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Braciole – an Italian dish of flank steak stuffed with broccoli rabe (rapini). Make this one on a Sunday when you’ve got some time and possibly some company! This recipe is scaled for two whole flank steaks, which will weigh about 1 to 1.5 pounds each, so you can get anywhere from 4 to 6 servings out of this.

Roughly chop and wash:

• 2 bunches of broccoli rabe (rapini)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add the broccoli rabe and let simmer for 3 minutes. I used a 4-qt saucepan with about 2-qts of water. Drain and then rinse in cold water until the broccoli rabe is about room temperature. Squeeze out the excess water with your hands or use a salad spinner to remove as much water as possible. Blanching your broccoli rabe this way will tame some of the bitterness.

Next up you will need:

• 2 beef flank steaks (1 to 1.5 pounds each)
• 4oz thin sliced prociuitto, which you will chop into small pieces.
• 1/4c or more of each: pistachios (roasted and shelled), pine nuts (pignoli), and golden raisins.

Mix the broccoli rabe with the nuts and raisins, and season with salt, pepper, and optionally some red pepper flakes to taste.

Lay out your steaks, season them with kosher salt and pepper, lay on the filling, roll up and tie. I suppose I should have some video here on how to truss these things… wait, youtube and Alton to the rescue… fast forward to 8:50: Good Eats – Fit to be Tied

Some people would tell you to pound the steaks to flatten them, or even try to butterfly them to make them larger. I say leave them the way they are – there is no reason to go for a pinwheel (“roulade”) effect, you just need to be able to get the edges to match up so your filling doesn’t fall out. You should have something looking like this:

Next up – a hot pan!! Any big heavy skillet or dutch oven will work, add about 2T of oil, heat the pan on med-high till the oil starts to shimmer and smoke, then add your bracioles, turning every minute or two till nicely browned all around:

Remove your bracioles to a plate while you start on the tomato sauce. Also preheat your oven now to 300. You will need:

• A big pile of sliced onions – about 2 or 3 large yellow onions
• 3-4 cloves of garlic – crushed and/or chopped
• 1 or 2 cans of tomatoes – I like Cento Italian-style. I definitely recommend a whole canned plum tomato versus crushed, but whatever you’ve got or like will work. If you use whole tomatoes, just dump them into a large bowl and crush with your fingers.

Now you need to be using a large heavy dutch-oven that will fit all your sauce and meat. Saute the onions on medium heat in about 2T olive oil till softened and starting to brown, then add the garlic and stir for another 30 seconds:

Now add your tomatoes and perhaps some red wine if you have an open bottle and are feeling frisky. Bring all this goodness to a simmer, then nestle your bracioles in there nice and snug, pop on a lid, and stick it in the oven for about 1.5 hours. Test for done-ness with a fork – the meat should be very tender and the fork should slide in easily. Give things a good rest for 20min or so uncovered, then serve!

Bonus serving suggestion!!

Spaghetti squash is super easy and delicious – cut one in half, remove the seeds, and pop one half in the microwave face-down on a plate. Nuke it for anywhere from 6 to 10 minutes depending on size, microwave power, and how crispy or soft you like your squash. The outside of the squash should be somewhat soft but not mushy. (it will be crazy hot so watch your fingers). Now remove the plate and let the squash sit for another 5 to 10 min before flipping it over and using a fork to separate the strands.

It’s getting painfully close to the season for fresh veggies here in NH, but until then the pickin’s are somewhat slim. You can always count on finding a decent cauliflower though, and this is my favorite way to cook it up. Under 20 mins start to finish, and very easy!

• 1 Cauliflower

Wash and cut the cauliflower into large bites – about 1.5″ square. It’s good to cut it rather than breaking it up – all the flat surfaces you get from cutting are a benefit when you are browning it in the pan because you get the most contact with the pan.

• 2T Oil of your choice

Select a 12″ skillet or straight-sided saute pan – keep in mind you need a lid that will fit over whatever you are using! Heat the oil over medium heat till shimmering and just starting to smoke. Add the cauliflower and saute for about 8 minutes, turning occasionally until well browned all over.

• 1/2 jar (s1 cup) Green Chile sauce (or salsa of your liking). I buy this El Pinto brand sauce at Hannaford, it’s awesome.
• 1/2 cup Chicken Broth (low-sodium)
• 1/2t kosher salt (or to taste)

Add the Green Chile sauce, chicken broth, and salt. Stir to combine, then cover and let simmer for 7 minutes. Remove cover and let the broth evaporate for a minute or two until the sauce is a nice thickness to coat all the cauliflower. Toss onto a plate and enjoy!

This is a technique for cooking a steak to a more even internal temperature than you can get with an all-high-temperature method such as traditional grilling or broiling. Basically we warm up the steak at a low temperature until it’s almost done, and then finish it with a super-hot sear on the outside – from a pan, broiler, or grill. This is sort of a poor man’s sous vide (more on that later) using your oven. The results are tender, juicy, and wonderful.

First you are going to need a thermometer – preferably one you can use in the oven. For $19 you have no excuse – that’s probably less than the cost of the steaks you are cooking! Get one from Thermoworks and you’ll by very happy.

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Arrange your beautiful steaks on a rack set over a sheet pan (foil optional). Put the probe in one of the steaks from the side and aim for the middle of the largest portion:

You may have noticed from all that delectable marbling that these strip steaks are not grass-fed! But, this technique is even more valuable for grass-fed beef because grass-fed steaks cook so quickly that they can easily turn out dry and chewy. Try it, try it, you will see!

Before you put anything in the oven, contemplate your searing technique to follow the oven phase. Your choices are:

1. A heavy cast-iron skillet. I used this and it works great. Preheat the pan on high with a touch of oil for a minute or two before your steaks come out of the oven. Your pan is ready when the oil just begins to smoke. You want it HOT!
2. A broiler. You can’t preheat this if your steaks are in the oven. So once you remove them from the oven, switch to broil mode, leave the steaks on the rack, and wait till the broiler is good an hot.
3. A grill. This is probably the best option, particularly if you have a charcoal grill – with real hardwood charcoal, not briquettes. Real charcoal gets really hot, and you want your grill as hot as it gets. In the end it seems like a lot of effort and a lot of fossil fuel for 2min of grilling time, but it tastes good!
4. A propane torch. No, not joking, it works fine and gets all the nooks and crannies!

Now you are ready to pop this tray in the oven for a slow and gentle journey to juicy perfection. You want to set the temp alert for 105 degrees, and remove it promptly from the oven when it reaches that temp. Yes, that seems low, but when all is said and done your steak will end up around 135, so have no fear. If you like your steak on the low end of medium-rare or if your steak is very thin, remove it from the oven at 100 or even 95 degrees. You will now be staring at a rather pale and flaccid looking steak and possibly cursing at me for screwing up your dinner. Fear not, it gets better.

Next, remove the thermometer and apply the intense searing heat of your selected method. You will need only 1min per side to get things nice and brown. Because your steak left the oven warm and dry on the surface, the searing goes much faster than it does with a raw steak.

Important: After searing, place the steak back on your rack or onto a plate and let it sit for a good 10 to 15 mins before you cut into it! During this rest is also a good time to take the temperature of the steak. Why? Because you want to learn what final temperature your steak reached, and how that relates to your personal ideal. My steak reached 135 at it’s highest point and I was pretty happy with the results. You want to learn through experience what your ideal temperature is and learn to adjust this recipe accordingly since your results are going to vary based on all the variables involved. Cooking those expensive steaks is worth the investment!

Ok, are we ready to eat the damn thing yet, or what? Since I did my sear in a cast-iron skillet, I took advantage of that nice hot pan to cook up some sliced mushrooms and that’s about all you could ask for!

Here’s a great recipe for this weekend when it’s going to be snowy, slushy, and not much fun to be outside. It’s also even better the second day and makes plenty of leftovers, so that means no dishes to do on Sunday.

This is a Puerto Rican style roasted pork shoulder with citrus and garlic, and it’s awesome. My recipe pretty closely follows this one by Tyler Florence, except for a few key differences – a longer marinade period, no EVOO in the marinade, and the pot is covered for most of the time.

First you need a large pork shoulder (also known as a Boston Butt, which of course makes people think it comes from the rear of the pig, but it does not, it’s called the butt because it’s the butt end of the whole foreshank, the lower end of which is the fresh ham, which can be substituted here if can’t find a butt). I buy mine at Philbrick’s Fresh Market; there you can get a 5-7lb all-natural duBreton boneless butt that is awesome.

First, mix up a marinade with the following:

• 2T kosher salt
• 4-6 cloves fresh garlic, smashed and chopped.
• 1t dried oregano
• 1t ground cumin
• 1/2t freshly ground black pepper
• 2 limes, juiced
• 2 oranges, juiced

Next, prepare the pork by rinsing and then slashing a cross-hatch pattern through the fat on the top, cutting just to the boundary of meat and fat, this will help not only with marinade penetration, but will help the fat render out as it cooks and lets the fat layer become crisp and delicious.

Now, if you have the time, put the pork in a large plastic bag with the marinade and put in the fridge for about 24 hours. Or, if you don’t have that much time, marinate it as long as you can. If you really need to get it in the oven straight away, put the pork in the pan first and then pour the marinade over the top. This time I did not have time to marinate, but it still turned out pretty well:

The pot should be large and heavy with a tight-fitting lid. An enameled cast-iron dutch oven is best – I use a Le Creuset #28, which is 7.25 quarts. Put the pork in the pan with all of the marinade, cover, and put in a 325 degree oven for about 3 hours. Uncover and check for doneness with a metal kebab skewer or a fork – the meat probably won’t be quite done yet, but eventually you want it to be very tender, and easily pulled apart, but not overly done or “falling apart”. If your pork needs more time in the oven, leave it uncovered for another 1/2 hour to hour until it’s nicely browned and crispy on top, and very tender inside.

Now let it rest, uncovered, for a 1/2 hour or so. If you want to keep it warm longer, then cover it during the entire rest, just know that it will compromise the crispness of the top if it’s covered.

To serve, you will want to use a fat-separator on the liquid, or remove some of the fat with a spoon or ladle. Garnish with fresh cilantro, and enjoy!

Finn, a Scottish Highland Bull

If it’s not Scottish grass-fed Highland cattle, it’s crap! Luckily for us it is – all 300-some pounds of it! The members at Crossfit Portsmouth have just taken delivery of an entire cow from A Wee Bit Farm up in Maine. We divvied it up, and now we’re going to be cooking up some delicious beefy meals over the coming weeks. Since we all got a good portion of ground meat, I suggest starting with the Mexican Meatza recipe!

At our Halloween party I made my first meatza – a “pizza” where the crust is made out of meat, like a thin giant hamburger – Italian style. But that doesn’t go so well with that nice Avocado you’ve got sitting there, does it? So allow me to present the Mexican Meatza, which I have done here with cheese, but I’m sure it would be equally awesome without.

Fire up your oven pretty hot, about 450, throw it into convection mode if you’ve got it and it’ll cook a little faster.

First we have a pound of a nice grass-fed ground beef. I wouldn’t worry about the fat label if you’re using grass-fed, this one was labeled 85/15. If you are using regular ground beef, I would stick with 90 to 93 just so things aren’t too greasy. So plunk that in a bowl with:

1 lb ground beef
1 egg
1/2 t chili powder
1/2 t ancho powder
1/2 t mexican oregano
big pinch of kosher salt

Mix that all up with your hands and pack it out into a skillet lined with parchment. I recommend a 10″ skillet, and you want the meat climbing up the sides because it will shrink quite a bit, and the sides will stay up a bit to contain your toppings.

Pop this in for about 10 to 15 minutes, till the top is nicely browned, then pull it out, sop up any excess juices with a paper towel, and cover with salsa and cheese if you like. (a mix of cheddar and mozz or jack is perfect) Return to the oven and continue cooking to either warm the salsa or to brown the cheese. If you are using cheese be sure it is brown! Do not simply melt the cheese or you will be missing the entire point of adding the cheese in the first place.

After cooling your meatza down to a reasonable temp, top as you would a taco. Here I added shredded lettuce and an avocado that was sliced and tossed with lime juice for both flavor and to keep it from turning brown. Now you are done and can contemplate just how paleo you want to be and how perfectly paired this would be with a Boston or Brooklyn Lager.

Here is a great pumpkin soup recipe from the one and only Gordon Hamersley (fellow BU grad I might add).