The country's economic hardship has inspired a new offering at the Sheppard Mansion, 117 Frederick St. in Hanover. Starting the week after Valentine's Day, the restaurant will offer diners a three-course meal at a flat price. And what does Little plan to call this menu addition?
"The Sheppard Mansion stimulus package," he said wryly. "We're giving a little nod to what's happening to everyone in the economy right now."
Cost: $20.09. Not exactly bargain basement, but a reduction compared with what a typical three-course meal would cost at a fine dining locale. Under the plan, diners can pick between two choices for the first course, entrée and dessert. One of the entrées speaks to the season - a warming, hearty beef stew made with braised short ribs, an off cut of tougher meat tenderized by searing and braising. Most chefs don't use short ribs often, Little said. But if prepared correctly, they are a good - and economical - piece of meat.
"We'll go back to what people consider off cuts, but I think they are still very flavorful," Little said.
Restaurant sales in Pennsylvania and around the country slumped in 2008, a trend industry analysts expect to continue in 2009, according to the National Restaurant Association. The downturn - and dreary forecast - has motivated many local chefs to think about ingredient efficiency.
As a pleasant side effect, Left Bank executive chef David Albright said the economic challenges have inspired him to generate new ideas. Last month at the downtown York eatery, Albright added to the appetizer menu tomato braised filet mignon meatballs, which uses the ground up trimmings of the center cut steak. Similarly, he created a mini gyro slider appetizer using the trimmings from lamb loins. At the Accomac Inn in Hellam Township, new executive chef André Ebert has used ox
"In these economic times, using the byproducts is the best thing you can do," Albright said. "It's easy to make a filet mignon good, but if you can reinvent something and make it taste good, that's even better. You could put your heart and your mind into a new dish and not make it look like you're trying to pawn off an inferior piece of meat."
Stretching the supplies you have on hand, as far as you can, is key because ordering special ingredients drives up costs, several chefs said. Al Dente owner and executive chef Chriss Papayannis approaches his kitchen with the eye of a home cook hoping to avoid a trip to the grocery store.
"You look around and say, 'Here's what we got. How can we make something interesting without having to buy more?'" he said.
For a weekend special, Al Dente started offering beef tortellini with bacon in alfredo sauce. A vendor offered a special price on the tortellini, and the bacon and alfredo sauce are two items the restaurant always has on hand.
In addition to conserving stock, Little is a big believer in flavoring less desirable cuts of meat. He sears the short ribs for his stew to bring out the meat's flavor. Many home cooks, when working with tougher meat, don't sear well enough. "It requires a lot of heat, and they're afraid they're gonna burn it," Little said.
The braising come next. He submerges the caramelized meat in a pot with veal stock, shallots, peppercorns, garlic and bay leaf. While
"The slow heat breaks down the muscles," he said. "That's basically what tenderizes it."
Like a bill meandering through Congressional committees, Little hasn't finished concocting the other stimulus package choices, but they will likely include less expensive ingredients enhanced by some culinary creativity.
The stimulus package will be in place until April 15, the income tax filing deadline.
"Hopefully," Little said, "things will be better by then."
Baked Alfredo & Bacon
5 to 7 bacon slices
1 tablespoon diced onion
1/4 cup of white wine
pinch rubbed
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
1/2 pound tortellini pasta
8 ounces mozzarella cheese
Cook the tortellini in advance and set aside. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Rough cut the bacon and, in a sauté pan, render fat from bacon on low heat. When bacon is cooked add the white wine and reduce by half on high heat. Add a pinch of rubbed sage. Add the heavy cream and bring to boil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in parmesan cheese and continue to boil for 2 minutes. Add the tortellini and toss well. Pour the mixture into a glass baking dish. Spread mozzarella cheese on top. Bake on the top oven rack until cheese is brown.
Courtesy of Chriss Papayannis, owner and executive chef of Al Dente
Ox tail soup
2 cans of canned whole tomatoes
1 cup chopped celery
2 chopped onions
1 cup chopped carrots
4 pounds or more of ox tails
8 ounces of noodles
Wash, peel and cut vegetables in small pieces. Trim excess skin off tails, rinse with cold water. Put meat into large soup kettle and fill with cold water at least 1 to 2 inches past the meat's surface. Cook on high. Skim off foam (cooked blood) from surface several times. Cook 2 hours. Add onion and seasoning (salt, pepper and a little garlic) to taste. Add cut up tomatoes and juice, cook at low to medium heat. Add celery and carrots. Cook until tender (about one hour until vegetables are done). Add salt and pepper to taste. Let stand to cool and skim off fat from top of soup. Add some noodles to your bowl then pour in the soup. You should have one to two tails per bowl.
From cooks.com
Sheppard Mansion beef stew
For braised beef:
5 pounds boneless beef chuck (not lean) or short ribs, cut into 2-inch pieces
6 tablespoons olive oil
3 carrots, quartered
3 celery ribs, quartered
2 medium onions, quartered
1 head garlic, halved crosswise
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1 (750-ml) bottle red wine (about 3 3/4 cups)
2 bay leaves
4 thyme sprigs
3 rosemary sprigs
6 cups beef broth or veal stock
For potatoes and carrots:
2 1/2 pounds small Yukon golden potatoes
1 1/2 pounds carrots
4 parsnips, peeled and quartered
1/2 pound Brussels sprouts
Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in middle. Pat beef dry and season with copious amounts of salt and pepper. Heat oil in pot over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Brown meat without crowding in batches, turning each piece as it browns. Sear each batch about eight minutes. Transfer to a platter lined with paper towels. Reduce heat to medium, then add carrots, celery, onions and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until well browned, which should be about 12 minutes. Push vegetables to one side of pot. Add tomato paste to cleared area and cook paste while stirring for two minutes, then stir the paste into the vegetables. Add vinegar and cook while stirring for two minutes. Stir in wine, bay leaves, thyme, and rosemary and boil until wine is reduced by about two thirds, about 10 to 12 minutes. Add broth to pot along with water, beef, and any juices from platter and bring to a simmer. Cover and braise in oven until meat is very tender, about two and a half hours. Set a large colander in a large bowl. Pour stew into colander. Return pieces of meat to pot, then discard remaining solids. Reduce the strained cooking liquid into a clean pot and reduce by one quarter. Pour reduced cooking liquid over the beef.
Cook the vegetables: While beef braises, cut potatoes into half-inch-wide wedges. Slice carrots and parsnips diagonally. Add potatoes, carrots, parsnips and brussles to stew (make sure they are submerged) and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until all vegetables are tender, about 40 minutes.
Courtesy of Andrew Little, chef of Sheppard Mansion
SEARING AND BRAISING TECHNIQUES
Chefs often use searing and braising methods to enhance tougher, inexpensive cuts of meat. Here are tips for doing it at home from allrecipes.com and a local chef:
Let your meat sit at room temperature for a while before cooking. This relaxes the meat, allowing its natural moisture to reabsorb into the muscle, rather than staying trapped between the meat's fibers, according to allrecipes.com.
Make sure the pan that will be used for searing is very hot. Season it as desired. The seasoning will should add a crust to the meat surface when it cooks. The allrecipe tips recommend not adding salt to the meat if it's already marinated in a salty mixture, such as soy sauce or a brine. If the marinate is sweet or sugary, sear carefully because the sugars could burn quickly.
The pan has to be hot enough to ensure the meat won't stick and tear when turned in the pan. The sugar on the meat's surface should immediately crystallize, allowing you to flip the meat over easily, according to the allrecipe tips. The searing will leave flavor crystals on the bottom of the pan, which can be deglazed from the pan (for later use).
Watch for the meat to brown quickly. After a few minutes, turn the meat to sear the other side. Allrecipes recommends keeping a close eye on the meat, so it does not burn. The inside of the seared meat will probably still be raw, so be sure to cook it further.
You can then finish the meat by braising, which is cooking the meat in liquid at low heat. This can be done in an oven at around 300 degrees or in a slow cooker, Sheppard Mansion Chef Andrew Little said. The liquid can be any kind of desired sauce or broth, which will keep the meat moist. The slow heat breaks down the tough muscles in the meat without overcooking, making even cheap cuts of meat tender.
Searing tips from allrecipes.com.
LOOKING FOR OX TAIL?
Although it sounds obscure, ox tail isn't so hard to find. Here are a couple of places you can find it in York County.
The cheap cut of meat is available at Giant Food Stores, in some cases as a regular item, spokeswoman Debbie Hill said. And if it's not regularly available, customers can order it from any store's meat department, she said. Weis Markets also has ox tail available, spokesman Dennis Curtin said.
Full-service butchers are also likely to carry it, including JL Miller Sons. The off cut is selling for around $4.59 per pound, about the same price as top round, butcher Shawn Strohman said. While still inexpensive, Strohman has noticed an increase in the price of ox tail.
"More people are into cooking with them now, so demand is higher," he said. "They are a little more expensive than they were."
STAGNANT SALES
Restaurant sales are expected to increase a meager 2.5 percent nationwide in 2009, according to the National Restaurant Association.
Adjusted for inflation, that's a 1 percent drop from 2008. It also would be a significant change from the year before, when sales increased about 4 percent between 2007 and 2008, according to the association's estimates.
Sales at Pennsylvania restaurants are expected to increase by only 2.1 percent, but the association doesn't calculate inflation adjusted statistics for individual states. But growth that slow "indicates that sales and profits would be lower compared to the last few years" in Pennsylvania, National Restaurant Association spokeswomen Annika Stensson said.
Patrick Conway, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, has heard for his members that times are getting tight.
"There's no question that sales are down from last year," he said. "But restaurants are generally run by savvy operators who find ways to stretch their resources."
Font Resize
