Retro-70s TV Dinner

Our retro-70s TV dinner

Ok, my bad. It’s been months since I’ve posted anything on this blog. But, I’ve been busy! Since the last post, we’ve done a 6-day, 40-mile hike from Cuzco, Peru to Machu Picchu. It was exhausting, yet spectacular. Perhaps I’ll find the time to post an entry about our hike. I’ve managed to teach three courses at the Paul Merage School of Business since the last post, and I’ve actually just started teaching Fall Quarter last week.

I develop obsessions once in a while about food which sparks an old memory from my childhood. The other day, I was remembering when I had my first TV dinner. I was in junior high, and my mom had purchased a whole bunch of Swanson’s TV dinners because the local grocery store was going out of business, and everything had been discounted. I guess I was already a food snob at the tender age of 11, because I crinkled my nose at the TV dinners, and declared I would never eat them.

But, a week or so later, I got home from school, and I was starving. So, I pulled out one of these TV dinners from the freezer. As best as I can remember, this was an old-generation Swanson’s TV dinner. It was in a thin package, and contained the old aluminum tray covered with foil. The one I had pulled out of the freezer was salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, green beans and some apple concoction. I followed the instructions and put it in the oven. About an hour later, it was ready.

As I pulled the TV dinner out of the oven, and carefully removed the foil lid, I was amazed by what I saw. There was a little salisbury steak in a large compartment, covered with some mushrooms and onions, swimming in a light brown sauce. In another little compartment was some gritty-looking mashed potatoes, while another compartment held the green beans. Then, to my disappointment, I noticed some apple chunks in some type of sauce, some of which had spilled onto my salisbury steak. Even back then, different parts of my meal were not allowed to touch! Despite my disgust at the apple’d sauce touching my salisbury steak, I dove in. My life would never be the same. The salisbury steak was rich and salty–I had never tasted anything like it before.

In the many years since that day, I’ve had an on-again, off-again love affair with TV dinners. Although swedish meatballs are still my favorite, I have a place in my heart for salisbury steak. I hadn’t thought much about salisbury steak in a while until this past weekend. After all, salisbury steak isn’t something you see on restaurant menus. I think most people associate salisbury steak with a TV dinner. So, I decided that I wanted to make salisbury steak. Shockingly, there aren’t a lot of good recipes out there. After reading numerous recipes, I finally found one by Emeril that looked promising. He called it “Emerlized salisbury steak with mushroom gravy.”

The only problem with Emeril’s recipe was that it was a typical Emeril recipe–full of fat and rich ingredients. It also called for ground veal, too. And, I just won’t eat veal. So, I started playing around with the recipe by substituting out some of the heavy cream and the veal, and adjusting some of the seasonings. Out of the oven came my salisbury steak, and it was amazing. It had a similar texture, but wasn’t quite as smooth (that’s what ground veal will do for you!), but the taste was still just as I remembered it from my childhood. And the mushroom sauce–oh my. It’s really, really good, and adds that extra hit of flavor to the salisbury steak.

So, here’s my reworked recipe for salisbury steak with mushroom gravy, adapted from Emeril:

Ingredients: (serves 6-8, depending on the size of the salisbury steaks)

½ pound of good, thick-sliced bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces
1½ cups yellow onions, chopped
1½ pound cremini or button mushrooms, sliced relatively thinly
2 t kosher salt
½ cup minced shallots (about 2-3 large shallots)
2 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1 t dried thyme)
1 sprig fresh rosemary (or 1 t dried rosemary)
½ cup mild red wine (a merlot or pinot noir is good)
2 T flour
2 cups low-sodium beef broth
½ cup half and half, plus 2 T
1½ pounds 80-20 ground beef
1½ pounds ground pork
2 egg yolks
2½ t Dijon mustard
2 t Worcestershire sauce
1 T minced garlic
Freshly ground pepper
1 T cold unsalted butter
2 T chopped parsley

Instructions:

1. Over medium-high heat, cook the bacon until it is not yet crisp. Transfer bacon to a food processor. Remove bacon fat into a small bowl. Add 1 T of bacon fat back to the skillet. Add chopped onions to skillet, and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are slightly browned around the edges, about 6 minutes. Transfer onions to food processor with bacon. Process onions and bacon in food processor until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and cool.
2. Heat 1 T of bacon fat in skillet. Add the mushrooms and 1 t kosher salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms have released most of their liquid, and are now golden brown, about 5 minutes. And minced shallots, thyme and rosemary, and cook until shallots are soft, about 2 minutes. Add the red wine and cook until almost evaporated. Sprinkle the flour into the skillet, and stir to combine. Cook for 1 minute. Add the beef broth, and cook for about 5 minutes, until the sauce is thickened. Add ½ cup of the half and half, and stir to combine. Cook until sauce is thickened, about 5 minutes. Cover and keep warm while you prepare the salisbury steaks.
3. Position your rack to the second highest position in your oven. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees, convection if possible.
4. In a large bowl, add the ground beef, ground pork, pureed bacon-onion mixture, remaining 2 T of half and half, egg yolks, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, remaining 1 t of kosher salt, and pepper. Mix thoroughly, but lightly, with your hands. Shape into 6 to 8 oval patties, about 1 cup each, about 1-inch thick. Transfer each patty to a non-stick baking sheet. Using a shot glass (or similar), indent the center of each patty. This will prevent the patty from puffing up in the center. Bake the salisbury steaks for 8 to 10 minutes. You’re looking for a temperature around 140 degrees to 145 degrees. Transfer salisbury steaks to a platter, and tent loosely with foil.
5. Add the meat drippings, butter and parsley to the sauce, and stir until thoroughly incorporated. Taste, and adjust with salt and pepper as needed. Spoon the sauce over each salisbury steak as you plate it.


And that’s my version of salisbury steak. It’s not as rich, but the flavor of the salisbury steak and the mushroom sauce will wow you to no end. It’s actually even better the next day as leftovers! Now, if you want to make it a true retro-70s TV dinner, serve the salisbury steak with some Kraft blue-box macaroni and cheese, and some canned whole green beans or frozen green peas. And, if you even want to duplicate the apple concoction, open a package of Mott’s apple sauce, and serve that on the side. Bon appetit!