Short Rib Ragu

A rich, sticky pot of meat and tomato goodness.

After two weeks of our Belize fish-and-beer diet, I was really craving something meaty and hearty. After all, fish meat is practically a vegetable.

 

This is really the sort of dish that evokes snowy evenings, wool socks, dark stouts, and exhausted ski legs. But I wanted it in July, when the oven shouldn't even have been turned on. Well, whatever--the stomach wants what it wants!

Any ragu takes hours to make. And short rib ragu takes an especially long time, as it involves braising meat on the bone, then taking it off the bone and adding it back into the sauce. 

But--it's still summer, so I had the whole day free. And putzing around in the kitchen braising meat is obviously the best possible way to spend an afternoon.

And this sauce is WORTH the time. It is totally, totally fabulous. Short ribs have a distinct flavor--between an aged steak and a pot roast--a meaty, melt-in-your-mouth fattiness. The tomatoes, cooked for hours, are jammy and dense; the garlic and wine have a mellow sweetness; the onions and bacon are barely detectable in the background. Absolutely delicious. I like to serve it over a big-textured pasta--like rigatoni or campanelle--with a dab of ricotta and some fresh basil. 

Oh hell yes.

This is tied with lamb ragu as my all-time favorite pasta sauce. It takes time, but it's special enough to serve for a holiday or occasion. 

Short Rib Ragu 

Ingredients 

About 8 beef short ribs (2 grocery store packages). Make sure to get the ones on the bone. 

2 large yellow onions, diced

6 strips of bacon, chopped

half a bottle of red wine

1 bulb of garlic 

About 12 fresh tomatoes (I used a combination of roma and hothouse tomatoes)

1 can of diced tomatoes

a cup of flour

olive oil 

salt and pepper 

dash of sugar

What to do 

The first step is to brown the short ribs. A good brown crust on meat is essential to a good braise. First, sprinkle the shortribs with salt and pepper. Heat up a few glugs of oil in the bottom of the pot you'll use for the sauce. 

Dredge the short ribs in flour, then brown on all sides in the oil. You will need to work in batches. Remove the browned short ribs to a plate and set aside. 

Short ribs browning. 

Short ribs post-browning. 

After browning, leave the oil in the bottom of the pan. Dice the onions and chop the bacon--add them to the oil and cook until the onions are starting to brown, about 20 minutes. 

Your kitchen smells amazing at this point.

When the onions are soft, translucent, and a light caramel color, pour in half of a bottle of red wine. Pour yourself a glass with the remaining wine to enhance your cooking experience.

Allow the wine to boil and reduce by about half--this should take about 8 minutes. Stir occasionally, making sure to scrape up the cooked bits of bacon, onion and short rib that may be sticking to the bottom of the pot. 

Wine  reducing with onions and bacon.

While the wine is reducing, peel all the cloves of a bulb of garlic. Place them in a blender or food processor. Add the fresh tomatoes in with them and blitz everything up into a smooth puree. 

Before.

After.

After the wine is reduced, add the tomato garlic puree to the pot. Stir to combine everything and bring to a boil. Allow to boil and reduce on medium heat for 20 minutes. 

Add the can of tomato puree, a dash of salt and pepper, and about a tablespoon of sugar. Bring back to a boil and allow to boil on medium for about 10 more minutes. 

At this point, add the short ribs back into the sauce. Submerge each one. Cover the pot and place into the oven at 300 degrees. 

Leave in the oven for 3 hours and 30 minutes. (Or longer--but at LEAST 3:30). 

During this time, clean your kitchen up, enjoy the smell, and try to resist the urge to peek in the pot too often. 

After the time has passed, take the pot out of the oven and allow to cool slightly for 10 minutes. 

There will be a layer of fat sitting on top of the sauce--skim off most of it and throw it away. 

Remove the short ribs from the sauce with tongs. They will be extremely tender. Place on a plate or cutting board and allow to cool until you can handle them with your hands. 

Short ribs after braising.

When the ribs are cooled, take the meat off the bone and chop or shred it. Add the meat back into the sauce and throw the bones away. 

And---you're done!!! 

Worth the wait!

Boil up some pasta and drown it in this fabulous ragu. Tear up some fresh basil and sprinkle it on, and top it with a blob of whole-milk ricotta. 

I cannot over-emphasize how fabulous this sauce is. Make it the next time you really want to impress. 

Enjoy!

Glover's Atoll Fish Curry

My favorite vacation destination is anywhere with palm trees and baby-blue water. So when we were planning our honeymoon, as soon as I saw pictures of Glover's Atoll in the guidebook, I knew we HAD to go. 

Our hut.

Glover's Atoll has everything I want in a summer getaway: clear Caribbean water, very few other people, hammocks. 
There is no electricity on the island, no running water. You have to bring all the food you want to eat while you're there, and can supplement it with all the coconuts you can crack and all the fish you can catch. Or, for the inept / inexperienced fisherman, you can buy fish from some of the workers on the island. That's what we did. 
I brought curry powder, lime juice, chili paste and soy sauce from the US, and one night cooked a big pot of fish curry with the freshest possible fish. The process had many steps. 
First, we bought a pound of fresh fish fillets. 

Barracuda and snapper.

Blegh!

 The island's workers would chop up and clean the fish on the docks every evening. They threw the unneeded guts, skin, tails, etc back into the ocean, and this created a FRENZY of sharks and stingrays beneath the dock. I called it the Shark Show. We drank sunset rum cocktails and looked down at the sharks (nurse, lemon, black-tip, and reef) churning up the water underneath the dock. 

Shark show!

So once we had the fish (placed into my bare hand), we needed coconut for the curry. This involved physical strength, so I let Adam do it. First, you had to find a coconut and husk out the nut with a pointy sticking-up crowbar.

Then, you crack the nut open and grind out the coconut meat, using a grinding thing.

So now, with both grated coconut and fish, I was ready to make some curry! 

Fish Curry Recipe 

Ingredients

1 lb fish fillet (ours was snapper) 

A small amount of cooking oil

2 onions, diced

2 tablespoons of curry powder

grated meat of 2 coconuts (to make at locations besides islands, use a can of coconut milk) 

2 tablespoons lime juice

dash salt or soy sauce 

1 tablespoon chili paste (or any spicy element: sriracha, cayenne, etc) 

What to do

Put the onion into a pan with the oil and heat it up. Saute the onion for five-ish minutes. Then, add the curry powder and cook a minute longer to fry the spices. 

Add the coconut gratings or milk and bring to a bubble. Allow to boil for 2-3 minutes. 

Add the fish and turn the heat down. Softly cook the fish in the liquid for about 6 minutes. Then, beak the fish into large chunks with a spoon. 

Add the lime juice, soy or salt, and chili paste. Taste and re-season as needed. 

Serve over rice. 

Finished curry. The coconut shavings made it a bit chunky.

This came out delicious. Plus, it took forever to make, so we were starving. 

We ate this curry sitting on the walkway of our hut in the dark. There were phosphorescent fish lighting up the water.

And to drink with it, we made coco-locos. You slice the top off a coconut, add rum to the water inside, and drink. 

This was a gorgeous, memorable night. 

Enjoy! 

Chickpea and Lentil Salad with Coconut Curry Dressing

Fantastic news---I got married! The wedding was a blast, and the first event of the wedding weekend was a barbecue in our backyard that Thursday night. All our friends and relatives who were in town early came over and made merry. We brewed a keg of apricot blond, and I made a ton tried-and-true recipes which are always crowd favorites: smoked brisket, glazed pork shoulder, tomato salad, summer salad.
But: throughout my life, I've accidentally made friends with a number of vegans, vegetarians, people who only eat chicken and no other meat, people who observe Jewish food rules even though they only actually believe in karma, and people who are perpetually embracing whatever new fake-science fad diet is current. These individuals dazzled me with their personalities before I could reject them for their dietary lameness. So, what were they going to eat at the BBQ? I wanted to make something vegan that would be hearty and taste awesome.
So I settled on a curried chickpea salad. I started with one of Mark Bittman's recipes as a base, and improvised a few additions (more heat, more flavor elements, fresh herbs). I tend to love anything including coconut milk, but had never tried it in a salad dressing before.
It was a wild success! This salad came out absolutely delicious and was eaten nearly as fast as the glazed pork. I got more compliments on it than any other dish, and not just from the karma-vegans.
I will definitely be adding this to our regular rotation. It would make great, healthy lunches and is the perfect thing to keep a big batch of in the fridge for the work week.

This was amazing. 

Ingredients 
(This is for a huge amount. Halve the recipe for a more normal amount. Or just eat it all week!)

6 cans of chickpeas
1 1/2 cups of dry lentils
4 shallots
1 can coconut milk (use full-fat, not the light kind)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons curry powder
1.5 tablespoons whole cumin seeds
juice of 3 limes
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce (leave this out if you want the recipe actually vegan)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
dash soy sauce
dash sriracha (or any heat element)
3 jalapenos
1 bunch of cilantro

What to do
Drain and rinse the chickpeas and place in a large bowl. Cook the lentils and add them to the bowl with the chickpeas.
Dice the shallots and jalapenos and add them to the bowl. If you like things spicy, leave the seeds in the jalapenos. If you want it mild, take the seeds out before dicing.
Pour the can of coconut milk into a container (I used an old jelly jar, but a smaller bowl is fine too).
Pour the olive oil into a small saucepan and heat until shimmering. Add the curry powder and cumin seeds and toast / fry in the oil until fragrant--about 2 minutes. Add the toasted spices to the container with the coconut milk. Add lime juice, dash soy sauce, dash sriracha, and the fish sauce (or not). Mix well (shaking works best).
Pour the coconut mixture over the chickpea mixture. Toss to mix. Place in the fridge for at least and hour--this allows the dressing to soak in.
Just before serving, chop the cilantro and mix it in. Add the pecans if you're using them, and mix those in too.
All done!

This was a really, really easy recipe, in addition to tasting fabulous. I can't recommend it enough.

Enjoy!

Apricot-Filled Chardonnay Cupcakes With Strawberry Frosting

Cupcakes make you happy.

Apricot surprise!

My friend Anna is a cupcake genius. Cupcakes are her obsession and she's made a million amazing types. I hired her to make cupcakes for our pre-wedding BBQ based on a Moscow Mule--the drink Adam and I had on our second date, when I stole him a copper mug from Steuben's. Anna's the best baker I've ever met--and she had last Friday off, so she came over and we made these delicious, fruity cupcakes, drank boxed wine, and she regaled me with horror stories of her dating life. A great Friday afternoon.

World's foremost cupcake expert. 

I learned that cupcakes, like cobbler, is a formula rather than a specific recipe. You can improvise endlessly to create new flavors and themes.


Cupcake Batter:
 2 1/3 cups flour 

1 1/2 cups white sugar 

1 tablespoon baking powder 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk 

1 cup canola oil

2 eggs 

1 tablespoon vanilla 

What to do: Mix all the ingredients together! Now you have batter! Place cupcake papers into a muffin tin. Fill each one about halfway with batter. Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Cupcake batter

How to improvise: 

To make more healthy: Replace half of the canola oil with apple sauce. 

To make other flavors: Replace the milk with any other liquid. You can use fruit juice, booze--anything! 

For these particular cupcakes, we used boxed wine. Trashy and delicious. 

Then, to go on these chardonnay cupcakes, we made a Swiss Meringue butter cream frosting, with diced strawberries. This type of frosting starts with an egg white meringue, to which you whip in butter and flavorings. 

Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

6 egg whites 

1 cup butter 

1 cup sugar 

What to do ( I copied these directions from Martha Stewart) 

Combine egg whites and  in the heatproof bowl of a standing mixer set over a pan of simmering water. Whisk constantly by hand until mixture is warm to the touch and sugar has dissolved (the mixture should feel completely smooth when rubbed between your fingertips).

Anna beating egg whites and sugar. 

Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on low and gradually increasing to medium-high speed, whisk until stiff (but not dry) peaks form. Continue mixing until the mixture is fluffy and glossy, and completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl), about 10 minutes.

With mixer on medium-low speed, add the butter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Once all butter has been added, whisk in vanilla. Switch to the paddle attachment, and continue beating on low speed until all air bubbles are eliminated, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl with a flexible spatula, and continue beating until the frosting is completely smooth. 

At this point, add your flavorings. For fruit frosting, add about a cup of finely diced fresh fruit. We used strawberries, but any fruit would work.

Or--add a TB of vanilla and drops of food coloring for classic party frosting. 

Put on cupcakes!

The final exciting part of these cupcakes was the apricot filling. I chopped up 2 cups of fresh apricots, sprinkled them with 2 TB of sugar and 1 TB of cornstarch, then cooked them in a saucepan until boiling, then mashed them with a potato masher. They became apricot jam. 

Apricot filling being cooked. 

Then, we poked holes in the cupcakes, filled them with apricot filling, then frosted them. 

Cupcakes with apricot filling. 

Being frosted. 

Done!

These were delicious, and now, thanks to Anna, I know how to make cupcakes! Maybe I like baking more than I think. 

Yum.

Enjoy! 

Rainbow Summer Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette

The dressing looks a bit green because the cutting board still had parsley remnants.

Summer produce is so delicious and wonderful, you just want salad all the time. During the summer, I love to keep a big tupperware of a mixed, lettuce-free salad in the fridge to eat with everything. 

This salad contains some of my favorite summer things: sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes, herbs. Roasting the corn and red peppers gives extra sweet flavor. I also like to throw a few diced jalapenos in any salad for the occasional burn-bomb.

I don't think people really actually a recipe for salad, but here's what I put into this one: 

Rainbow salad

Ingredients: 

1 cucumber, chopped 

2 packages grape or cherry tomatoes, each tomato sliced in half

4 ears of corn on the cob, roasted, kernels sliced off

2 red peppers, roasted and chopped

2 yellow peppers, chopped

1 bunch spring onions, chopped

1 red onion, chopped

1 bunch Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped

2 jalapenos, finely chopped (I left the seeds in))

What to do

Start by roasting your corn. Rub each ear with olive oil, place them on a cookie sheet, and place under the broiler. As the ears start to look roasty-brown, rotate them. When they're roasted on at least two sides, take them out. Wait for them to cook slightly, then slice the kernels off and put them in the salad bowl. 

Roast your peppers. I use the gas burners on my stove. Poke a hole in the peppers, then lean them up against the flame until their skin is blackened. Rotate to get all sides. Allow to cool, then chop and add to the salad bowl. 

Chop all the other veggies. Add to the bowl. Mix. Add dressing and eat!

I like to serve this over a bed of spinach leaves. 

Mustard Vinaigrette 

Ingredients

3/ 4 cup olive oil 

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar 

3 TB whole-grain mustard 

2 garlic cloves, minced 

juice of 1 lemon

2 TB brown sugar 

salt and pepper to taste 

What to do: 

Mix all the ingredients in a jar. Screw the lid on, then shake like crazy. Taste for salt and re-season as needed. Pour over salad. 

Salmon Rillettes

Salmon rilletes on sourdough toast, with rainbow summer salad. 

A "rillete" means a soft-cooked meat, preserved in it's own fat, sort of like confit. In fact, a lot of rillettes (duck, pork, rabbit) start as a confit, and then are mixed with fat to form the rillette.
So all rillettes are really just fatty, meaty spreads. So obviously, I love them.
Salmon rilletttes are delicious. You mix delicate steamed salmon with smoked salmon, butter, lemon, a tiny bit of sour cream, shallots and chives. It's savory, smoky, fresh, and totally delicious. Serve it on toast--I prefer sourdough. To make it especially fabulous and decadent, fry your bread in olive oil instead of merely toasting.

A perfect summer dinner.

I first started making rillettes when my sister gave me Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook for Christmas. It had a chapter on "potted food": rillettes, pates, terrines. Everything in that chapter is fatty and smoky--the kind of thing your Eastern European grandparents would have liked.
I've adapted his salmon rillettes recipe somewhat--my version is easier to make and eliminates raw egg yolks (which tasted faintly to me of mayonnaise, my enemy).

Salmon Rillettes (makes enough for several meals-for-two, or a party)

Ingredients 

6 oz lox
1 lb of fresh salmon (I bought a full filet and used about half)
1 bunch chives (I bought a package from the grocery. I would measure this at a handful)
3 lemons
3 shallots
1 stick butter
3 TB sour cream
1/4 cup white wine (whatever kind you want)
salt
pepper


What to do

Cut the skin off your fresh salmon if it came in a filet. We will start by steaming your fresh salmon fillet. You want a delicate salmon--don't overcook! Place your fresh salmon in a pan and lightly salt. Cut a lemon in half and place beside the salmon. Cut a shallot in half and place beside the salmon. Add 1/4 cup white wine and 1/4 cup of water. Cover the pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, and simmer for about 6 minutes. You want the salmon just barely cooked through.

Before steaming.

After steaming.

Place the steamed salmon in a bowl. Add the smoked salmon.

Melt the stick of butter in a small saucepan. Chop the shallots. Add them to the butter. Cook the shallots in the butter for about two minutes--you want them cooked, but not browned. Add the shallots and butter to the bowl with the two kinds of salmon. 

Finely chop the chives and add them to the bowl. 

Juice two lemons and zest one lemon. All the juice and zest to the bowl. 

Add the sour cream to the bowl.
Sprinkle lightly with salt. 

Ingredients before mixing.

Use a fork to mix everything together. Mix to spreadability, but not to mush. You want distinct chunks of fresh and smoked salmon.

Taste--does it need more salt? More lemon? Re-season as needed.

Finished rillettes.

Chill in the fridge for about an hour. 

Serve spread on toast or crostini! 

This keeps great in the fridge for weeks. 

Invite someone wonderful to dinner and have a toast-feast. 

Enjoy! 

Fiery Veggie Masala and Cucumber-Mint Raita

This masala is SPICY. 

This is another thing I made for Bachelor-watching Indian Feast night. I wanted to make something seriously spicy to go with raita. Raita is a refreshing yogurt sauce designed to relieve the burn of a tinglingly-hot dish. If I was making the raita, I wanted to really NEED the raita. So I made a basic chana (chickpea) masala with cauliflower, and just loaded it up with jalapenos, fresh red chiles, and cayenne.
If you want a delicious, hearty vegetarian meal without the burn, just halve or eliminate the spicy things in the recipe.
Lastly--raita is a wonderful sauce. So easy to make, and pairs great with any number of things. It takes about three minutes to make.

Veggie Masala of FIRE

Ingredients

• 2 TB butter or oil 
• 2 yellow onions, diced
• 6 cloves garlic, minced or grated (I blitzed mine in the food processor) 
• a 4 inch, chubby piece of garlic, minced or grated (I blitzed this up with the garlic) 
• 3 TB garam masala spice power
• 1 tsp cinnamon 
• 1 tsp cumin 
• 2 TB sugar 
• Salt to taste
• 1 large 32oz can of diced tomatoes (or use crushed tomatoes for a smoother sauce)
• 2 cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 head of cauliflower, chopped up or pulled into florets 
• 3 jalapenos, diced, with seeds
• 2 red hot chiles, minced (note: I bought a bag at the Asian grocery and keep it in the freezer--they freeze great) 
• 1 TB cayenne pepper 
• 1 bunch of cilantro, chopped 

What to do:

Melt the butter in a large pot. Add the onions and saute until barely browned, about 5 minutes. Add the garam masala powder, cinnamon,, and cumin, and fry the spices with the onions and butter for about a minutes (this brings out more fragrance and flavor). Add the ginger and garlic and continue cooking for a few more minutes. All the ingredients should be cooking through and your kitchen should smell great. It's ok if the mixture begins to look at bit dry.
Add the canned tomatoes to the pot--don't drain. Mix, scraping up all the spice which may have started burning on the bottom of the pot. Get the tomatoes simmering, then add the sugar, chick peas, cauliflower, jalapenos, chiles, cayenne, and a dash of salt. The sugar helps the tomatoes "meld" and gets rid of the metallic "canned" taste.
Cover the pot and let everything simmer on low for about ten minutes.
Taste--does it need salt? Do you want it even spicier? More sugar? Season to taste.
Allow to cool slightly. Mix in the chopped cilantro.
 Serve with raita!

Finished!

Cucumber-Mint Raita

Ingredients
1.5 cups of plain yogurt (don't use nonfat)
half of a cucumber, grated
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
3-4 TB (a small handful?) of mint leaves
juice of 1 lemon
salt to taste

What to do

Put the yogurt in whatever container you plan to use.
Toast the cumin and fennel seeds in a dry pan. To do this, get the pan hot and add the seeds. Shake the pan a bit to prevent burning. They should be toasted in about a minute. Add to the yogurt.
Grate your half cucumber and add to the yogurt.
Chop the mint finely and add to the yogurt.
Juice the lemon and add to the yogurt.
Sprinkle in a pinch of salt.
Mix everything.
You have raita!

Finished raita!

Yum.