Estonian Roast Beef and Root Vegetable Salad

Maili Kern learned this from her mother in a village on the Baltic Sea in Estonia. It’s a popular dish served on buffet tables at celebrations. The color, bright pink from beets next to bright yellow and white hardboiled eggs, is a stunning example of how powerful simple things can be in the right hands. Maili’s daughter, Krista Desjarlais, has grown up to be one Portland Maine’s greatest chefs. Here’s the family story that might explain why, and the recipe.

The Recipe

Estonian Rosolje [Rose Oh Lee Ya]

Roast Beef Salad with Root Vegetables

Learned from Maili Kern, of Parnu- Maa, Estonia, in Portland, Maine July 2009

4 medium yellow potatoes
5 medium beets
2 dill pickles, ¼ inch dice
1 Golden delicious apple
4 eggs
1 pound roast beef
1 8oz. jar pickled herring, drained, small dice
1 head leaf lettuce
½. cup light mayo
½ cup sour cream
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp white wine vinegar
Kosher salt
Pepper
Westphalian style pumpernickel bread (Rubschlager brand)
Butter

The day before or morning of:

Roast the beef (or get it already roasted at the deli). Brush it with olive oil, rub it with some garlic, season it with salt and pepper, and put it in a450 oven for 10 minutes, then turned the temp down to 325. Roast for 20 minutes per pound. Steam or boil potatoes and beets separately until a fork slides into them with little resistance, let cool and refrigerate. Hardboil eggs (cover with water, bring to a boil, turn to low and set timer for 13 minutes, strain, cover eggs with cold water, let rest 10 minutes, then peel shells off).

An hour before eating:

Peel potatoes and beets with a paring knife, and slice into 1/2 inch cubes. Cube beef and apple the same size. Put all in large mixing bowl with smaller dice of herring and pickle. In a separate bowl make the dressing by mixing sour cream, mayo, mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper. Add more mustard, salt, and vinegar to taste. Toss dressing with other ingredients. Line a serving dish with lettuce. Fill with salad. Garnish with wedges of hardboiled egg. Serve with pumpernickel bread and butter.

For questions or suggested revisions to this recipe, please contact lindsay@lindsaysterling.com

See how to do it

Estonian Roasted Beef and Root Vegetable Salad

The Story

Great Food Starts with a Great Farm

By Lindsay Sterling

Here is the story of how Krista Desjarlais became one of the greatest chefs in our fair land, cooking at a little restaurant in Portland, Maine, called Bresca on Middle Street. The story really starts in a small village called Pärnu – Maa in Estonia, a northern European country across from Denmark and Sweden and next to Russia. In the late 1930’s a young couple there transformed a derelict farm into a dream of vitality. They had horses, sheep, cows, turkeys, dogs, pigs, geese, and abundant gardens abutting the Baltic Sea. He caught smelt in the ocean. She breaded, fried, and pickled them. She made bread with grains they had grown. The children plucked geese, sending soft feathers in the air. They witnessed a pig hanging, their parents making sausages, and their father putting them in a smokehouse he’d built himself.

One of the children, Maili, was three years old in 1941 when Germans came through the village. She hid in the root cellar while they stole her family’s hams, grains, pigs, chickens, and a horse. In 1944, though, hiding wouldn’t work again. Instead of being done in by their communist countrymen, the young family packed the wool suits the woman had made by hand, and left that night in a rowboat. Paddling away from the shore, they left everything behind, including their favorite horse which watched them go from the beach.

The family made it to an island in the Baltic Sea where they encountered a sailboat, called Juarka, filled with other escapees headed for Sweden. Young Maili, just six years old then, had awful seasickness on that trip, and then scarlet fever. On land, her family split, Maili all by her self to face death with nurses who babbled Swedish in a quarantined hospital wing, the rest of the family to a refugee camp. As Maili saw her own spirit depart, she heard Estonian coming through the window. Her parents and brothers and sisters were calling to her. Her father had found a job as a farm hand.

After waiting eight years in Sweden for a visa to the United States, and a ship ride that seemed as long, in the winter of 1952, the family arrived in New York City. Maili became a young woman, living with her large family in a ground floor apartment with a closet-sized kitchen. One time, a man she liked arrived for a date. He walked into a strange smell and sight. Maili’s mother was at the stove stewing a whole pig’s head and feet, allspice, bay leaf, onion, and carrot. While the young pair were on their date, Maili’s mother finished the head cheese by skimming the broth, pulling tiny morsels of meat off the bones, adding gelatin, then putting the mixture into molds and refrigerating it. Later the family would eat fine slices of chunky cold cuts, dipping bites in horseradish or mustard. The suitor never developed a taste for this head cheese, but he did keep coming back for Maili. The two, Maili and Mike, would become Krista Desjarlais's parents, who now live in the West End of Portland.

Krista would go onto have a wildly exciting cooking career outside of this family story, with stops in Connecticut, Maine, New York, Aspen, Rome, and Las Vegas. She has opened twelve restaurants in her life. Once she was in charge of a team of 70 cooks. But when asked how she became such a great cook, her first thought was of her mother. “She’s Estonian. Everything was made from scratch.”

Maili Kern, pictured fourth from the right, arriving via ship in New York City, from Sweden, in 1952. Her parents who farmed at Parnu -- Maa, Estonia, are the two on the right.

Maili and I cooking rosolje in her kitchen July 2009 Portland, Maine.

The Recipe - Revised 2013

Nicaraguan Beans and Rice
Gallo Pinto
With cabbage and lime salad and sauteed bananas

As Jenny Sanchez, from Leon, Nicaragua, taught Lindsay Sterling in Freeport, Maine, 2009

"Gallo" means "rooster" in Spanish;"pinto" means "spotted." The rice and beans cooked this way look mottled like a rooster's feathers.

Total Time: 1 hr with pressure cooker, 3-4 hrs without
Serves 4-6

1/2 lb. dried pinto beans
1 cup white rice
1/2 tsp achiote powder
1/2 tsp ground coriander
2 cloves garlic
1/4 c. + 1 Tpsp. olive oil
1 ½ Tbsp green pepper, medium dice
1 ½ Tbsp red pepper, medium dice
½ small yellow onion, medium dice
½ tsp + 1/8 tsp salt
16 cilantro leaves
4 bananas or plantains
8 oz. sour cream
8 oz. salsa
1/2 small cabbage
2 tomatoes, large dice
1 1/3 limes
¼ cup cheddar cheese, in ½ inch cubes

Part 1: Ahead of time, cook rice and cook beans. 

The night before, rinse beans in cold water, spread out on a cookie sheet, and pick out any stones. In a large bowl cover beans by a couple inches in hot water. Let sit over night.

If you have a pressure cooker, put the beans in the pot covered by 2 inches of water. Add achiote, smashed garlic, ground coriander. Lock down pressure cooker lid (follow manufacturer's directions) and turn on high. Once pot is under pressure, turn heat to low, and the beans will take just 7 minutes to become soft, like cooked potato. Release pressure and strain beans.

If you don't have a pressure cooker, follow the same directions (minus locking down the lid and releasing pressure). It'll just take a lot longer to cook the beans until soft, more like 45min to 2 hours, depending on how old the beans are. Make sure to add water if you need to so the beans always stay submerged while cooking.

While beans are cooking, cook white rice separately. Put 2 cups water and 1 cup rice in a small pot. Bring to a boil, then turn to low, cover, and let cook for 20 minutes. Keep rice and strained beans covered separately in fridge if you'll be finishing the dish the next day.

Part 2: Start preparing the rest of the dish about an hour before serving.

Make the gallo pinto. In ¼ cup olive oil in large pan, saute yellow onion, red and green peppers until soft, mix in beans and let cook for 5 minutes on medium high, so beans are sizzling in the oil and beginning to brown. Turn over gently with spatula to brown the other sides of the beans. Once beans are slightly browned (10-20 minutes), scoot the beans into a ring around the outer edge of the pan so the center of the pan is empty. Pile the rice into the center. Sprinkle ½ tsp salt onto beans. Fold beans and rice together. Once rice is hot, add cilantro leaves, cover and turn off heat.

Sautee the bananas (or plantains). Peel bananas and slice each lengthwise, then across, so you have 2-3 inch segments each with a flat side. In 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large sautee pan on medium heat, saute bananas flipping once so both sides are golden brown.

Prepare the cabbage salad (while bananas are cooking). The lacy, crunchy texture of the cabbage dressed solely with fresh lime and salt is what makes this simple salad mind-bogglingly refreshing. To create it, try this knew way to cut cabbage. Slice off two inches from sphere. Hold the piece, inside up. Instead of slicing straight up and down, as you shave thin pieces off with a paring knife, flick your wrist as if you are drawing with the tip of the knife the letter “c” away from you. (Use only lacy thin shavings for salad, save any large thick pieces for some other purpose.) Pile cabbage on the top half of each serving plate, top with diced tomato, squeeze fresh lime all over (about 1/3 of a lime per person), and sprinkle more salt than seems sane.

Assemble the rest of the plates. Getting the rice and beans and the bananas onto the plate in a cool, appetizing way is like making a sand castle with small dishes as your moulds. Fill a 1 c. sized rounded dish or measuring cup with rice and beans and press down. Flip over onto the center of the plate. Now make two banana piles with a smaller dish in the same way on each side of the rice and beans. Below the row of rice and beans and bananas, put a generous dollop of sour cream and a couple spoonfuls of salsa. Sprinkle cubes of cheddar on top of the rice and beans.

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2013

Nicaraguan Gallo Pinto with cabbage & lime salad and sauteed bananas

I consider this a total and complete cure for Lunch Boredom Syndrome. It’s not a sandwich, wrap, panini, pizza, burrito, or taco. It’s special: a whole plate of food – with lots of surprise. Jenny Sanchez graced my life with this dish. She moved to the U.S. from Nicaragua 41 years ago, and just my luck, lives down the street.

Here’s the recipe.
And Jenny's story.