The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook - Dinah Bucholz [61]
This stew hails from Chiddingly in East Sussex, an important Roman mining town. There's practically no information of how this dish evolved and how olives came to be a part of it. But it tastes good, and that's all that matters.
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound chuck steak or eye roast, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes
Flour for dredging
1 onion, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
½ cup chopped green olives
About 1 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar
2 tablespoons malt vinegar
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 large red-skinned potatoes, thinly sliced
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet. Dredge the meat pieces in the flour and cook in batches over medium-high heat, tossing the meat as it cooks, until well-browned. Transfer to a large plate.
Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil and add the onion and celery. Cook over medium heat, scraping up the fond (the browned bits on the bottom), until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes.
In a medium-size deep round baking dish, layer half the celery-onion mixture, then half the olives. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of each of the vinegars, 1/8 teaspoon of the cloves, salt, and pepper. Then layer over that half the meat. Arrange half the potato slices on top. Repeat this layering once. Pour in chicken broth to come halfway up the sides of the dish. Sprinkle the top layer of potatoes with more salt and pepper. Cover tightly and cook for 2½ hours.
Remove the cover and check that the stew is not too dry; if it is, add some more chicken broth. Bake uncovered another 30 minutes until browned on top.
Serves 4
Scotch Collops (Pan-Seared Steak with Onions and Mushrooms)
What a way for Hermione to find out about the house-elves at Hogwarts — at the start-of-term feast, when everyone is starving. Harry has just finished swallowing his steak when Nearly Headless Nick talks about the trouble Peeves caused in the kitchen with the house-elves. Hermione is hungry, but she feels it's wrong to eat any more. Harry and Ron are unaffected, of course (see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 12).
“Collops” is a quaint word that means “slices,” specifically slices of meat. The Victorians had very strong feelings about how their collops should be prepared. The cookbook Great British Cooking by Jane Garmey repeats a story related by the famous Victorian cookbook author Isabella Beeton: a woman was asking around about a cook she was thinking to hire. When told about the cook's high moral character, she said, “Oh, d'n [sic] her decency; can she make good collops?”
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1½ pounds strip steak, cut against the grain into 1/8-inch-thick slices
1 onion, sliced
1 10-ounce package mushrooms, sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a skillet and brown the meat over high heat, about 1 to 2 minutes per side, in batches, taking care not to overcrowd the pan. Remove each batch of meat to a plate. Add the onions and mushrooms to the pan and reduce the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring often and scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen the flavorful fond (browned bits), until the onions are brown and the mushrooms are soft.
Remove the skillet from the heat and add back the meat, tossing to combine. Serve alongside buttered egg noodles.
Serves 6
Brussels Sprouts with Béchamel Sauce
Hermione knows she can't help the house-elves by starving herself to death, but she can go to the library. That's her mantra: when in doubt, go to the library. She stuffs her mouth as fast as she can with lamb chops, potatoes, and sprouts so she can use the remaining lunch period to read up on elf rights (see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 13).
Brussels sprouts have a bad rap as being one of the least desirable veggies out there. A good reason many don't like this veggie is simply that they've only had it overcooked. To get scientific about it, overcooking