First Meal

So we have a guest over for the next couple of days so I have been making larger portions than normal. Today was really exciting because of all the goodies that I got to play with.

Tonight's menu is London Broil with braised Escarole, Baby Leeks, and Turnip Greens.

This is marinated in beef broth, red wine (we used a Zin), garlic (lots of it of course), shallot, coriander, mustard seed, and Worcestershire sauce. I marinated it for an hour, flipping it once. I set the oven to broil... duh, and cooked it for about 15 minutes, again flipping it once. It came out a nice medium and was quite tasty. Check in with M.B. later for reheat tips.


For the braised greens I start by sweating garlic then added the baby leeks, just the white parts saving the rest for Vichyssoise; also added was a chiffonade of the turnip greens.

 I let this cook for a while, about 5 minutes, then I added some white wine and let that reduce au sec( stuffy French for almost dry).

Once this had reduced I started adding some homemade chicken stock, much like you would do with a risotto. I brought it back to a simmer and added the escarole. The finished product took about thirty minutes, a little longer than expected. One thing I didn't realize about the escarole is that it reduces by A LOT, seriously I added a head and barely got 3 servings out of the batch. It was fucking delicious though, the sweetness of the turnip greens, the bite of the baby leeks, and the bitterness of the escarole was harmonic. Because I am French trained, I made a little sauce out of the remaining beef stock and a little bit of the Zin, I put that over the "final plate" picture. M.B. said that the sauce was really good, but it didn't come through much for me.

It was a great meal for three people, the London Broil was 1.7 lbs., I used 1 head of escarole, the whites of about 5 baby leeks, and a handful of turnip greens. It was a good meal for three people and M.B. was able to at least take some meat for her third shift meal. It took a little longer than expected, but with M.B. and her friend sitting on the couch drinking wine and not helping it's to be expected. I wanted a little more out of the marinade and in the future I would marinate for a much longer time. I'm still figuring out how to use seeds in the marinade, it would probably be better to crush the seeds before adding, but hey, no one's perfect.