Laura Rebecca's Kitchen has issue the Retro Recipe Challenge, and I'm always up for a challenge. The rules say to find a recipe from a cookbook published between 1920 and 1975, make something from the book, photograph it, and post it to your blog. Since I was (Ahem!) already acquiring cookbooks during the latter part of that time period, I didn't have trouble finding a cookbook that old. The one I settled on was How to Eat Better for Less Money by James Beard, published in 1954 and again in 1970. It was a great book when I bought it in college, and it's still a good cookbook, one you can buy it from Amazon.com for less than a dollar now, and I'm betting you'd find some recipes in there that appeal to you.
I can tell from the comments at Laura Rebecca's Kitchen that some folks are going for whimsy with this challenge, but I decided to make something that I would actually enjoy eating. I settled on the recipe for Hamburger Kebabs, James Beard's spelling, which now would probably be spelled kabobs. It looked like it would be similar to Kubideh, something I often order at Cafe Med, one of my favorite restaurants in Salt Lake, and it was. I loved the flavor of this; definitely a great improvement on regular ground beef cooked on the grill. The onion, parsley, and pine nuts gave the kebabs a complex flavor that I found very appealing. I made this for a friend who is kind of a meat and potatoes guy, and he agreed it tasted great.
There was one thing in the original recipe which puzzled me. It called for the kebabs to be "soaked" in French dressing. After reading a little in the book, I realized this meant vinaigrette, not that awful orange stuff that's now called French dressing. Really the only adaptation I made to the recipe was to brush the vinaigrette on and let it sit only a few minutes before cooking, rather than marinate for the hour the recipe called for.
There was one thing in the original recipe which puzzled me. It called for the kebabs to be "soaked" in French dressing. After reading a little in the book, I realized this meant vinaigrette, not that awful orange stuff that's now called French dressing. Really the only adaptation I made to the recipe was to brush the vinaigrette on and let it sit only a few minutes before cooking, rather than marinate for the hour the recipe called for.
Hamburger Kebabs(Makes 4 servings; recipe from How to Eat Better for Less Money.)
Ingredients:
1 pound hamburger
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pine nuts (Recipe says any nuts except peanuts can be used.)
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1 egg
1 tsp. salt (I used Vege-sal)
1 tsp pepper (or less, I used coarse ground)
1 tsp. dried oregano
Vinaigrette dressing for basting kebabs
(for South Beach be sure the dressing has less than 2 grams or sugar)
Instructions:
Finely chop onions and parsley and coarsely chop nuts. In large bowl, put hamburger, onion, parsley, nuts, egg, and spices. Using your hands, combine the mixture well. (See note at the end of recipe.)
Preheat grill or broiler to high. Form meat mixture into four cylindrical shaped pieces. If you have double skewers like I used or blade type skewers, thread kebabs onto skewers. I would probably just cook them on the grill without a skewer if you don't have one of these types.
Grill or broil for 15-20 minutes, turning every 5 minutes, until kebabs feel firm and meat is well browned. Serve hot.
(Note from Kalyn: As I was making this, I longed to put the beef mixture into the food processor and grind all the ingredients together as is done in the Middle East for kabobs of this type, but that would be a post 1975 adaptation for sure, so I resisted the urge. Next time I made this, I would definitely use a food processor to get the onion, parsley, and nuts combined with the meat more.)
South Beach Suggestions:
This recipe is perfect for any phase of the South Beach Diet, especially if you use lean hamburger as I did. I served it with Arugula and Gorgonzola Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette and Grilled Asparagus with Parmesan. For phase two or three you could add something like Lake Powell Spicy Rice.
This recipe is perfect for any phase of the South Beach Diet, especially if you use lean hamburger as I did. I served it with Arugula and Gorgonzola Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette and Grilled Asparagus with Parmesan. For phase two or three you could add something like Lake Powell Spicy Rice.
13 comments:
Thank you so much for your submission -- from James Beard as well, King of Cookbooks!
Some retro food is great, this is a good example. The "French Dressing" thing triggered a memory, my Mom used to make a baked chicken dish that used the nasty orange stuff from the bottle and I remember it being quite good. I was about 10 at the time so consider that before you try it, I liked Count Chocula cereal then as well.
Laura Rebecca, can't wait to see what others come up with.
Steven, You're right, this was great retro food. I think this would have been pretty gourmet for the 70's. Not sure about the sound of your mom's French dressing chicken. I've never been a French dressing fan at all.
What an awesome submission! Great job!
What's old is new again! Looks really good! I'm always happy with Beard.
Yummy! Thanks for visiting my blog Obiter Dicta by Steve.
I wish that I could come to the Utah Bloggers conference next week, but I'm in St. George.
Hi Kalyn, I found your website bc of the SB diet. It is absolutely brilliant! I wish I could come and live with you so that I could eat your recipes every day. I've made several things from your website and they are all super good. I think my favorite is this recipe, though. Instead of making kabobs I put it in the oven like a meatloaf. It is super good as meatloaf because it is light (thanks to the nuts and parsley) and less dense than your average meatloaf. Instead of dipping in ketchup, I made a homemade lemon vinagrette to dip in and it was delicious. I love your cooked cheese cake too! Keep up the recipes and experimentation. I love it!
I made this recipe with ground buffalo instead of beef because thats what I bought. It was ok though lacked flavor -- it tasted mostly just like the meat. I must have not basted enough of the dressing on or maybe need to spice it up a bit more. Any reason why this would taste drastically different with ground buffalo?
Ish, don't really know; I've never even had buffalo so I don't know how it would cook up compared to beef.
Hi Kalyn, I stopped in to tell you that I made these last evening. I made the recipe just as you stated (with some concern hubby would turn his nose up at the nuts in the meat!) and we both LOVED it. Very flavorful and not dry by any means. (I did use venison in place of beef.)
Thank you so much for your index of recipes for the South Beach Diet. We have followed this before and are following it again - so to have your index is like a God send!
Kayln: I made these for the first time tonight. We both liked them a lot! My only question is, I didn't realize until the end that you were supposed to have basted the kebobs before they got broiled/grilled. I ended adding the dressing as an afterthought. Do you think adding a bit of the dressing to the meat mixture & letting it marinate a bit would help? I thought that might harden up the mixture a bit.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "would help." If you thought they were too dry without basting with the vinaigrette, then I think you could add some to the mixture.
These were great! We made them for dinner tonight and didn't even add the vinaigrette. We did put them in the food processor and I imagine that made it even better. It certainly helped my 6-year-old eat them without complaint. :-)
Thanks!
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