Julia Child’s Biftek Haché à la Lyonnaise (AIP)

After my first Whole 30 this past August (2014) I haven’t been very successful in adding back the foods I gave up then. I never would have dreamed that giving up food for 30 days would cause my body to reject it in the future. This doesn’t happen to everyone but it actually happens to a fair amount of people, especially if they have an autoimmune disease. I’ve followed the AIP lifestyle for the last 3 weeks and it finally getting to the point where it’s becoming comfortable. For those who aren’t familiar with AIP it stands for Auto-Immune Paleo.

I’m going to assume that you’re familiar with AIP if you’re reading this. If not check out The Paleo Mom, Sarah Ballantyne. She has a PhD in medical biophysics and has written a book titled: The Paleo Approach. With 1200 scientific studies cited Sarah goes into great detail about food and autoimmune disease. Did you know that everyone with an autoimmune disease has a leaky gut? That is, food particles escape the small intestine which leads to the autoimmune response.

These past few weeks the people of Pinterest have given me many ideas on what to eat. Thank you! Tonight I wanted something familiar. I wanted comfort food and I wanted something quick. When I first made Julia Child’s Bifteck Hache A La Lyonnaise I was blown away that ground beef could taste so good. It’s sort of like a poor man’s fancy dinner. I knew the recipe wasn’t AIP compliant so I tweaked it.

Instead of butter I used bacon fat and I omitted the pepper, egg, and flour. For the sauce I used organic mushroom broth, about 1 cup, and thickened it with a little arrowroot dissolved in cold water. I’d say a teaspoon or two dissolved in a splash of water. You can adjust the sauce quantity and thickness to your liking. Just make sure the broth is boiling as you stir in the arrowroot so that it thickens while you stir it.

This recipe will feed 6 people if you assume 1/4 lb per person. You can adjust the number of people in the recipe below and the ingredient quantities will automatically adjust. Don’t you love technology?!

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Julia Child’s Biftek Haché à la Lyonnaise Made AIP

Course: Dinner, Lunch, Main Dish

Cuisine: American, European

Servings: 6 people

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs ground beef
• 3/4 cup finely minced onion (see my meatball recipe if using onion powder)
• 2 TBSP lard, bacon fat, or avocado oil
• 2 TBSP bacon fat
• 1.5 tsp coarse salt
• 1/8 tsp dry thyme
• 1 cup mushroom broth or water (will need to increase salt to your taste if using water)
• 1 TBSP arrowroot starch

Cauliflower Mashed "Faux-tatos"

• 1 head cauliflower frozen will work too
• 3 TBSP bacon fat
• 2 TBSP water or broth
• 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Saute the onions in the shortening until translucent and set aside to cool slightly.
2. To the ground beef add the bacon fat, salt, thyme, and onions and mix thoroughly with your hands. Shape the beef into patties or meatballs, whatever shape you like.
3. Cook the meat, preferably in a stainless steel skillet large enough to cook everything at once.
4. Remove the hamburgers and deglaze the pan with 1 C of mushroom broth and thicken to your liking with arrowroot. I use 1 part arrowroot to 2 parts cold water stirred together that I slowly add to the boiling broth.

Cauliflower Mashed "faux-tatoes"

1. Steam cauliflower until it is fork tender.
2. Add cauliflower, fat, broth, and salt to either a food processor or blender and puree. Taste and adjust seasoning and add more broth as needed.

Recipe Notes

Here is Julia's full recipe on Food.com. While the burgers were cooking I made the cauliflower mash to go with it.

Originally posted on December 28, 2016 @ 22:30

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