Family secrets

[nggallery id=996]

WATERLOO - In every family, there's that one dish everybody loves. In the Hines family, it's my grandmother's beef and noodles.

Maxine Hines was never one for baking cookies or knitting. Instead, she'd plan a road trip just to try authentic vanilla Coke, take me to visit a psychic or fill a piñata with candy for only two kids. When my grandfather was alive, he did most of the cooking while she made sure the dining room table looked fantastic.

“I'm not a cook,” she says. “I like the showoff stuff - setting the table, making a theme; all the fancy things you don't eat.”

But she developed a recipe for beef and noodles that has become a staple at holiday dinners. It's so popular that when a family member can't make it to Christmas, their absence is celebrated because it means more beef and noodles for everyone else.

Grandma recently taught my uncle, Tait Hines, and his daughter, Katie, how to make beef and noodles, so I asked for my own tutoring session. She agreed. When I told her I was going to make a story out of it, she was amused.

“How long have you been making beef and noodles?” I asked.

“Can you ever remember not having it?” she replied.

Getting Grandma to provide details about a recipe she created when my father was a child wasn't easy. She doesn't think of it as anything special. It's something she's made time and time again.

She makes it by memory. If she ever wrote the recipe down, it's long gone.

We spent Mother's Day making the dish.

I was tasked with writing down each step before doing it, a system that went well until she made me cut the noodles.

“Slow down,” she told me. “You need skinny cuts for skinny noodles. Thin! Thin! Thin!”

“This isn't fun anymore,” I told her.

“Thin! Thin! Thin!” she replied.

Eating our noodles later, Grandma said, “I'm happy to have a recipe to leave to my family. I guess I can retire from making beef and noodles now.”

I forgot to tell her that wasn't part of the story.

*****************************************************************************************************

BEEF AND NOODLES

• 1 pound beef stew meat
• 2 eggs, at room temperature
• Dash of salt, plus ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup of flour, to start
• Water

Turn burner on stove to high heat. Place beef in a cold skillet and put it on the burner. Add a dash of salt. When the pan starts to smoke, turn the heat down to medium. Slow and steady is important – you want to get color for the beef stock without burning the beef or losing the meat's juice. Keep an eye on it as it cooks, continuing to lower the heat when the meat begins bubbling. After about 10 to 15 minutes, add 2 ½ cups water to the skillet. Put on the lid and cook at medium heat, turning to medium-low if it boils too much.

To make the noodles, crack 2 eggs in a bowl. Add ½ teaspoon of salt. Use a fork to whisk the two together. Add 1 cup of flour carefully, using a fork to mix it up. You may need to add up to a ½ cup more of flour to get the desired consistency. You want your dough to pull away from the bowl and not be sticky, but you don't want it to be dry, either.

Work the dough into a ball and divided it in half. Spread flour on the countertop and use a rolling pin to roll the dough about 1/8-inch-thick. Place each thin sheet of dough on a piece of waxed paper and set aside to dry, about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the temperature of the room. You know it's ready with the edges of the dough begin to curl up.

When the dough is dry, roll up each piece and cut thin slices. You want short, skinny noodles, so cut at an angle, switching angles if the noodles gets too long. When you finish cutting the noodles, place them on two plates to dry some more, about 15 minutes.

Remove the beef from the skillet. Add 2 cups of water to the skillet and bring the liquid to a bowl. Add the noodles a small handful at a time so they don't clump or stick together. Use a fork to lightly stir the noodles. Turn the heat to medium and let the noodles cook for about 20 minutes, adding the beef about halfway through the process. Make sure you stay near the stove because you don't want the flour from the noodles to congeal. The broth will nearly cook away, so you'll need to keep stirring near the end of the cooking time so they noodles won't stick to the bottom of the skillet.

Yields: Two servings as a main dish; 4 to 6 servings as a side dish. In the Hines family, beef and noodles are often used as a topping for mashed potatoes.

Source: Maxine Hines