Braised Beef Short Ribs

Last weekend we were looking for a new comfort food recipe to try out, and with all the snow and cold we have been having recently, a long slow-cooking braised dish of some sort would be perfect. The suggestion of short ribs came up, everybody liked the idea, and we went poking around for a recipe to try. The recipe we used was from one of the home websites that Amp frequents (www.chrislovesjulia.com), and the specific recipe is here. Since it is readily available for free, properly credited and linked I will repeat it here (ever so slightly tweaked of course...).

Braised Beef Short Ribs with Mushrooms and Polenta from the "Chris Loves Julia" website.

Ingredients:

• 8 beef short ribs, silver skin removed
• 2 TB canola or vegetable oil (for searing)
• 10-12 oz cremini or button mushrooms (we love mushrooms and probably went close to a pound)
• 1/2 yellow onion, sliced (we used an entire medium onion)

For the braising liquid:

• 4 cups beef stock
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1-2 tsp smoked Tabasco sauce (they make smoked Tabasco sauce?!? We used regular...)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 TB tomato paste
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice

The recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees (F).
2. Heat a large oven-safe pot over medium high heat.
3. Combine all braising liquid ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.
4. Add the canola oil to the pot and sear the ribs on all sides in batches. They need space or you will end up simmering them instead of searing them. You are just looking for a little crusty color on all sides.
5. Remove ribs from pot and saute onions in the pan juices for 2-3 minutes until becoming translucent (I let them go closer to 5 minutes).
6. Place the ribs back into the pot on top of the onions. Pour the braising liquid into the pot. The ribs should be almost covered, but not completely submerged.
7. Put the lid on the pot, put it in the oven (325 degrees F), and let it cook untouched for 2.5 hours.
8. After 2.5 hours, add the mushrooms to the pot, cover again, and cook for another hour.

When done, serve with polenta. We did a creamy polenta from Giada's Everyday Italian cookbook, which is our standard polenta recipe. We didn't do the fried polenta square that the recipe calls for. For a green side dish, a hearty leafy veg like garlic wilted kale or spinach (or green beans or asparagus) would be nice.

This is an incredibly easy and very tasty recipe that I would make again in a heartbeat.

Searing the ribs in batches

All you do is basically sear some meat, slice an onion, and stick a pot in the oven for a few hours. And it makes the house smell great...

Ribs with braising liquid

I found the list of ingredients for the braising liquid to contain some surprising ingredients (balsamic, cinnamon, allspice...), but the long cooking time took the edge off the balsamic, which was also diluted into a lot of beef stock. Everything came together to make a rich and complex sauce, which is exactly what you are going for in this kind of dish.

Everybody in the pool!

And mushrooms make everything better. So we added more than the recipe called for.

...adding mushrooms

The total oven time for this recipe is 3.5 hours, but honestly, we shorted that, and the result was none the worse for it. The initial cook was about 2 hours instead of 2.5, and after adding the mushrooms we cooked it another 45 minutes instead of an hour. So we braised it for a total of under three hours instead of 3.5, and the meat was still fall-off-the-bone-melt-in-your-mouth. We used very good quality grass-fed beef from Whole Foods, so that may have helped too.

Braised Beef Short Ribs with Mushrooms and Polenta

Taste - I'd give this an 8.5 out of 10. Very very good.
Work-to-Result rating - Another 8 or so out of 10. This is as "minimally fiddly" as a recipe can be (so 10 out of 10 in that regard), but it does take close to 4 hours of clock time to make (some searing and sauteing followed by a very long braise where you do nothing). So it's not a week night throw-together dinner.
Cost - Very good. Bone-in beef short ribs are not an expensive cut of meat, and the result is rich enough that you don't need a lot for a satisfying meal.
Overall - Fantastic...9 out of 10. Low-ish cost, very easy to make, we were planning on being home anyway, and the taste was absolutely terrific.

What's for Dinner? - Baked Salmon

The rest of the gang is doing their own thing at the moment, and I feel like writing something...so...what was for dinner?

We have been making a lot of recipes from Giada at Home by Giada di Laurentiis since getting it for Christmas, but tonight we went back to an old favorite; Jacques Pepin's Oven-baked Salmon with sun-dried tomato and salsa mayonnaise. The recipe is on page 118-119 of Fast Food My Way (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). Pepin is one of my culinary heroes, and this book is full of easy to prepare meals that we come back to time after time.

2 pound Salmon filet, oiled and seasoned

Everyone in my family loves salmon, and we generally make it one of three ways - on the grill with a hoisin glaze, grilled (plain) with a tomato, green onion and caper relish, or this way. Given that we got another 3 inches of snow between 10am and 3pm today, and that there is now well over a foot of accumulated snow between me and the grill....

Macadamia and bread crumbs

Pepin's recipe coats a (large) salmon filet with a macadamia nut breading and then bakes it in the oven (we go very heavy on the breading). While it is baking, a sun-dried tomato salsa mayonnaise is made using simple store-bought ingredients that combine to make a fantastic sauce to accompany the fish.

Ready for the oven

We served it tonight with an olive oil and roasted garlic couscous and garlic wilted spinach. And a Jacob's Creek 2012 Adelaide Hills reserve Chardonnay. Jacob's Creek is a huge output wine factory, but a good quality one, and this particular Chardonnay is an excellent value.

Done...

Pepin is a brilliant chef (his Techniques book is a chef-wanna-be must have), and this is a fantastic recipe that requires almost no prep, no fuss, has a very short cooking time, and creates a special occasion worthy end result.

So that was what was for dinner...

Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet

This might be my favorite recipe of all time, and is one of the best loved recipes of my family (and friends). A real cassoulet, a peasant dish of southwest France, is potentially days in the making and has all sorts of not-readily-available-in-America ingredients (in terms of animal parts). This recipe, from the long-ago March 1999 Bon Appetit (page 177), is a wonderful shortcut version that is not at all difficult to make, and doesn't take forever.

End result (no bread cubes and un-garnished)

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs pre-cooked smoked sausages, sliced into 1/4 to 1/2 inch discs or semi-circles. I typically use Hillshire Farms beef smoked sausage and kielbasa.
• 4 large leeks, white and light green parts, thinly sliced.
• 6 garlic cloves, chopped.
• 1 medium apple, peeled and chopped. I use a Granny Smith or similar, as the firmer texture of a "baking" apple holds up better to cooking.
• 1 TB chopped fresh rosemary (or 1 tsp dried).
• 1.5 tsp dried sage.
• 1/2 cup brandy. I generally use a Cognac, although an Armagnac or a Calvados (apple brandy) from Normandy is terrific because of the apple tie-in.
• 28 oz canned diced tomatoes (1 large or two regular cans).
• 45 oz canned white beans, drained and rinsed (3 regular cans cannelini or Great Northern).
• 10 oz frozen baby lima beans.
• 2 cups chicken broth (maybe more...needs to cover the other ingredients in the pot in step 6).
• 3 TB tomato paste.
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves.
• 4 cups diced country style crusty bread, cut into crouton-sized cubes, and a little olive oil. (optional)
• chopped fresh parsley to garnish at the end (optional).

Equipment:

• A large dutch oven or equivalent stove top and oven safe pot.
• A non-stick skillet (only if doing step 8, making croutons).
• A knife.
• A can opener.
• Something to stir with. Pretty simple.

At end of step 4

The recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit).
2. Saute the sausage in the pot over high heat until lightly browned, stirring periodically (perhaps 7-8 minutes).
3. Reduce to medium high heat, add leeks and garlic and cook for 5 minutes or so until softened.
4. Add the apple, rosemary and sage. Stir to combine and cook for a minute.
5. Add the brandy, stir, and simmer 5 minutes. [This is the step at which to inhale deeply and enjoy...]
6. Add the diced tomatoes, rinsed white beans, frozen lima beans, broth, tomato paste and cloves. Season with a little fresh black pepper. Stir to combine (and mix in the big lump of tomato paste). Bring to a boil. [Make sure you are using enough chicken broth to at least mostly cover the other ingredients - see my picture below]
7. Cover, transfer to oven, and bake for 30 minutes.
8. (optional) Meanwhile, cube the bread and saute in a little olive oil to make semi-crispy bread cubes.
9. After 30 minutes of baking, remove the lid from the pot. If doing the optional bread cubes bit (step 8), spread the crispy bread cubes over the top of the cassoulet at this point. Bake uncovered another 15 minutes for a total baking time of 45 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven, garnish if you wish, and serve. Crusty bread and a simple salad are all you need (if anything). And perhaps a nice Cotes du Rhone, Australian shiraz, or similar spicy red...

At step 6

Total cooking time is approximately an hour and ten minutes, and requires very little other than some chopping and stirring. Anyone can make this dish, and the results are amazing. While it may not be authentic in the sense of true rustic French country cooking, it hits the right notes and is evocative of its inspiration.

For comparison, I have pulled Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France (John Wiley and Sons, revised edition, 2005) off the bookshelf. "Cassoulet in the Style of Toulouse" (p. 317) includes as ingredients pork shoulder, ham hocks (or pigs' knuckles), pork skin with hard fat attached, confit (or rendered duck fat), salt pork, sausages, duck legs, etc, etc, etc... Step one of the recipe begins "Two days in advance, season the pork shoulder...". And goes on from there. While this is a fascinating read (as is the whole book), I don't find myself saying "I can do that", or even really wanting to for that matter.

Try this recipe, you'll be glad you did.

Staub Grill Pan

Sometimes a nice little unexpected thing comes along that makes your day. This was one of those.

A few days ago, Amp mentioned that she had been in a Home Goods store and had seen a nice heavy cast iron grill pan that she liked, but it cost something like $50 so she didn't get it. We have been periodically thinking about getting one, since we now have a hood over the stove that can vent properly unlike in the old kitchen. She said it was made by "Steuben, or something like that". I asked if she meant Staub. She said yes, it might have been Staub.

Staub is a very good name manufacturer of cast iron and enameled cookware, much like Le Creuset (the LC dutch oven that we have is my favorite cooking thing). They are high end and expensive. We searched online, found that it was in fact a Staub pan that she had seen, and that it was a current model that was listed on the Williams Sonoma website for $239.

Staub grill pan

She went back the next day, had a choice of red, green or blue (she chose blue), and picked one up for $65. We've already used it a couple times (including the inaugural pork chops above) and love it. It is somewhat non-stick and will season over time, is very heavy so it heats well (and evenly), and does give food that proper grill flavor. Love it!

Vegetable Minestrone Soup

Vegetable Minestrone

'Tis the season to be cooking. With the holiday season upon us and the prospect of many heavy meals to come, we thought it would be nice to whip up a batch of soup to serve as the basis for some lighter meals in and around the red meat fest set to commence shortly...

The basis of this was a Giada di Laurentiis recipe on a Food Network show we saw recently, but we made it from memory, and so I am not sure how closely what we made mirrors her recipe, but it is somewhat close.

Ingredients:

• 3 carrots, medium dice
• 3 ribs celery, medium dice
• 3 medium potatoes, peeled, medium dice
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 can (15 oz) diced tomatoes
• 2 cans (15 oz each) cannelini (white kidney) or great northern (white) beans, drained and split out as noted below
• 1 medium plastic clam-shell package of "Power greens" (mix of spinach, chard and kale I think...)
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried crushed rosemary
• 1/4 cup shredded parmesan, or a chunk of parmesan rind
• Beef stock (one of the larger box cartons plus a little more)

The carrots, celery, potatoes and garlic are sweated in some olive oil in a large dutch oven (we used a big Le Creuset enamled cast iron one...my favorite pot).

While the veggies sweat, put about 2/3 of one can of white beans into a blender or food processor along with a cup or so of beef broth and puree them together. When then veggies are done sweating, add the diced tomatoes, the puree'd bean/broth mixture and the remaining white beans to the pot. Add the power greens (spinach/chard/kale), the thyme and rosemary and cover with beef stock. Simmer for 40 minutes or so. If you have a chunk of parmesan rind, add it prior to the simmering, it using shredded parmesan, hold off for now. The parmesan rind is really nice if you have it; it adds a richness and depth beyond what a simple sprinkling of shredded cheese will do (and it's the part of the cheese you can't really eat anyway...). It also adds some saltiness, so let it all cook out before checking for salt near the end.

At the end of 40 minutes, if using shredded parm, add it now and simmer for another 15 minutes or so. Total simmer time is close to an hour, although this is probably longer than you really need to cook the vegetables to doneness.

Test for salt and pepper, seasoning more if needed. Simmer a few more minutes and serve. (Because the carrots float more readily than some of the other veggies, the picture is a little misleading in making it look like chunky carrot soup...).

Beef Stew

We have tried a number of different beef stew recipes over the years, and while some have been good and some have been not so good, we hadn't yet found one that really jumped out as the keeper for this dish. Until now.

Veggies, sauce base, and browned beef

As we continue to make recipes from Grace's subscription to the Food Network Magazine, we noticed a good looking beef stew recipe in the November 2013 issue (p. 210). We made it, and it was fantastic. Since it is readily available for free online (see link above), properly credited, I will repeat it in short form here. The recipe is fairly simple but cooks for a long time.

Ingredients:

• 6 TB olive oil
• 3 lbs beef chuck in 1 inch pieces
• 4 carrots, 1 roughly chopped and 3 in half inch rounds
• 4 stalks celery, 1 roughly chopped and 3 in half inch pieces
• 1 onion roughly chopped
• 1 TB tomato paste
• 1 cup hearty red wine (I used an old vines Cotes du Rhone)
• 2 quarts beef stock
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 1.25 lbs russet potatoes, in chunks
• 1 lb mixed mushrooms (cremini, shitake, oyster etc)
• 4 TB unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• chopped fresh parsley

Wine..some for stew, some for me

The meat is salt and peppered then browned in batches. Then the roughly chopped part of the carrot, celery and onion is put in the pot to soften. The tomato paste is added, then the wine. When boiling, the beef and stock and thyme are added to the pot. This is then simmered on low for about two hours to cook the beef to meltingly tender.

After this, they say to strain the beef and veggies into a colander, reserving the cooking liquid. The remaining veggies are then cooked in the liquid for 20 minutes or so. We cheated and simply added the veggies to the pot and simmered for another 20 minutes. Do what we did; you'll never notice the difference. Meanwhile, saute the mushrooms in a skillet for 10 minutes or so, seasoning with salt and pepper.

Lastly, make a blonde roux with the flour and butter, and whisk some of the cooking liquid into the roux. When incorporated, add the roux into the stew, stirring to distribute it. Add the cooked mushrooms. Simmer another 5 minutes or so to thicken the sauce and you are done. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley.

Lots of mushrooms

We had this with a nice crusty bread, a simple salad, and the remainder of the bottle of wine used for cooking. And maybe another bottle.

Finished Product

Prep time is maybe a half hour, but total cooking time is around 3 hours, so while this is not a difficult or overly fiddly recipe, it does take a good amount of time. It is well worth the effort. The assorted mushrooms really make a big difference in this richness of the overall flavor. Highly recommended.

White Chicken Chili

Another favorite kids' recipe is White Chicken Chili (p. 365, More Best Recipes, America's Test Kitchen, 2009). I generally make this on a weekend so that we can have leftovers for the work/school week ahead.

The recipe calls for browning chicken pieces, then making a thin salsa-like mixture of onions and different varieties of green chili peppers in a blender or food processor. The blender mixture goes back in the pot with more minced chilis, cumin, coriander and garlic.

Chili and onion base cooking down

This cooks for a while, then some of it goes back in the blender with some white beans, and gets pulsed again to break down the beans. This will help thicken the sauce so you don't end up with soup. The vegetable-bean mixture goes back in to the pot with stock, more whole white beans and the chicken to simmer until done. In the version in the picture I added a diced red bell pepper to add a splash of color.

Final simmering

Total cooking time is close to an hour and a half, but much of that time is different phases of simmering. As far as work goes, there is a decent bit of chopping, and there are a couple of different uses of the blender. It's not a difficult recipe by any means, but does require your attention for good portions of the cooking time. The spiciness can be adjusted depending on the types of green chilis you use. The dish can be garnished the same way you would for a beef chili: green onions, shredded cheese, sour cream, sliced jalapenos, etc.