Beef and Rice
Beef and Rice
The heat has been brutal down here in the deep south and they are saying it will get even worse. I would be quite content with a nice large salad and some grilled chicken for dinner but hubby likes to have something more substantial and I like making things he likes. It’s days like these that make me so happy to have my pressure cookers, they drastically cut down on the time it takes to prepare dinner and therefore the heat generated in the house by cooking. Tonight was so hot that even hubby didn’t want anything too heavy but I already had defrosted the meat for this so I went ahead and cooked it in my digital pressure cooker, tonight I also did not thicken up the liquid in the dish to try and keep it a little lighter than it normally is, it worked, the broth was very flavorful and yet it didn’t “stick to your ribs” as they say. The best part was by using my rice cooker and the digital pressure cooker I made dinner in under a half hour and the kitchen didn’t get even hotter than normal in this weather.
Beef Strips in Gravy
1-2 pounds of steak, cut thin into strips, trim off all fat
1-2 large onions diced small
1 shallot diced fine
1 Maggi Beef Rib boullion cube
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2 cup red wine, optional
1 cup water or beef broth
2 tablespoons oil
Toss the beef strips with the flour and set the pressure cooker to the browning setting, add the oil and when it is hot add the beef strips (in batches if need be) and saute them until they brown a little. When all the beef is browned add the onions and shallot and saute them for a few minutes until they start to wilt a little. Add the wine (if using) and let it cook until it is reduced by about half. Add the boullion cube and 1 cup of water and the pepper and close the cover on the pressure cooker, set the pressure to low and the timer to 8 minutes. When the timer rings on the cooker let the pressure release on it’s own and when it is all the way down open the cooker and if you want to thicken up the gravy set the cooker to browning mode again and mix 2 tablespoons of flour into 1/4 cup of water and when the liquid is boiling in the cooker add the flour mixture to the liquid and boil and stir for about 5 minutes to cook off the raw flour taste. Serve over rice or with some potatoes. This is a nice quick dinner utilizing the fast preparation of the pressure cooker, it works very well in this extremely hot weather we have been having all over the country this year.
I used some top round meat for this and normally it dries out in the cooking process but by using the low pressure setting and the short cook time this meat came out tender and not dried out at all. If you haven’t tried your pressure cooker on the low pressure program give it a try, you may have to add a few minutes to the cook time but it has so far resulted in roasts that aren’t dried out and hard to cut, the meats have all come out very tender and they slice very nice instead of falling apart like I normally get when I used the cookers. Another tip is to use the natural pressure release when the meat is finished cooking, it helps keep all the moisture in the meat, just let the cooker come back down to no pressure on its own, it adds a few minutes to your cooking but the rewards of moist, tender meals are worth it in my opinion.