I apparently bought the wrong thing and have some thin slices of beef round, about 1/4" thick. I’m not sure what to do with it! It’s kind of thick for shaved-steak Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, what if I bet the hell out of it with a mallet? I could do that, but is there something else? It’s lean and tough, but I have to cook it in a hurry for primitive tastes, nothing really fancy. Put it on the George Foreman grill?
Round is a little too tough for stir fry in my opinion. BUT, if you’re looking for something really easy, go to YouTube and search for “Slow cooker Broccoli Beef”.
Hint: You can sub whatever veggies you want if you don’t like broccoli.
If you have to cook it in a hurry, whack the heck out of it, cover it with olive oil, a bit of garlic salt and a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. Let it sit a few minutes, and then put it on your George Foreman grill. Round is tough and dry, but hopefully the pounding and the olive oil marinade will make it more appetizing.
Carne asade is often made of thin round steak, covered with a similar marinade and then grilled on the 'cue. Then it’s chopped a bit before serving it in corn tortillas with onions and cilantro.
Aspara nikumaki.
Pound your meat to 1/8" or less. Mix 1/2 cup sake, 4 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons mirin, and 2 tablespoons sugar. (Or just use some bottled teriyaki sauce. That’s good too.) Put the meat into the marinade and refrigerate for 15 minutes. In the meantime, trim some asparagus. I snap the bottoms off because they break at the right place so you don’t get any ‘woody’ part of the spear. Put the asparagus into boiling water for two minutes, then rinse in cold water.
Roll two or three spears of asparagus (depending on how wide they are) in the thin, marinated beef. Sear the rolls in a pan with a little oil, add any leftover marinade, and simmer for a couple of minutes. OR, grill on the barbie. Cut each roll into five slices, the size of slices of sushi roll.
Make a sauce of mayonnaise, soy sauce, mirin, and sesame oil. Sorry, I don’t have measurements. I just kind of mix it up. Use the sauce as a dipping sauce for the nikumaki. Also use it as salad dressing for the Spring greens you’re having with it. And make some sticky rice.
Beef jerky? Marinate with soy sauce and sugar (or alternative sweetener). Lay beef on baking sheet. Set oven for 140F for about a day and a half to two days or more, turn occasionally. Works best with very lean meats, fat doesn’t dehydrate well.
We like to have a few thin slices of beef when we eat (beef) noodle soup.
Here is a recipe that is wonderful for using up problematic bits of beef - they can be either raw or cooked when you start. It is not a main course dish, it’s an Asian version of beef jerky. It keeps beautifully (I store it in glass in the fridge and it would probably last for months, except it all gets eaten before then). It’s wonderful for snacking or taking lunches.
The recipe is from “The Complete Asian Cookbook” by Charmaine Solomon, p. 192 of the 2nd edition. Just adjust the amounts if you don’t have 2 lb of meat.
DENDENG*
1 kg (2 lb) round or topside steak (or pretty much any cut of beef, better if it is tough/chewy)
5 Australian TBS peanut oil (that’s 6 TBS and 2 tsp for us Americans)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp grated ginger
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried shrimp paste (leave out if you can’t get it)
1.5 tsp salt
1 teaspoon sambal ulek (substitute equivalent amount of crushed fresh chili, sriracha, or something highly spiced and wet)
6 Australian TBS dark soy sauce (1/2 cup for Americans)
2 TBS (8 tsp) tamarind liquid
3 tsp (one American tablespoon!) palm sugar or brown sugar
Cut meat into slices. Heat oil in wok or saucepan and fry garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, and shrimp paste for a minute or two, then add salt, sambal ulek, soy sauce, and tamarind liquid. Add meat and fry, stirring, until meat is coated with spice mixture Reduce heat, cover pan and let cook over very low heat for 30-35 minutes. Stir occasionally. At the end of this time the liquid should be almost dry. Uncover, and sugar and stir to dissolve. Turn the meat in this mixture ovre medium heat until liquid in pan has evaporated, but do not let it burn.
Remove pan from heat and spread the meat on an oven tray in a single layer. Put into a low oven (125C or 250F) for 30 minutes. Turn meat and continue cooking in the oven for a further 20-30 minutes. Meat should be very dark brown but not burnt, and the oil should come out from the meat and be visible at the edge of the pan. Cool and store airtight.
- According to the author this is an Indonesian recipe. It is the ONLY recipe of hers that I cannot attest to as completely authentic. Everything else of hers that I have made does indeed match up with dishes I’ve been served in Indonesian homes and restaurants. This stuff? Well, I’ve eaten plenty of dendeng in Indonesia and it is delicious, but it is nothing like the recipe above. However, the recipe above is DELICIOUS, so who cares, right?
Thanks for the answers!.. I wacked it thin as possible with a mallet, cooked hot on 30 seconds per side, served on rolls with sauteed peppers and onions and some white cheese… Still a bit tough, but pretty good. It was one of those in-between things, not a steak, not a philly steak, neither here nor there…but it came out ok.
I was gonna say wham it and bam it to tenderize, then dredge in flour, egg, and bread crumbs and fry it up into a schnitzel.
In Argentina they call it Milanesa, and serve it with pasta and marinara sauce. Like Italian Vitelli Milanese, but denser and chewier.
Doesn’t really matter, but at a quarter of an inch thick you could almost (and I wouldn’t let anyone catch you doing this) put two of them together and make something like Sicilian steaks with them? I’m not sure if they would stay together, but it might be easier to cook on a George Foreman if they were stacked.
The other thing, admittedly, I didn’t give this atrocity much thought is to through them in a skillet with some water and boil the crap out of them for a little while (Guinness or broth would probably work as well). When I make beef barley soup that’s my first step and the meat comes out really tender. I’d be willing to bet, in a nothing to lose situation, if you let that boil in some water (almost like frying) before what ever you’d want to do next in whatever you were planning to do, it would actually come out just fine.
I know sounds awful, but it might just work.