green beef
(omnivore)

recipe by m-c

just the recipe

what I was looking for

A meat side dish for a picnic-like supper to serve to guests.

what I made

A simplified version of the Fried Green Beef recipe from Ruta Kahate's 5 Spices, 50 Dishes, pages 48-49.

Mark and I are sumo fanatics, so for two weeks out of every two months we eat supper upstairs in our attic bedroom, watch the Japanese broadcasts brought to us by satellite, and cheer, moan, holler, and fall tensely silent just as though we were there in person.

Now and again we invite friends to watch with us, and I like to serve food that tastes good at room temperature, doesn't require any last-minute fiddling, requires only forks and spoons, no knives, and isn't likely to spill all over our laps (there's no room for tables). Picnic food, in other words, but for an in-house picnic.

Indian food fits nearly all those requirements except that I do have to avoid recipes with high spillage potential.

grades for my version

healthy	C	A treat dish rather than an everyday dish because of the meat.
fast	B	Two different processes, but each of them is quick.
easy	A	As long as you're accustomed to broiling or grilling, it's easy as fallin' off a log.
cheap	C	Meat always seems expensive to those of us who don't eat it often.
delicious	A	Wow.

yield

Ruta's version serves 4 as a hefty appetizer. I scaled it back by half because I was serving it as a non-hefty side dish.

equipment

    food processor

    tongs

the beef

ingredients	Ruta, scaled	m-c	why?
beef	1 pound London broil	1 pound Spencer steak	easier [1]
	sliced at the store into ½‑inch slices	sliced at the store into the thinnest slices possible	easier [2]
	pounded at home into ⅛‑inch scaloppine	not pounded	easier [3]
Notes
[1]	The cuts and the names for the cuts of meat vary wildly from one part of the country to another, and often even within the same city. It pays to shop where you can tell butchers what you're planning to do with the meat and get their recommendation. If you shop where there are no butchers, or where the people dressed up in butcher costumes are executing a masquerade, be prepared to experiment over some period of time to find out what you need. Beef for fajitas, which the butcher might suggest, is generally too lean for this purpose (and, one might add, for fajitas).
[2]	Easier for me, harder for the butcher.
[3]	In addition to being lightning-fast to cook, pounded scaloppine have a special texture missing from the dish as I made it; I decided speed was more important to me than deliciousness. Given how delicious the dish was with plain old slicey beef, it's hard to imagine its being even better.

Take the beef out of the refrigerator and let it come up to room temperature, unless room temperature is over 80°, in which case let it come up to only 80° and work quickly.

the green stuff

ingredients	Ruta, scaled	m-c	why?
cilantro	1 ¼ cups chopped leaves and stems	1 ¼ cups chopped leaves and stems	no change
green serrano chile	1 medium, coarsely chopped	1 medium, coarsely chopped	no change
liquid	1 ¼ Tablespoons lemon juice + 1 Tablespoon water	2 Tablespoons lemon juice	tastier [1]
onion family	½ teaspoon garlic grated fine	1 medium-sized shallot, chopped	easier [2]
fresh ginger	1 teaspoon grated fine	1 Tablespoon chopped	tastier [3]
turmeric	⅛ teaspoon	2 teaspoons	tastier [3]
cumin seed	⅛ teaspoon, ground fine	2 teaspoons, whole	tastier [3]
salt	½ teaspoon	to taste	no change
Notes
[1]	Tastier to me; I crave sourness. I have to be careful not to overdo it when I'm cooking for someone else but we all liked the dish, so I think I did OK.
[2]	As I got out my garlic, I found that it had gone moldy. I have sworn a mighty oath not to go to the grocery store more than once a day. There are people who go once a week, for gosh sake. Lacking garlic I used a shallot instead.
[3]	Inspired by substituting much rough-chopped shallot for a little grated garlic, I decided to take the dish in a different direction from Ruta's. Hers is subtle and sophisticated; mine was mouth-awakening, crude, and jolly. So when I'm saying "tastier" here what I really mean is "also tasty but in a different way."

    Ruta processes or blends her green sauce to a smooth paste. I processed mine into a rough mixture with only a few swift pulses. In both cases, we spread the green stuff over the beef, turning it hither and yon till every part of every piece of meat is touched with green.

She sets her aside in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 12 hours. I set mine aside for 24 hours -- the roughness of the marinade calls for longer sitting. Two or three times during the marinating I stirred the beef around to be sure every bit was getting its share of the marinade.

the breading and cooking

Ruta breads her marinated beef slices with dry cream of wheat and pan-fries them in canola oil. I'm sure that method gives a delicious result, but I wanted something that could sit around for a couple of hours being picked at.

    So I didn't bread mine and, instead of frying, broiled them on foil under the broiler, turning them over once to be sure they were well cooked. (I think tongs are the best tool for the job of turning.) I cooked the slices close to the broiler, so the whole cooking time, total for both sides, was no more than 3 minutes.

Questions? Comments? Corrections?
Suggestions? Contributions?
Please let us know!