One of Kris’ favorite meals when we go out to restaurants for lunch is beef dip, sometimes also called French dip. I’ve never attempted to make it before though. Our grocery store had roasts on for a really good price, and in the flyer next to the roasts was a big picture of beef dip. That got me motivated to give it a try. I forgot to take pictures as I went, but here is how I’ve gone about making it. I’ve adapted most of the recipes based on my own preferences or what we had on hand, so there’s no one recipe I used, though I did read through a few recipes/comments on allrecipes.com. This was also my first attempt at beef stock. I make chicken and turkey broth fairly frequently and we almost always have some in the house, but it is apparently a little bit of a different process for beef stock. (Though from the reading I did, beef broth can be made very similarly to the way most people make chicken and turkey broth and is a bit of a simpler process that doesn’t require roasting first.)
Beef Stock
Preheat the oven to 400F. Put about 6 pounds of beef bones on a roasting pan and roast until nice and brown, making sure to turn partway through. Keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t burn as that can make the stock taste bitter. Mine took about 25 minutes.
While they are roasting, coarsely chop the vegetables. I had a large onion, two carrots, two stalks of celery, garlic, and a tomato. You can put them in the oven with the bones, or caramalize them on the stove. I didn’t have room on my roasting pan for them so I chose to caramalize them. (Don’t use sugar for them though.) Basically, heat up a tablespoon of oil or butter on the stove top until it’s nice and hot, then add the vegetables, starting with onions and carrots, then once they are starting to turn brown throw in the tomato, and when everything is getting dark, the celery. Keep the heat fairly high and stir constantly.
I do have a compost, but I also keep a baggie in the freezer and put vegetable trimmings into it that I think would be good in stock: potato peels, the ends of carrots, older mushrooms, etc. So in addition to the veggies above, that baggie also got thrown in the crockpot. (I didn’t caramalize those though, they got tossed in frozen.)
Put everything in the crockpot along with a bay leaf, ten whole peppercorns, thyme, rosemary, and parsley, then cover completely with water. I started the crockpot on high until it was nice and hot, then reduced to low and left to simmer overnight. In the morning, I strained the stock into a bowl and put it in the refrigerator. Once cool, the fat settles at the top and can be spooned out fairly easily. I like to pour the stock into my muffin pan: each muffin cup is exactly half a cup. I freeze it in the muffin tray, then once frozen I take the stock out of the tray and put in a baggie or freezable container, separating the layers with wax paper. Then when recipes call for beef stock, I know each little patty is a half a cup and can use them in recipes accordingly. With chicken stock, it normally ends up strong enough that I will use half water and half the broth when recipes call for it; I have yet to see if my beef stock turned out that strong.
If you don’t have a deep freeze or need more freezer room, you can also take the lid off at the end and let the stock reduce a lot. Then rather than freezing in muffin tins, freeze in ice cube trays and save them like that. You’ll just need to add water as well when recipes call for stock.
Beef Dip
Trim a large roast and place in the crockpot.
In a bowl, add half a cup of soy sauce or tamari sauce, or a combination of soy sauce/tamari and worcestershire, depending on your preferences. Add a bay leaf, three whole peppercorns, garlic, and about a teaspoon each of rosemary and thyme. Pour this mixture over roast and fill with enough beef stock and water to almost cover the roast. Leave the crockpot on low for 8-12 hours.
I’ve read this tastes best if made ahead of time and put in the refrigerator to let the flavours meld a bit, so I left it overnight and put it in the refrigerator during the day. Then I just stuck it back in the crockpot and turned it on to heat it back up in the evening. Take the roast out and shred it with a fork and use the sauce for dipping. Extra sauce could be used as a base for French onion soup or something similar.
Crusty French Rolls
I made these in a breadmaker, so adjust the recipe accordingly if you do it by hand. Add 1 1/4 cups of water, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 3 1/2 cups bread flour (I actually used 1 cup whole grain flour and 2 1/2 cups bread flour, and would experiment with more whole grain in the future), and 1 1/4 teaspoons yeast to the breadmaker and turn on dough setting. When done, turn dough to a lightly floured surface and shape into nice roll shapes for sandwiches. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 30-45 minutes. Mix 1 egg with 1 tablespoon of water and brush over tops of bread. Bake at 375F for 25 minutes, brushing once partway through with glaze again if wanted. I actually under cook these just a tad, because we don’t like them to be too crispy. I do throw some water in the bottom of the oven at the beginning which will crisp up the outside a little bit though. If you like them crispy, you could also cut them open when they’re done cooking and broil the inside for a short time too.
For serving sizes, there are leftovers when it’s just the three of us. With another (hungry) adult around and only a small side, it was the perfect amount. It would probably be great for four adults too, with more sides. Any more than that and I would double the bread, though there is always lots of beef.
While the buns are in the oven, we sautéed some mushroom and onions to put in the sandwiches, and then topped it with a slice of Havarti cheese. These were absolutely perfect. Once you have beef stock, they’re also deceptively easy. The stock was probably the most time-consuming part of making them the first time. This is a recipe we will most definitely make again and again.
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