(That would be Roast Beef, of course. I don’t know why we started calling it “Rose Beep,” it must have come from a kid or an Asian waiter or somewhere… anyway, it’s stuck on us.)

For Christmas 2001, Carol got me (as requested) a TempTime model DTTC digital thermometer & timer. It has a probe that you stick in the meat and a long sensor wire leading to the control module with a large digital display that I can read without my glasses! How have I gone so long without it???

To go with that, a four pound standing rib roast of beef. Wow.

So from Christmas until Saturday that big honker has been “dry aging” in the refrigerator. (Beef on a rack in refrigerator with dry towel on top… change towels daily for 3 days.) Carol saw a recipe on the TV [Alton Brown’s Good Eats] where you put the roast (canola oiled, salted & peppered) in a 200 ° oven until the internal temperature reaches 118 °… take out to rest and cover with foil. Rest until the internal temp is 130 °. Meanwhile turn the oven up to 500 ° and stick the meat back in for 10 minutes or so to brown. Deglaze juices with 1C water and 1C red wine and reduce by half. Crinkle 4 sage leaves, add to the sauce and cook for one minute, strain. (4# roast took 1:40 to 118 °)

We did that.

It was so great with my Model DTTC… stick the probe in the meat, run the sensor wire out of the oven and set the control module on the counter top and just watch that sucker cook for nearly two hours. Better than Eric’s front loading washer with the glass door.

I carved the ribs off the bottom of the roast, cut it in half, parallel to the bones, cut that in half and we each had an inch thick Rose Beep au jus with half left over for later.

We ate it with twice baked potatoes and stewed green beans and some kind of expensive Merlot that we got from one of our wine clubs. The wine was very good, but I wouldn’t go out and buy Merlot, ever.

The beef was sublime.

HASH
On New Years Day we felt obliged to eat lunch. I got out the Rose Beep and cut it in half and then cut one piece into about a half inch dice.

Boiled some potatoes until just tender; cut into an equal dice.

Sauteed a chopped onion and celery stalk and a little garlic in butter, added the potatoes and beef, salt and pepper, and cooked and poured on some white wine and cooked off and that’s Beef Hash.

Carol said it was so good we should do it again, but I had other ideas.

FAUX PHO

The third way of the beef was pho. We have eaten pho, at Vietnamese pho shops… they are around. The kids introduced us to pho in Boston, and we ate it with Brian in Lincoln, Nebraska. There are plenty of pho restaurants around San Francisco. We knew the basic principles: Beef broth, beef, ginger, noodles, condiments.

Nevertheless, I took a look at the Vietnam chapter of Madhur Jaffrey’s A Taste of the Far East.

There is no recipe for pho, but in the narrative portion she says,

“What better way to warm up than with a bowl of pho from one of the many food stalls on Cam Chi Street. As soon as the order is placed, fresh rice noodles are dipped in hot water to heat them. They go into a bowl. These can be topped with cooked chicken, fully cooked beef, medium rare beef or raw beef, the price ascending with each choice. Mints, coriander, spring onions follow. Then hot stock gets ladled over the top, wilting the greens and perfuming the air still further.”

For our version, I put the what was left of our medium-rare leftover beef in the freezer for about 20 minutes and then sliced it as thin as I could and set it aside to come to room temperature.

Sliced about 2 inches of fresh ginger very thin and put it in a pot. Poured in 4 cans of Swanson beef broth, brought it to a boil and cooked it down for a while.

Boiled some water and cooked dried lo mein noodles.

Arranged chopped scallions, mint, basil, baby spinach, bean sprouts around the counter.
We took big glass bowls and arranged our pho as Madhur Jaffrey described above.
Carol made a salad of avocado and endive with bottled bleu cheese dressing to go with.

Now that’s good eats ‘n’ easy.

All you need is that beef.

For the Fourth way… I stuck the carved off rib bone and trimmings in the freezer for stock. Carol chided me for that, told me tonight that she wanted to roast it in the toaster oven and gnaw on it. I guess that’ll be OK… then I can use those bones for stock.