Beef Recipes

Creamed chipped beef on toast the way an old Army cook made it every Saturday: dried beef rinsed and torn, crisped in butter, a quick peppery white sauce made with whole milk, poured over hot buttered toast. No salt. Exact amounts and timings.

Old-fashioned hamburger steaks with homemade onion gravy: thick seasoned beef patties seared in cast iron, onions cooked slow in the same skillet to lift the brown bits, a little flour, beef broth, then the patties simmered back in the gravy under a lid. No packet. Exact amounts and times.

Old-fashioned beef stew for the night of the first frost: chuck cut in big pieces, salted, tossed in flour and browned hard in batches, simmered with onion, garlic, tomato paste, broth, bay leaf and thyme with the lid cracked for an hour and a half, carrots and potatoes in for the last 45 minutes. Cups and grams, and the times.

Old-fashioned porcupine meatballs: ground beef mixed with uncooked long grain rice, onion and egg, simmered under a lid in one can of condensed tomato soup thinned with water until the rice swells and pokes out like quills. Served over mashed potatoes. Cups and grams.

The old-fashioned Sunday pot roast: a chuck roast seared hard in a Dutch oven, one envelope of dry onion soup mix and a little water, lid on, 325°F for about 3 hours 30 minutes, with the carrots and potatoes added for the last 1 hour 15 minutes.

Old-fashioned Swiss steak: cheap round steak pounded with flour until half as thick, browned, then baked slow under canned tomatoes and onions at 300°F for two and a half hours until it cuts with a fork. Served over mashed potatoes.

Old-fashioned 1950s tamale pie: ground beef cooked down with onion, bell pepper, corn, tomatoes and chili powder in a 9 by 13 inch dish, cheese over the top, then a stiff cornmeal batter smoothed to the edges and baked until the lid is gold. Cups and grams, oven temperature and time.

Old-fashioned Midwest beef and noodles: a chuck roast braised until it falls apart, thick egg noodles cooked right in the broth until it turns to gravy on its own, all of it ladled over a pile of mashed potatoes.

Old-fashioned stuffed green bell peppers with ground beef, rice and tomato sauce, finished with melted cheese. With the three minute parboil that makes the pepper tender instead of raw.

The ground beef lasagna the middle of the country grew up on, with a cottage cheese and egg layer instead of ricotta, a full pound of mozzarella and the 15 minute rest that makes the squares stand up. Cups and grams.

The American family shepherd's pie: ground beef with onion, carrots and peas in a thick brown gravy, under stiff mashed potatoes dragged with a fork so the ridges bake brown and crisp, with a handful of cheddar. Cups and grams.