Braised Short Ribs

Short ribs: delicious. Could eat 'em for days, not complain once. But somehow I had never cooked them myself, which I think is a by-product of doing little braising or meat roasts in general. In California, where produce is so versatile and so fresh, it's insanely easy to leave meat off the plate. And if it is on the plate, often it's just an ingredient - not a course or a meal. These kinds of meat adventures are special to me because they're so rare and unnecessary in this agricultural wonderland. So tonight, short ribs. Short ribs!

I work right next to Cafe Rouge in Berkeley. Their butcher is off the hook. The boys behind the counter are sweet and sometimes a little too cool for school, but their product is genuinely badass. I ate the best steak of the 2000's a few short weeks ago thanks to them (and Katie, and the cow). Also their beef jerky is no nonsense. Have you ever seen beef jerky with fat in it? Neither had I. It was AMAZING. But enough praise, this is about me and my food. Yesterday I decided the short ribs looked plump and rich and reasonably priced. I picked out a fatty (1.5#, 3-ribs) and for the rest of my 12-hour shift I was daydreaming about what I might do with it. My very own short ribs? This was more than a little intimidating; is there some powerful ingredient to the world's best short ribs that I didn't know about? Not being a meat roaster, naturally I would not know about this. Danger. Caution. Ribs.

What follows is an amalgam of the thoughts of Julia Child and numerous web references, except, I must point out, that of Mr. Wolfgang Puck. I can't respect any man who instructs the masses to spoon the fat off of their roast and "discard." Discard! There are uses for that fat! Why don't you cut back on the shitty potato chips and plastic chocolate, maybe eat a smaller portion and let yourself enjoy the miracle of fat. It worked for centuries. I thought about serving this solo with some toasted pain au levain, but settled on farro for its nutty flavor and delightful texture and farro-ness. If I had been more hungry, or if I were more than one person and needed more food, I would have tracked down some asparagus and fava beans, because man would that be good.

First Short Ribs

A fatty strip or two of short ribs from the best butcher you can find
2-3 tbsp ghee
1/2 yellow onion
3 carrots
4 stalks celery
3 fat cloves of garlic
1 sprig of rosemary
2 tbsp tomato paste, or sauce in a pinch (like my Puttanesca)
~1 cup red table wine (I used a cotes du rhone)
~4-6 cups broth of your choice

1 cup Farro

Preheat your oven to 300*F.

In a dutch oven or some other stove- and oven-savvy pot, melt your ghee over medium/medium-high heat. Did you know that Ghee doesn't scorch until 475 degrees or so? It is pure butterfat - clarified butter that's been boiled for hours. Ghee is my new favorite fat: the duck fat of 2009 if you will. You can use bacon fat instead if you've got it around, can't go wrong there. Any good fat will do. Dogs like the smell of fat, and if you're lucky your neighbor's dog will wander in to keep you company while you work, like this.



Sear the short ribs on all sides in the ghee. Take the meat out and let it rest on a plate, like this.



Then add the onions, carrots and celery to the fat and stir it up. Let these cook until the onions are getting clear, and add the garlic and rosemary. Stir and fry until these are fragrant.

Add the tomato paste and let it caramelize and get nice and sticky. When properly gummy and sweet-smelling, deglaze the pan with your red wine. Hop the ribs back in the pan and add enough broth so that they are covered or nearly-covered, depending on how much meat is in the pan. My one fatty strip of meat was a little lonely in its big pot, so rather than drown it in 8 cups of broth I let part of it stick out - no problem. Cover your pan and slide it into the warm oven.

Roast ~3 hours. The ribs should be easily forked, tender, loose and full of juicy, meaty flavor. And they were.

If you've never cooked farro, this is how I do it: boil way too much water, add the farro and simmer for ~15-20 mins, then drain dry like pasta. I suppose 2:1 proportions would work, like with rice, but I find that measuring isn't really necessary. Farro also makes an incredible breakfast when mixed with a little cream and honey and served with roasted stone fruit. Very incredible.

About halfway through making this dish, I realized I had done it before. With brisket. Braising is, to some extent, just braising. Even if you do it just twice in 28 years, it is a simple thing.

In the end, I remembered that there was chard in the fridge just begging to be wilted. I spooned a few tablespoons of fat and juice from the hot roast and sauteed the chard in that until wilty and fragrant. This was the best chard I have ever eaten in my life. There, I said it. Even Pullo was entranced by the aroma.


Nom nom!

20-hour Meat Roast

The original recipe for this comes out of the book Heat, by Bill Buford. It's not a cookbook, but a book about food and cooking. The original recipe has five ingredients, including the meat, and it's spicy enough to melt your speak-hole off. This is slightly modified and a little less spicy.

"Peposo"
~2lbs meat (I used brisket; recipe calls for shank, which is hard to find)
1 bottle red wine (pref. chianti)
1 head garlic (peeled)
2 tbsp black pepper
1 tbsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp sea salt
1 sprig of marjoram
dash of nutmeg
juice and zest from a small lemon

The rest is easy: put ingredients in a pot. Cook in oven for a minimum of 8 hours, and a maximum of ... oh, I don't know, but 20 worked well for us. Start the oven at a high-ish temperature for the first hour (like 375), then bring it down to 200 for the remaining time. The meat will get stringy and fall apart when touched, and the wine turns into a light brown, meaty broth with lots of great flavor. This is especially good with crusty olive bread, and a glass of wine.

Poor Boy Stroganoff

My friend Sally asked for this recipe, and after typing it into an email I figured I may as well paste it here for others to see - this dish is damn good.

A traditional Beef Stroganoff, as I understand it, is filet mignon with a creamy mushroom sauce, served over a bed of egg noodles. This version uses ground beef and mixes everything into a casserole form, making it easier on the budget to feed a hungry family. This recipe is adapted from the one in "America's Best Lost Recipes," published by the folks at Cook's Magazine. The original recipe is from one Carole Weinberger in Florida. The book is not bad, but focuses largely on sweeter recipes; the first two chapters are starters and entrees, and the following four chapters are dedicated to sweet things of various kinds. I wish it were a little more balanced in that respect, but the next time I'm making a dessert I might be grateful ...

This is the recipe as it's laid out in the book, but I've marked (with *) where I made a few adjustments. The first time I made it, I left out the grated cheese because it seemed so rich already, and it was still quite delicious.

Poor Boy Stroganoff

salt
8 oz. egg noodles
2 tbs butter (*I omitted this)
1 lb. lean ground beef (*I used chuck)
1 smallish onion, chopped fine (*coarse is good too, if you like more texture)
8 oz. white mushrooms, sliced (*I've used crimini, king oyster and shiitake mushrooms, quartered or in wide strips)
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tbs flour
1 clove garlic, minced (*or 3-4 smallish cloves)
8 oz. tomato sauce
1/4 cup dry red wine (*I used more like 1/2 cup the first time I made this - was good!)
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese (*or Asiago)
(*I add 2 chopped zucchini)
(*dash of cayenne pepper)

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Place a big pot of water with 1 tbs salt over high heat (for the noodles). Cook the noodles 5-7 minutes and then drain and set aside (you can do this while you are preparing the sauce).

2. Heat a large (really large, since it will hold all your sauce) skillet over med-high heat, and add the butter. Cook the ground beef, breaking it into small pieces, until it's lightly browned all over. Transfer the beef to a plate lined w/ a paper towel. Keep about 2 tbs of the beef juice in the pan, and discard any extra (this step is why I omitted the butter - you get a little extra flavor from it, but you pour it out anyway! I thought this dish was rich enough w/o it).

3. Add the onion to the remaining beef fat, and cook until golden (~5 mins). Add the mushroom, zucchini, salt, pepper and cayenne, and cook until all are browned evenly.

4. Add the flour and cook for about a minute, until it starts to brown. Add the garlic and cook about 30 secs - 1 minute, careful not to burn it. Stir in the tomato sauce, wine, broth, and beef and bring to a simmer. Cook until it starts to thicken, about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, and stir in the sour cream (yum!).

5. Bring out a large casserole dish and layer: sauce, noodles, sauce, noodles, sauce. This ensures the noodles don't stick to the bottom, and that they get sauce all mixed in with them. Sprinkle the cheese over the top of the dish, if using. Bake about 20 minutes, or a little longer until the cheese is browned. Let it cool 5 minutes before serving, to thicken up.


One note: the first time I made this, I put the beef in a large bowl, poured the wine, tomato sauce, and broth over it and set it aside while I was cooking the vegetables. I think it helped to keep the beef moist, and to start mixing the flavors together. Using more mushrooms than called for also has a nice effect, if you're down for shrooms.