J&J Grassfed Beef Tacos

Sometimes money is just not enough. For one of their final projects at Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, Jay Shipman and his business partner, Jack Rice, drew up the plans for a sustainable beef business and wrote a grant to get the project funded. They thought it made financial sense, that it was something that would fill a market niche, and the grant organization, SARS, agreed. But life took hold, and the two graduates never put their plan into play. It wasn’t until a few years later, when Jay’s young wife was suffering from the debilitating effects of rheumatoid arthritis, that the plan took flight. By then it was personal.

While conducting research on how to treat her arthritis, an autoimmune disorder, Jay and his wife discovered research that showed eating grass-raised meats and milk, which has a better Omega 3/Omega 6 ratio than corn-fed beef as well as high levels of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), could actually reduce inflammation, prevent chronic diseases including heart disease and arthritis, lower LDL cholesterol and help reduce body fat mass. The problem the couple found, though, in trying to change the way they bought meat, was that there were few grassfed beef options, and those they did find were expensive and inconsistent.

“I grew up on a cattle farm,” says Shipman, “and I wasn’t excited.” This time Jay had personal ownership on raising quality, healthy, grassfed beef to bring to the market—his ideas had changed about what he fed himself, and his burgeoning family. That’s when Jay went back to his college buddy Jack, whose family had been in ranching for a century. Together they became J&J Grassfed Beef.

I first met Jay last summer at the Culver City farmers’ market. I was immediately drawn to the stall, which was sparse, except for a handful of pamphlets, a pristine boxy white freezer, and a young man with wavy, dark blond hair. Jay had the quiet calm of a cowboy and the affable nature of a San Diego surfer, and he talked about the meat in that freezer with pride. It was easy to get excited about all the buzzwords (I had just finished reading Omnivore’s Dilemma, after all): Local, grassfed, no hormones or antibiotics. I brought home a pound of ground beef and made some burgers, and I was hooked.

These days J&J is a real family affair. Jay’s dad, a longtime farmer, helps out on the ranch, and his brother-in-law, Abe, and his wife both help sell the meat at farmers’ markets around the Southland. J&J has two herds of cattle, one that grazes up in Northern California on one of Jack’s ranches, and the other that munches on a mix of grasses down in the Imperial Valley, near the Mexico border. They don’t use specific breeds—their cows are all angus-based, but crossed with other breeds like Charolais and Hereford. They’re moved around the range weekly the old-fashioned way—by horse—and build muscle by eating legumes like alfalfa, which is high in protein, and rye grasses, which is good for the cows’ rumen and full of energy. As the cows move, they fertilize the grasses, making the use of synthetic fertilizers virtually unnecessary. And the grasses they eat are never treated with herbicides or pesticides. This style of ranching, says Jay, eliminates the need for petroleum-based tractors and harvesters and the gasoline that it takes to haul grain all over the place. By pasture raising and finishing the cows, the sun grows the grass, and the cows harvest it.

If their commitment to a natural product weren’t enough, J&J decided to work with a small, local processor, which only runs through about 10-15 animals a week. This helps ensure that the animals are humanely processed and that the beef you’re getting is pure J&J, too. J&J’s beef is then dry-aged, from 10-14 days if it comes form Northern California, and for at least 21 days if it comes from Southern California. And the taste is superlative. Unlike a lot of grassfed beef I’ve found at specialty markets, the meat has great texture and a natural earthy undertone that’s apparent but not overwhelming. It tastes like beef. And it cooks beautifully.

And at a time when financial challenges are making it more difficult to eat your conscience, what really sets J&J’s meat apart from the grassfed beef is that it’s affordable. “We’re a small business, and I’ve got three kids,” Jay told me on the phone recently. “We know how expensive it can be. We’re trying to educate people on the value of roasts. At $5 a pound, you get a cut that’s flavorful and tender, a nice piece of meat. A flatiron steak, at $13 a pound is a great cut for value, too. It’s great for guests.”

J&J is at the Culver City Farmers’ Market every Tuesday, and they start this Sunday at the Atwater Village Farmers’ Market, every other week, until business picks up. You can also find them at Santa Monica on Saturdays, or join one of their CSAs, which they’ll tailor to your family size and meat consumption. If all goes well, maybe we’ll see them at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market soon, too, perhaps with a little nudging of the organizers on the corner of Selma and Ivar.

Until then, enjoy this super-easy (and very tasty, might I add) recipe for taco meat using a cross-rib roast from J&J. This 1.25 pound roast cost me just $6.90 and fed Neal and I a complete dinner with leftovers for a couple of lunches, too. Make your own tortillas and salsa and you’re talking a yummy, kid-friendly, healthy meal for the family for under $10!

J&J Grassfed Beef
www.RangelandBeef.com

Grassfed Beef Tacos
from Jay Shipman, J&J Grassfed Beef

1 cross-rib or chuck roast
1 jar salsa
1 cup beef broth

Place Roast in a crock pot and add ¾-jar of salsa and beef broth.

Let simmer for 5-8 hours depending on your schedule. If needed add a little water to keep meat moist.

Shred the meat and serve over salad or with tortillas and taco makings for a quick taco/burrito night!

Note: If you don’t have a crock pot, don’t despair! I made the tacos pictured above in my Dutch oven. I seared the beef in a little olive oil first, to create a nice brown crust, and then added the salsa and broth. I cooked, covered, at 275 degrees for about 2 ½ hours and the meat was just falling apart. Moist and delicious, these were some of the best tacos we’ve enjoyed in ages. And we love tacos. We topped ours with fresh corn, more salsa, a little crème fraiche and refried beans.

Braised Beef

We all have bad habits. I’m a piler and a procrastinator. I have trouble recognizing when I’m supposed to give the “short” answer to a question. And I tend to buy the ingredients for a recipe without actually reading the directions.

This final habit has caught me more than I’d like to admit staring at a recipe an hour before dinner that tells me I should have started it the night before. Or worse, I’ve gotten half way through preparing something only to discover that I am then supposed to let it sit for three hours to set or that I should refrigerate it overnight. Mishaps like these leave me scrambling and, while they can inspire creative solutions (like packing custards on ice to set them faster), the results are usually less tasty, texturally challenged or complete failures. Those are the nights we eat frozen Trader Joe’s spinach pizza.

I am trying to get better, though. I even decided to sit town with David Tanis’s A Platter of Figs last Tuesday night to look over the winter menu—Slow Beef—I’d planned to make on Wednesday for the Top Chef Finale. Fortunately I had realized that the menu was for 8-10 people when I was looking at the ingredients (7-8 lbs of flanken was a dead giveaway that we would have more leftovers than we’d know what to do with). Wouldn’t you know, not only was I supposed to salt the flank steak for the braised beef overnight, but then he suggested, right there in the intro, that you let the meat sit in the sauce over another night! Determined to do the best that I could (you don’t fall down on Finale night, do you?) I peeled myself from the couch, salted the meat, and made a date with my Le Creuset Dutch Oven for 8 a.m.

Earl Wednesday morning, with sleep still crusting my eyes, I chopped my onions and measured out all the ingredients I would need for the sauce. I browned the meet so that it had a nice crust on it, added the sauce, stuck it in the oven and went to work, which, fortunately, is just down the hall. I popped up from my desk for five minutes here and five minutes there throughout the day, straining and degreasing the sauce, then finally putting it in the fridge for about 6 hours to soak up the flavor. The results were layered, complex and melt-in-your-mouth tender, with the faint sweet heat of the paprika and earthy spice of the cloves coming through. Lesson learned. The extra time salting, slow cooking and letting the meat rest in the refrigerator had really brought the dish together. Reading the recipe had made the difference.

Beet, Egg and Watercress Salad

To accompany the beef, I made a version of the celery root mashed potatoes Tanis suggested, cutting back on the fat in recipe in addition to halving it. But the real star of the evening, though, was the roasted beet, egg and watercress salad we enjoyed to start. Sweet and tangy with a little watercress spice and creamy hard-cooked eggs with the slightly molten centers, the salad was the picture of restraint and balance. My dinner guest that night, my friend Suzy, bravely battled her fear of desserts and whipped up delicious lemon and rhubarb tarts for dessert that were light and refreshing, with wintery citrus flavor and a hint at spring, just around the corner.

I am convinced of the benefits of fully reading a recipe days in advance, but I know I’ll probably falter again. Bad habits are hard to break. And you probably didn’t need the “long” version of the story to figure that out.

Watercress, Beet, and Egg Salad
from A Platter of Figs by David Tanis
serves 8-10

3 bunches watercress
2 large shallots, finely diced
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
salt and pepper
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp grated orange zest
6 medium beets, roasted, peeled and diced small
6 soft-center hard-cooked eggs

Wash the watercress and drain. Wrap in a kitchen towel and refrigerate.

To make the vinaigrette, macerate the diced shallots in a bowl with the vinegars and a good pinch of salt for 10 minutes. Stir in the mustard until dissolved. Whisk in the olive oil, add the orange zest, and grind in some pepper. Taste and adjust for acid and salt. The dressing should be somewhat tart so add more red wine vinegar if necessary.

Put the prepared beets in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Whisk the vinaigrette and pour it over the beets. Toss the beets in the dressing and leave at room temperature.

To assemble the salad , trim short watercress sprigs from the bunch and make a fluffy pile on a large platter. Scatter the beets over the watercress leaves, distributing the vinaigrette here and there. Carefully cut the eggs into quarters and garnish the salad with them. Just before serving, sprinkle the eggs with salt and pepper.

Braised Beef
adapted from A Platter of Figs by David Tanis
Note: This is half the original recipe. It served Suzy and I dinner on Wednesday night Neal and I four or five times each after that. It’s still plenty of food. Try making has with fried egg and potato cakes out of the leftovers, it’s delicious.

3 lbs flanken
salt and pepper
olive oil and vegetable oil or lard
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp paprika
¼ cup tomato puree
½ cup dry red wine
4 cups chicken stock (preferably homemade)
1 large onion, halved
1 bay leaf
a couple of cloves
½ a large thyme spring
Celery root mashed potatoes (BUY THE BOOK!)

Season the beef generously with salt and pepper. Refrigerate for several hours, or overnight.

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Let the meat come to room temperature and dry it well.

In a heavy-bottomed pot, like a cast iron Dutch Oven or enameled iron pot, brown the beef in your choice of oil. You can add vegetable oil to the olive to lower the smoke point. I didn’t. I browned in straight olive oil. When the meat is well colored on each side, remove from pot and set aside.

Pour off any remained fat and return the pot to the heat. Add butter and flour, stirring well with a wooden spoon to incorporate the flour. Stir in the paprika, tomato and red wine. Slowly add the chicken stock and bring to a boil.

Add the onion halves, bay, cloves and thyme. Return the beef to the pot, cover and move to the oven. Cook for about 2 ½ hours or until the meat is quite tender.

Remove the braise from the oven and transfer the meat to a platter. Strain the sauce. Chill it, then degrease it by spooning the fat layer off the top. Taste the sauce and season if necessary. Put the beef back in the pot, pour the sauce over it. If time allows, refrigerate it overnight. To serve, reheat the meat in its sauce. Carve meat into thick slices and serve with potatoes. If necessary, reduce sauce over a brisk flame to thicken it slightly.