(no subject)
This is unfortunately going to be food erotica rather than food porn, as I haven't been able to transfer the pics I took of this meal onto my computer yet... but it was SO GOOD I just had to post about it this morning.
Last night's dinner: Beef Short Ribs with Tomato and Fennel
This dish was created almost verbatim from a recipe in The Complete Meat Cookbook by Bruce Aidells and Dennis Kelly, which I strongly reccommend to anyone who tends toward the carnivorous and gets bored with the same old steak and porkchop standards. We've made maybe a dozen or so of the almost mind-boggling number of recipes from this book since I bought it in January, and I've rarely had to make any adjustments to them aside from scaling them down for two people (most of them are meant to serve 4-6). All of my experiences thus far are that the recipes are completely reliable and completely delicious. Additionally, it has a tremendous amount of information about choosing the right cuts, preparing different cuts correctly, learning levels of doneness, that sort of thing. It is definitely one of our kitchen bibles and something we go through every single week during our meal planning. Seriously, go buy it! I only wish these two had written a similar book for poultry.
Ingredients: Again, this was meant to serve two with a bit left over, mostly sauce... it'd be easy to scale back up though.
1 lb beef short ribs
Spice rub for the short ribs - onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, salt, black pepper
1 onion, thinly sliced
6 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely minced
1/2 of a fennel bulb, sliced thinly
1/4 cup fennel fronds, chopped (I just chopped up however much actually came attached to my fennel bulb - next time I think I'd use the fronds of two bulbs, though)
2 plum tomatoes, diced
1 can diced tomatoes, partially drained
1 cup beef stock
1/4 cup red wine (I had to use a cooking sherry because we forgot to stop by the liquor store to pick up another bottle, and it still tasted amazing)
1 tbsp olive oil
Directions:
Create the spice rub and massage into the short ribs, coating as completely and evenly as possible, then let stand for an hour or so.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the oil in a large heavy oven-proof skillet, pot, or dutch oven, and brown the short ribs on all sides, creating a bit of a crust with the spice rub. Remove from pan and set aside.
Drain all but a tablespoon or two of the drippings in the pan, then return to the heat. Add the garlic, onion, and fennel and cook until they begin to soften and take on a slightly golden color. Add the wine and stir, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen any brown, stuck-on bits. Bring to a boil (won't take long) then add the tomatoes, stock, and fennel fronds.
Add the short ribs back into the pan, cover, and place in the oven. Bake for 1.5 - 2 hours until the meat is tender and falling off the bone and the vegetables have cooked down. If the sauce is too liquidy when you take it out of the oven, just set aside the short ribs and put the pan back on the stove top and cook on high heat until liquid is reduced. (We had to do this and it took about 5-10 minutes.) Spoon the sauce over the short ribs to serve. Pair with a caesar salad or fresh pasta. (We went the salad route.)
We really only made 3 adjustments to this recipe - the original only called for the fennel fronds, not the bulb, but this was actually my first experience eating and cooking with fennel, and I wanted ot get a better sense of the flavor. It also made a much heartier sauce. The second adjustment was to use a combination of beef and vegetable stock instead of just beef. And the last adjustment was to cook the short ribs and make the sauce initially in a large skillet on the stovetop, then put everything into a baking dish and cook it in the oven that way, because we didn't have an oven-proof skillet or pot. It worked just fine. (Oh, and technically the recipe called for boneless short ribs, but thats just not something we have access too. We were lucky to fine boned ones.)
This is seriously one of the most delicious, flavorful, and rich tasting sauces I've ever had, and definitely the star of the meal. The short ribs themselves weren't really anything to write home about, but only because our butcher closed shop before we could get there when we finally got out of the house to shop yesterday so we were forced to deal with what the grocery store had to offer.... the ribs really weren't cut right and were far more fat than meat (and I know short ribs are supposed to be fatty, but this was more than what I'm used to). We're considering giving this a shot with a different cut of meat at some point - maybe using a good pot roast or some well-marbled chuck. But one way or the other, the meal was fabulous.
My boyfriend makes a mean tomato sauce, and this dish has aparently inspired him to make his next batch with some fennel in addition to the usual onion/garlic/tomato standard, and also to cook it with a couple of beef marrow bones for some extra flavor (the best sauce he ever made used beef stock in place of water, so we think this would be an improvement.)
I'll post pictures later. :)
Last night's dinner: Beef Short Ribs with Tomato and Fennel
This dish was created almost verbatim from a recipe in The Complete Meat Cookbook by Bruce Aidells and Dennis Kelly, which I strongly reccommend to anyone who tends toward the carnivorous and gets bored with the same old steak and porkchop standards. We've made maybe a dozen or so of the almost mind-boggling number of recipes from this book since I bought it in January, and I've rarely had to make any adjustments to them aside from scaling them down for two people (most of them are meant to serve 4-6). All of my experiences thus far are that the recipes are completely reliable and completely delicious. Additionally, it has a tremendous amount of information about choosing the right cuts, preparing different cuts correctly, learning levels of doneness, that sort of thing. It is definitely one of our kitchen bibles and something we go through every single week during our meal planning. Seriously, go buy it! I only wish these two had written a similar book for poultry.
Ingredients: Again, this was meant to serve two with a bit left over, mostly sauce... it'd be easy to scale back up though.
1 lb beef short ribs
Spice rub for the short ribs - onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, salt, black pepper
1 onion, thinly sliced
6 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely minced
1/2 of a fennel bulb, sliced thinly
1/4 cup fennel fronds, chopped (I just chopped up however much actually came attached to my fennel bulb - next time I think I'd use the fronds of two bulbs, though)
2 plum tomatoes, diced
1 can diced tomatoes, partially drained
1 cup beef stock
1/4 cup red wine (I had to use a cooking sherry because we forgot to stop by the liquor store to pick up another bottle, and it still tasted amazing)
1 tbsp olive oil
Directions:
Create the spice rub and massage into the short ribs, coating as completely and evenly as possible, then let stand for an hour or so.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the oil in a large heavy oven-proof skillet, pot, or dutch oven, and brown the short ribs on all sides, creating a bit of a crust with the spice rub. Remove from pan and set aside.
Drain all but a tablespoon or two of the drippings in the pan, then return to the heat. Add the garlic, onion, and fennel and cook until they begin to soften and take on a slightly golden color. Add the wine and stir, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen any brown, stuck-on bits. Bring to a boil (won't take long) then add the tomatoes, stock, and fennel fronds.
Add the short ribs back into the pan, cover, and place in the oven. Bake for 1.5 - 2 hours until the meat is tender and falling off the bone and the vegetables have cooked down. If the sauce is too liquidy when you take it out of the oven, just set aside the short ribs and put the pan back on the stove top and cook on high heat until liquid is reduced. (We had to do this and it took about 5-10 minutes.) Spoon the sauce over the short ribs to serve. Pair with a caesar salad or fresh pasta. (We went the salad route.)
We really only made 3 adjustments to this recipe - the original only called for the fennel fronds, not the bulb, but this was actually my first experience eating and cooking with fennel, and I wanted ot get a better sense of the flavor. It also made a much heartier sauce. The second adjustment was to use a combination of beef and vegetable stock instead of just beef. And the last adjustment was to cook the short ribs and make the sauce initially in a large skillet on the stovetop, then put everything into a baking dish and cook it in the oven that way, because we didn't have an oven-proof skillet or pot. It worked just fine. (Oh, and technically the recipe called for boneless short ribs, but thats just not something we have access too. We were lucky to fine boned ones.)
This is seriously one of the most delicious, flavorful, and rich tasting sauces I've ever had, and definitely the star of the meal. The short ribs themselves weren't really anything to write home about, but only because our butcher closed shop before we could get there when we finally got out of the house to shop yesterday so we were forced to deal with what the grocery store had to offer.... the ribs really weren't cut right and were far more fat than meat (and I know short ribs are supposed to be fatty, but this was more than what I'm used to). We're considering giving this a shot with a different cut of meat at some point - maybe using a good pot roast or some well-marbled chuck. But one way or the other, the meal was fabulous.
My boyfriend makes a mean tomato sauce, and this dish has aparently inspired him to make his next batch with some fennel in addition to the usual onion/garlic/tomato standard, and also to cook it with a couple of beef marrow bones for some extra flavor (the best sauce he ever made used beef stock in place of water, so we think this would be an improvement.)
I'll post pictures later. :)