Ground beef with padron peppers

I love cooking with padron peppers - they are just spicy enough to flavor the dishes nicely, and they are not so spicy to call for removing the seeds. This makes using them a very simple proposition! In this dish, the peppers elevate the flavor of simple ground beef to levels I have experienced rarely. Marjoram and lemon juice round up the dish nicely. The key to the dish is to tear the ground beef into a skillet. This results in nice bite-size pieces, and eliminates the arduous task of "crumbling" a block of ground beef while it is being cooked.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb lean ground beef. I used 85% grass fed beef.
• 1 onion, chopped finely
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cups of so chopped padron peppers, stems removed
• 1 cup chicken stock, definitely use low-sodium variety
• 1 TBS dry marjoram
• juice of half a lemon
• salt, pepper to taste
• 2 TBS oil

Procedure:

Heat oil in a skillet. Add the onion, a pinch of salt, a few grinds of black papper, and sautee until the onions soften and are translucent. Tear the ground beef into the skillet - aim for about 1/2 inch size pieces. Season with salt an pepper. Brown the beef on a medium high heat, stirring frequently enough that the meat does not burn. Some fat will render from the meat. Turn the heat off and use a paper towel to absorb the excess fat. This will make the final dish much lighter as it removes heaviness of the beef fat.

Turn the heat back on, add padron peppers and sautee briefly to warm up the peppers. Add garlic, and within a minute add the chicken stock. Rub in the marjoram, and stir. Simmer until the stock boils away.

Turn off the heat and stir in the lemon juice.