Sunday Dinner 11/11/12 East meets West: Italian-Khmer Hybrid Dinner!

Sunday Dinner 11/11/12

Eggrolls
Laap
Spezzatino (Stracotto di manzo con dragoncello  e pastinaca)

This weekend was a very interesting combination of foods to say the least... After great success last week and several days worth of gloating about my culinary prowess, my Cambodian friend volunteered her time to give look at REAL Khmer home cooking. I had to plan for a few picky eaters at the table as well and also needed to ensure that I would have plenty of leftovers to pick from during the week, so I decided on a beef stew recipe/invention to contribute to the dinner. Do the dishes go together? Nope! But they were all exceptionally tasty and loved by all, so I'll consider it a success.

Eggrolls

Rice paper
Cabbage, shredded
1 small Taro root, shredded
3 Carrots, shredded
1.5 pound ground pork
2 tbsp Fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
Salt and pepper
1 egg

We used ground pork shoulder for a richer stuffing. Ill be honest, my contribution to this dish was minimal. I was allowed to stuff, roll and fry the eggrolls. From what my friend tells me that at home the ritual is the mother makes the stuff and the children stuff and roll. I'm the noob in this situation so I didn't get to make the stuffing. I did however do an exceptional job frying the rolls. I didn't burn any either!! OK... I burned one out of fifty. Sad face.

Laap
1.5 lbs round roast sliced very thinly
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp prohok
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp sugar
juice of 4 limes
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 shallot, minced
2 handfuls mint leaves
2 handfuls sweet basil leaves
1/2 cup peanuts, coarsely chopped
1 bunch radishes, sliced
1 cup bean sprouts
1 head romaine lettuce

Laap is a manly beef salad and is quite reminiscent of Italian carpaccio. The meat is supposed to be served extremely rare, in fact the recipe sounds quite like a southeast Asian version of seviche or carpaccio, with the lime juice "cooking" the beef and being served without heat cooking. We did throw everything in a pan and cook over high heat for a few minutes though, so it wasn't exactly as tradition would require.
I picked out a great looking bottom round roast from the butcher shop and trimmed off the little bits of fat off the sides. To get the beef as thinly sliced as possible I threw it in the freezer for a few hours, then thawed just enough so that I could throw it on one of the deli slicers and have it not fall apart. Sliced about one and half pounds off then reserved the rest for stew meat. The meat marinated in lime juice for an hour, and then was cooked in a sauce made of fish sauce, prohok, water, sugar, shallots and garlic. After cooking the beef was pressed and drained, then chilled, and served mixed with mint and basil leaves, radishes, bean sprouts and peanuts, and served over a whole leaf of romaine lettuce.

Spezzatino
3 lbs chuck roast, cubed in to 3" pieces
2 red onions, diced
4 celery stalks, halved and chopped coarsely
4 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped coarsely
8 carrots, peeled and chunked
8 potatoes, peeled and quartered
4 parsnips (pastinaca), peeled and chunked
2 cups leftover tomato sauce
2 cups beef stock
lots of red wine (I used cheap Cabernet Sauvignon)
Salt and pepper to taste
4 tbsp dried tarragon (dragoncello)
4 tbsp dried thyme
4 sprigs dried rosemary
Flour for dredging
Olive oil and butter

This stew was really, really easy to make, and tasted wonderful. The sweetness of the carrots and parsnips melded beautifully with the tangyness of the tarragon... I will be patting myself on the back for that insight! First I mixed some salt and pepper with the flour to season the crust for the meat. Dredged the cubed beef and fried in a mixture of olive oil and butter, then removed from heat. Sauteed the onions for about 10 minutes, then added in the celery and garlic. Sauteed another 5 minutes and lightly salted and added pepper. Next added about 2 cups of red wine and allowed to reduce over high heat until the contents were paste-like. Then added 2 cups of tomato sauce and brought to boil. Added tarragon, thyme, salt and pepper. Added the root vegetables, meat, 2 cups of beef stock and red wine to cover the pot. Brought to a boil then placed rosemary sprigs on top and pushed down lightly in to the stew. Covered and baked in the oven at 350 for 1 hour covered, 1 hour uncovered.