Sauerbraten

Sauerbraten is an acquired taste. I actually only started to like it, far away from home. Once I saw Rachel Ray approximating Sauerbraten and taking way too much italian-american interpretation (botch job?), I had to find out how to make the real deal, back in the old days in Germany.

• 2 pound beef roast
  
• 1 cp white wine vinegar
• salt, pepper
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 red onion, sliced
• 2 TB cloves

• canola oil
• 1 large onion
• 1 TB flour
• 2 TB Knorr "Helle Sauce" (white gravy)
• 1/2 TB brown sugar
• pressure cooker

Marinate beef roast covered in mix of 1 cp white wine vinegar and 1 cp water. Add the bay leaves, the sliced onion, and cloves. Don't use a plastic or porcelain container; use stainless steel or glass bowl, and cover well. Marinate for 2 days.

Heat canola oil in a pressure cooker. Remove beef roast from marinade, and dust with flour. Sautee sharply on all sides, until browned. Place beef roast in pressure cooker, reduce heat, add 1 onion, sliced, 1 cp of the marinade, including onions, bay leaves and cloves to the pressure cooker. Add 2 TB 'helle Sauce" (light gravy mix), and 1/2 TB brown sugar. Close pressure cooker, and cook under high pressure for 45 min.

Serve with potato dumplings and sauteed cabbage.

See here Alton Brown's recipe: FoodTV

Gulasch

My mom's gulasch. Brings everyone to their knees, everytime. What more is there to say. The key is to use a pressure cooker to get the meat really tender and falling off the (non-existing) bone.

• 1 pound lean beef (or 1/2 pound beef, and 1/2 pound pork)
  
• 1 pound white onions (the key 1 pound meat/1 pound onion ratio..!)
  
• canola oil
• 1/2 cp flour, spread out on a plate
• 1 TB tomato paste, mixed in 1/2 cp of water
  
• 1 hot pepper, finely diced
  
• salt, pepper
• 2 TB sour cream

Cut lean beef into 1 inch cubes. Dust in flour, and saute on high heat in hot oil in an pressure cooker (no lid yet). Saute and caramelize the beef cubes in batches. Remove beef from pressure cooker and set aside. Cut onions in thin slices, and saute in the open pressure cooker. Add beef back to pressure cooker. Mix tomato paste and water and pour into pressure cooker. Add hot pepper, salt and pepper, and mix well. Close pressure cooker with lid, and cook under high pressure for 25 minutes. Release steam, and slowly open cooker.

Mix in sour cream. Serve with egg noodles.