This cold, rainy weather makes me think of comfort food. Last week I made a recipe that Mom used to make at home; it is called Sweet N’ Sour Stew on Rice. It is especially good on a cold November evening.
This recipe calls for beef. It is a shame that people think beef is bad for you, because it’s not. You don’t need to eat it every day. It is filled with B vitamins (good for brain function) and iron.
Back in the day – I won’t tell you how long ago that is – we ate beef several times a week. Mom would order a side of beef from whatever relative or neighbour was butchering an animal when our freezer needed replenishing. We would go pick up the meat at the butcher’s, neatly wrapped in butchers’ paper and sometimes even tied up with string.
There was lots of ground beef, roasts of all shapes and sizes, stewing beef and the tongue. Mom boiled the tongue for a few hours, took the skin off and cooled it. Then she sliced it, and it was amazingly tender. But I have not yet boiled a beef tongue for my own consumption.
A roast beef dinner at home was a weekly occurrence. Mom put it into the oven early in the morning covered with sliced onion in the black granite roast pan. Mid-morning she would put whole, raw potatoes into the pan beside the roast. The broth covered the potatoes so when they were cooked they were golden and delicious. Sometimes she put raw carrot pieces in there, too. They were the best. And the gravy … there are no words to describe the gravy you can make with broth like that. To this day, after all the roast beef I have cooked, Mom’s is the best.
Sweet N’ Sour Stew on Rice
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp salt
Few dashes of pepper
2 lbs stewing beef
1/4 cup oil
1 cup water
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 onion, chopped
5 carrots, sliced
Hot cooked rice
Combine meat, salt, pepper and flour.
Heat oil in frying pan; add the meat and cook over med-high heat until meat is browned.
Add water, ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and onion.
Cover and cook over low heat for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add sliced carrots; cook 45 minutes more or until carrots are tender.
Serve over rice or mashed potatoes.
Serves 4-6 people.
