gorgeous custom bottle openers. And then Todd and Diane sent a box of fresh, fragrant Buddha’s hands from their (ridiculously amazeballs) garden to my doorstep in snowy Colorado.

i don’t even drink, but i opened a pear hard cider just to use the opener

neva peers into the box of california sunshine

Times like these, when my head is a little foggy from congestion, are when I’m most grateful for my cookie distribution spreadsheet. It’s the only way to keep track of how many cookies, which kind of cookies, to whom, when to bake, and when to deliver. Timing is everything because everyone skidaddles starting as early as a week before Christmas, and fresh baked cookies are freshness wasted if they aren’t eaten until after the start of the new year. But my window grows short because I don’t make edible gifts when I’m potentially sick, so I’ve had to work on other things.

You know what I crave most when I’m deep into cookie making season? Appetizers. I love me some savory appetizers. It’s a good thing I don’t attend sportsball parties, because I would dive straight into the appetizers only to require extraction at the end of the game. Some day, when I have the time and brainwaves to plan a party, I’ll have to add these cocktail meatballs to the menu. They are like little meatloaf bites, but with more surface area dedicated to the tangy sauce.

salt, worcestershire sauce, sherry, water, vegetable oil, bread cubes, milk, mace, mustard, red currant jelly, paprika, black pepper, ketchup, eggs, onion, ground beef

prepped for the meatballs

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: massaman beef curry

December already. Neva is now just over eight months old and we are falling into a nice routine. Nice enough that I could get out today for my first skate ski of the season at the nordic center. Keeping active in winter is essential for me, but keeping active outside is the icing on the cake. Winter in the mountains can be long (the longer the better!!!), so the strategy of holing up inside and biding my time until summer is a cop out. It’s probably my dad’s fault because he has always been the type who could never be inside for more than 24 hours before growing aggitated and insisting that we go sailing or fishing or camping or anything OUTSIDE. I do find that getting out into “green spaces” or “open spaces” does both me and Jeremy a world of good when it comes to our mental outlooks.

skate ski day #1, ski day #10

The other night I told Jeremy I am so happy that we don’t live down in Boulder or anywhere on the flats. In the mountains, we spend our time working and playing. When I lived in Southern California, it was far too easy to feel bored and go spend money to unbore yourself – to buy things you didn’t really want and certainly didn’t need only to clutter up your house, your life, and fall into the trap of needing a bigger place and more shit. That’s stressful living. I’m sure plenty of people find the mountains come with their own stressors, but it’s a simpler way of life. And I’m a huge fan of making life simpler if possible.

One thing that has greatly simplified my life is my pressure cooker. I try to incorporate it into recipes whenever possible because it reduces energy consumption, shortens cooking time, and achieves pressures that can’t be reached with conventional cooking methods at our high altitude. A few months ago, a high school pal sent me a note that he had made a few of my recipes on the blog and that they were a hit with the family, but that he wanted to attempt massaman beef because it is his favorite Thai curry. Well, it’s my favorite Thai curry, too! For nearly two decades, I have casually played around with massaman beef to moderate results (still better than any of the Thai restaurants around here), but my friend’s message prompted me to take another shot at it – with my pressure cooker. Don’t worry if you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can still do this with a Dutch oven. So Kevin, this one is for you!

potatoes, massaman curry paste, salt, brown sugar, roasted peanuts, onions, chicken stock, beef chuck, vegetable oil, fish sauce, soy sauce, tamarind concentrate, coconut milk

Most of the ingredients are easy to find in western grocery stores except possibly the tamarind paste and the curry paste. You could make the curry paste from scratch, but I have had good results with Maesri brand curry pastes (based on a tip from a fellow grad student who happened to be Thai). I have also heard good things about Mae Ploy brand curry pastes. [Edit: I’ve had a couple of folks ask if they can substitute red curry paste for massaman curry paste. The answer is flat out no – unless you WANT to make red curry with beef. I’m not being one of those asshole purists – it’s just that massaman curry paste is an essential ingredient for making massaman curry. This is like asking if you can substitute white chocolate for dark chocolate in a dark chocolate soufflé recipe and still get dark chocolate soufflé.] For tamarind, I have tamarind concentrate in my refrigerator, but you can also make tamarind paste from blocks of dried tamarind (Saveur has a nice tutorial). Select smallish potatoes. While most recipes recommend using waxy potatoes, I couldn’t help but use yukon golds, because they have the best flavor. The texture worked out just fine, too.

slice the onions

lightly char or brown the onions

scrub the potatoes clean

cube the beef

toss with salt

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