The Columbo Cookbook: recipe testing John Cassavetes’ Youvarlakia (Minted Beef)
Food – dogs – books – films
It’s always satisfying when I come across something that combines at least two of my major passions. And, for the record, my major passions include: food (obviously), dogs (especially English cocker spaniels), books and films.
For instance, as Ernest Hemingway is one of my favourite writers, I was thrilled to discover The Hemingway Cookbook by Craig Boreth, which includes recipes such as Pilar’s Rabbit Stew from For Whom the Bell Tolls, and has as its introductory Hemingway quote:
“I have discovered that there is romance in food when romance has disappeared from everywhere else. And as long as my digestion holds out I will follow romance”.
I love that Hemingway was famously fond of dogs too (and cats, but I try to forgive him that) and am thoroughly charmed when he writes of a dream where he’s irresistible to dogs, women and a particular lioness who catches game and cooks it for him. One of my favourite photos of Hemingway is him reading, naked on his bed, his spaniel companion lying on the floor next to him – don’t be shy clicking on the photo link as a strategically placed New York Times spares any blushes.
Imagine my joy, then, when I came across Silver Screen Suppers, a blog about ‘The wonderful world of film star dining and drinking’ which was looking for cooks to test recipes for a forthcoming Columbo Cookbook.
I’ve always been a fan of the Columbo TV series of the 1960s and 1970s (although admittedly I’m not so keen on the later years) because regardless of the holey plots and continuity gaffes you get to see the superb Peter Falk go head to head with each episode’s homicidal famous guest star – often the opportunity to see again old Hollywood actors and now-cult TV stars.
If you’re a foodie Hemingway fan, you’ll want to read this article in the Paris Review which takes a fascinating look at the food notes and recipes found among his personal papers. The article includes a test of his recipe for Papa’s Favorite Hamburger.
John Cassavetes guest stars in Ètude in Black
From the list of recipes to be tested, all associated with the rain-coated detective’s famous guest stars, I selected John Cassavetes’ Minted Beef which Silver Screen Suppers found in Johna Blinn’s Celebrity Cookbook and referenced a 1971 newspaper interview with Cassavetes.
I was partly drawn to this recipe as the Minted Beef is in the form of meatballs, which I love, and I also thought I knew pretty well the 1972 Ètude in Black Columbo episode in which John Cassevetes guest stars (incidentally, this episode is the first to feature Columbo’s dog). But, I confess that part of the reason for my choice was that I did have a little crush on Cassavetes who was also brilliant and devilishly handsome in Roman Polanski’s bizarre and wonderful film of Rosemary’s Baby.
It was with some dismay then, that I read in the 1971 interview that Cassavetes couldn’t cook (“I can’t make coffee!”, he apparently cried) so that the recipe, based on youvarlakia and reflecting his Greek heritage, was actually from his wife, fellow actor Gena Rowlands. For me, being able to cook is as essential as the ability to tie your own shoelaces so I get more than a little disappointed when people I admire wear their uselessness in the kitchen almost like a badge of honour.
But even worse was to come. Talking about the environment in which children were currently growing up, he dropped the bombshell: “I believe… very strongly, that girls… have very little to offer. I mean in terms of their lives except being soft and feminine and the strange kooky beasts that men love.”
Oh brother! A pretty stunning statement, particularly when you consider the very accomplished woman he was married to (in the interview he mentions that Gena Rowlands is also a painter and sculptor as well as actor, mother and cook).
Ah well, so much for handsome John Cassavetes. I’ll dedicate the rest of this article to girls and women everywhere plus the boys and men that cook, handsome or not.
Minted Beef or Youvarlakia
The tomato sauce in which the Greek youvarlakia meatballs are simmered is a simple one, just butter, onions, tinned tomatoes, water, salt, pepper and sugar.
The meatballs consist of minced beef, onion and rice, bound together with eggs, and flavoured with mint. Mint is possibly my favourite herb, next to coriander, so I put in about four times as many fresh, chopped leaves as the recipe called for.
The meatballs are very different to the ones I usually make, and I was a little disconcerted to read that the Cassavetes/Rowlands ones are cooked, without browning first, in a tomato sauce. I always brown my meatballs first as I think a coloured, crusty outside adds an important flavour to the dish. However, these youvarlakia contain a lot of raw rice and I was worried that, if fried first, the rice might go hard and crispy and then never soften in the sauce. Not fancying the crunch of uncooked rice ruining my soft, beefy meatballs I decided to follow the recipe and forgo the browning stage.
Get my pork & veal meatball recipe here I think Lieutenant Columbo would approve of these Italian-American influenced beauties, flavoured with fennel, sage, Parmesan and lemon.
With hindsight, I should have chopped the onion much finer, possibly in a food processor, as I think this would have helped the meatballs stick together a little better. As it was, a few of them broke up a little when they were simmering in the sauce – not helped by the fact that I’m an compulsive stirrer of pots and sometimes don’t know when to leave well alone.
Youvarlakia, Gena’s Oven Pilaf & Greek Salad
Despite the amount of rice in the Cassavetes/Rowlands version, I decided to go with ‘Gena’s Oven Pilaf’ as an accompaniment, as suggested in the newspaper interview with John. However, I drew the line at including mushroom soup as listed the recipe and used chicken stock instead but, with a respectful nod to Gena’s original, included some chopped mushrooms to the sautéing onions before adding the rice and stock and baking in the oven.
Alongside the meatballs in sauce and the pilaf, it seemed fitting to serve them with a Greek-style salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, Kalamata olives and feta cheese in an oregano and lemon flavoured dressing. This provided some welcoming freshness and crunchy texture to the meal.
Although it won’t convert me away from Italian/Italian-American meatball recipes (I still prefer browned meatballs and ones which don’t contain fillers like rice or breadcrumbs as I like a good meatiness to them), we did enjoy our first taste of youvarlakia minted beef.
Epilogue
As a change from writing articles about my own recipes, testing and giving feedback on someone else’s turned out to be a really fun project (as well as necessitating an afternoon of pleasant ‘research’, i.e. feet up, watching Columbo DVDs) and I enjoyed some photographic silliness with dark glasses, sheet music of Chopin’s Ètude Op.25 and pink carnations – which of course will mean nothing to you if you’re reading this without benefit of having seen Ètude in Black…
Actually, I found I didn’t know the episode as well as I thought and, being a big Orson Welles fan, I’m surprised I hadn’t previously spotted a few references: the screeching cockatoo almost identical to the one in Citizen Kane and the fact that the murdered pianist came from Kenosha, Wisconsin – Orson Welles’ birthplace. When I went online to check my recollection of these facts, I of course found all this was common knowledge among Columbo cognoscenti and that, rather than cleverly working it all out for myself, I’d actually missed the big flashing clue: the murder victim was called Jennifer Welles; pretty cute for a TV series that many people would dismiss as schlock, and perfect fodder for those of us who love spotting these connections.
So, thank you Silver Screen Suppers, for introducing me not just to a new meatball recipe, but the opportunity to look again at a Columbo classic.
Unusually, I’m not including any recipe in this post as it’s the work of Silver Screen Suppers – you’ll just have to buy The Columbo Cookbook when it’s published…