Short Ribs and Fatback

I admit it, I am a lousy photographer. You won't even know what that image on the right is until I tell you, but it was so frigging delicious I had to photograph the dish.

I am very fortunate that I have a lot of good friends. One who appears out of nowhere whenever I think of him. He lives in LA and has a house in the UK but appears in NY anytime I need a friend. Either we have a psychic connection or my phone is bugged.

M called me the evening before he was due to arrive and wanted to make sure I had no plans for dinner. I said I was free, let's go somewhere and started to suggest restaurants. His response; I'm good with potluck, let's just hang out at your place and I'll have whatever you are having. I told him he would get a pasta, that I had a full day and no time to shop.

One of the great benefits of living in NY is that you can get pretty much anything DELIVERED. The following morning at 9 a.m. my doorbell rang and there was a delivery man with a bag of gorgeous short ribs, a bottle of wine and a box of seriously dark chocolate.

Clearly I was meant to cook and M wanted dinner, not pasta.

I tend to avoid short ribs in the summer, though I love them, they are a slow cook and all day affair. Due to the wonderful convenience of the crock pot I went for it.

6 gorgeous short ribs
1 large onion chopped
5 cloves garlic chopped
2 ripe Roma tomatoes chopped
1 cup Rose wine (okay you can use any wine, but I had Rose open)
1 cup Stock (whatever you have in the freezer)
1 cup white beans
1/2 pound fatback or slab bacon in chunks
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

Brown your onion til caramelized then add the garlic til soft. Dump in the crock. Salt and pepper your ribs and brown them in the same pan. Toss in the fatback and saute til golden. Dump it all in the crock and de-glaze your pan with the wine. Dump it in along with the stock, the beans, the tomatoes. Stir, turn on high and cover.

Go take a shower, have breakfast, make some more coffee...whatever you do in the morning.

After about an hour reduce the crock to low.

Go away, come back 5 to 10 hours later. Your house will smell amazing.

Remove everything from the pan with a slotted spoon and turn the crock to high again to reduce the sauce.

Separate your elements. Put the beans in a bowl, the fatback on one plate the ribs on another. Once the sauce has reduce a bit dump the ribs back in and turn to low.

Take your fatback and put skin side down in a cold nonstick pan and turn to medium. Wait for it to sizzle and brown. Get your hand blender out and puree the beans. Turn your fatback over and crisp and brown the other side. When crisp move to a plate and re-heat your bean puree. Put a little bean puree on the plate, layer the bits of crisp fatback and drizzle a touch of balsamic over the whole thing.

Okay, I know the photo is awful, I reduced it to BW because I was hoping for artistic. I failed. Anyway, the taste of the fatback is like a foi gras. It loses a lot of it's salt and absorbs much of the meaty goodness of the ribs. With the creamy beans and the slight acidity of the vinegar it all melts in your mouth.

Trust me, this tastes way better than it looks. Forget calories, in fact don't even tell your guests what they are eating until they taste. They will be shocked that it is fatback.

Fix a nice green vegetable, you have just eaten a portion of fat, you need the fiber.

Put your tender gorgeous ribs on the plate with the crisp light vegetables and go for glutinous to virtuous. With enough wine you will forget the fact you have been eating creamy slices of fat.

I recommend a rich, dark, dense, expensive Malbec to have with this feast, but any red will do.

You COULD have it as one dish and throw away the fatback, but that would be wasting some pretty good fat in my opinion.

Anything But Chicken Soup

Sometimes we all need a bowl of chicken soup. It can help cure just about everything or to quote Stephanie Lee..."It can fix most anything 'cept the break of dawn and a broken heart."

Having had a little procedure yesterday I was off my red wine diet and needed something that would go down easy. Even when you feel rotten chicken soup goes down easy. So whether you've had a bone graft, or feel a little flue-like this recipe will help to heal.

8 cups chicken stock (canned and boxed are never very good)
2 carrots diced
Celery leaves finely chopped
Parsley finely chopped
Fresh Dill finely chopped
8 cloves of garlic finely diced
1 onion cut into semi-small chunks
A little olive oil
Shredded chicken (optional)
1 lemon wedge per bowl

I tend to make my stock in advance and reduce it so that it is ready in the freezer for whatever is needed, but a great time to make chicken soup is the day after you have had a roast chicken. Thrown the bones in the pot with water and whatever else you have and boil it down for several hours. If you don't cook and want a specific recipe grab a cookbook. I never make it the same way twice.

In a large pot saute the onion in the oil 'til it begins to carmelize then add the garlic, just when your garlic begins to brown throw in the stock and all the vegetables. While that is coming to a boil it is time to make the noodles. Come on, you didn't think I was going to open a bag.

Grandma's Thumbprint Noodles
A pile of flour
An egg
Salt and black pepper

Crack the egg into the flour and salt it well, then grind in some pepper. Beat with a fork and begin to incorporate flour. It will get gummy then doughy. When it become doughy knead a few times until you have a nice dough that is not too sticky.

You can roll the dough out and cut into nice even noodles, but my Grandma Ett did it with her thumb. Take a little pinch of dough and squeeze/roll between your thumb and your forefinger. Set them aside until they are done and then drop into the boiling stock and vegetables making sure you stir so they don't stick together. They will be soft in about 14 minutes. Throw in the diced chicken if you have it, otherwise just ladle into a bowl and top with the diced herbs and a squeeze of lemon.

This goes great with a light red, or a rose, but if alcohol is forbidden due to a painkiller it's not bad with a bit of club soda and a splash of juice.

It doesn't cure everything, but it never hurts.

Fuct TV Dinner (Matthew Shepherd's pie)

Fuct gets a recipe because quite frankly they need the publicity so if you click on the title you go to their webpage and can have the chance to see them.

They are a very talented group or to my mind a wonderful profusion of great ingredients that could use the help of a chef (director) to take them to the next level. Their show has a promising opening in that they completely get your attention and make you believe they will go anywhere for a laugh, and sometimes they do. It is however a promise that could be much more fully realized. There is a lot of intellegence and if they are willing to take a few more emotional, physical and intellectual risks they will be the caviar of comedy troupes ie fish abortions.

Less reliance on beer and more reliance on strong writing with great endings will move them into prime time.

For now they get a tv dinner. It's a nice meal, you can make it home, ahead of time and pop it in the oven to warm. Maybe not as fresh and exciting as you like, but still fully satisfying.

Makes 4
1 lb ground lamb
1 large onion
1 finely chopped carrot
1 cup finely chopped celery
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
5 finely chopped cloves of garlic
Salt
Pepper
A dash of freshly grated nutmeg

The topping
5 Large potatoes boiled and mashed
Heavy Cream
1/4 lb butter
1/2 pound goat cheese
1 cup finely chopped green onion or scallion

Brown the lamb with the onion, when almost done add the garlic carrot and and celery. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, when it tastes right add the peas and chopped olives and set aside.

Mash your potatoes and make creamy with the butter and enough heavy cream. Stir in the goat cheese and scallion.

Divide the lamb into 4 small ovenproof dishes. Full cover with the mashed potato mixture.

Pop in the frig, go see Fuct at the Cherry Lane. Come home hungry and a little drunk, pop in oven for 30 minutes. Consume at a rapid pace. Take a Rolaids. Go to bed.

If you don't eat them in a couple of days, freeze. They freeze well.

Stuffed Pork

Stuffed Pork Loin.

1 2 lb pork loin rose cut (ask the butcher to do it for you)
1/2 cup pesto sauce
2 large apples
2 large onions
1/2 cup cooked rice
Salt and Pepper
olive oil
Splash of brandy or Cognac

Slice the peeled apple and onion thinly. Saute together in a saucepan with some olive oil until they both become creamy and carmelized. Deglaze pan with a touch of cognac and let cool. Stir in the rice.

Unroll the pork loin and salt both sides. Rub the interior with the pesto and then stuff, roll and tie. Rub a little freshly ground pepper on the outside of the roast and put in a shallow pan in a 350 over for about 45 minutes. rest and carve into slices. If the pork is not overcooked the roast will be moist and the inside literally creamy.

Delicous at brunch topped with a poached egg.

Jordan Ett's State Fair Drunken Beef Stew

Keeping with the theme of drunken food I am doing this particular recipe for my nephew Jordan. He loves to cook and is always busy. This dish is ideal in a slow cooker. In the photo Linnea is on the left with Jordan in the Center and I am on the right. My big visit of the year typically involves the Minnesota State Fair. I freely admit that there is very little about the State of Minnesota that I like (Other than my relatives)but I do love the State Fair. The spectacle of deep fried 'everything' on a stick is endlessly amusing, but I really love the animals, baked goods and crafts. This fair really is for the Farmers and it is a great way for us city folk to connect with the wonderful men and women who feed us. I have an enormous appreciation for the small farmers who manage to hang on despite the odds. If you have a farmers market or green market near you shop there.

On a related note...Beef; what is typically sold in the grocery stores is of very poor quality, filled with antibiotics and grain fed. Grain fed beef should always be avoided. Feeding cattle grain is horrible for their digestion and they must be given huge quantity of antibiotics to tolerate grain. In addition it destroys the balance of the Omega3 and Omega6 fatty acids and makes the beef difficult to digest and unhealthy to eat. Even the beef sold by Whole Foods (whole paycheck) as grass fed is grain finished to fatten it up and therefore very unhealthy. Talk to the Farmers in your area and see who has grass fed and finished beef and order from them. The taste will amaze you with it's natural richness and you will be doing something good for yourselves and the planet.

Drunken Beef
A little Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 veal knuckle bones
2 lbs beef stew meat (try to find some that has marbling, fat adds flavor)
5 large onions peeled and chopped into large chunks
20 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
1 lb. baby carrots
1 cut chopped celery with leaves
4 cups chopped spinach
1 bottle of beer (dark is good)
3 cups beef broth (Rachel Ray lies, canned never gives it the 'cooked all day' taste, but since you are cooking it all day anyway go ahead if you have no homemade stock on hand)
1/4 cup sweet Paprika
Salt
Pepper
A little sour cream for garnish

Get the crock pot out of the cupboard, plug it in and set on the counter. Dry the beef if it is damp and liberally salt and pepper. Cut into smaller pieces if they come larger than bit sized. Put a little oil in a heavy bottomed pan and brown in the hot oil, along with the veal bones. Stir them around and let them get kind of crusty. The more brown the more flavor. When ready dump in crock pot.

Put your onion in the hot pan and the moisture from the onion will begin to deglaze the pan, when they begin to brown add in the garlic and continue for a few minutes until the garlic has softened. Dump on the meat.

Put in a touch more oil and throw in all the veggies except the spinach, par cook them for about 10 minutes. Remove, cover and refrigerate.

Pour the beer in the hot pot and make sure you stir in every bit of brown clingy stuff when pot is fully deglazed dump beer on beef. Stir in the paprika.Add the stock. The beef should be fully submerged but not drowning. Put on the lid, turn on high and go take a shower, get ready to go to the Fair.

When your Father starts telling you to get your shoes on since it is time to leave turn the crock down to low, tie your shoes (if you wear sandals put some sunscreen on the top of your feet, you know how easily you burn)

When you get home take the veal bones out of the pot and add in the vegetables, turn back on high and give a good stir. Go tell your Mother about how much fun you had and how you REALLY are old enough for the haunted house now and promise not to have nightmares. Taste the stew and add salt if needed.

Put some water on to boil for a few noodles. When the noodles are cooked plate them and dump a good serving of stew on each plate, top with a dollop of sour cream. Have your sister get Daddy a beer and Mama and Uncle Karl a glass of red wine. Sit down and enjoy.

I'll put the leftovers away and it will be even better tomorrow for lunch.