What I Just Cooked: Short Rib Sandwiches

I was watching some show on TV (I think it was Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) and I see this incredible short rib sandwich being featured. It had red onions and gruyere cheese dripping all over it. Now, I love short ribs and I love short rib sandwiches. I particularly loved the sound of the red onions and gruyere, so I couldn't wait to make my own version of it.

First, I stewed the short ribs with the only things left in the refrigerator: celery, half an onion, a clove of garlic and an old bottle of Paulaner beer. To add flavor, I first browned the ribs until they were pretty crusty. To add even more flavor, I sauteed all the vegetables in olive oil until I could smell the sugar in the air. At the very end, I added about a tablespoon of tomato paste and let it toast a bit. I then put all the ingredients together in my trusty Creuset stewing pot and let the lot simmer for about four hours. With some salt and pepper, of course.

As it turned out, Paulaner made a fantastic braising liquid. Better than beef broth or consumme. I could have used the Paulaner broth as is, but I wanted a really rich, thick gravy so I strained the broth, degreased it, boiled it down by a third and added beurre blanc. The end result was restaurant perfect. Tasted like I'd used glace de veau, without the heavy, MSG salty flavor you often get at restaurants.

So, to assemble the sandwich! On toasted hamburger buns I put down a layer of thinly sliced red onions, a layer of shredded short ribs, a layer of gravy and a layer of cheese. BTW, I wasn't in the mood to buy a big chunk of gruyere at $9 a pop, so I just mixed together leftover Monterey Jack (for the melting factor), leftover Parmesan and leftover Pecorino.

How did it turn out? A+ But then, how can you go wrong with short rib sandwiches?

Kumquats

I've decided kumquats are the S&M specialists of the fruit world. You take a bite and the tiny little devils are so sour you think you're going to scream. And then just as you're about to spit it all out, the incredible, delicious sweetness of the rind kicks in and it's heaven and you immediately want another...

So what exactly are kumquats? They're little, tiny citrus fruits that look like toy oranges. They even come with wee seeds. The inside is SOUR and the rind is so sweet that it almost tastes like the kumquats come naturally sugar coated. There's also that flavor orange rinds have, that complicated perfume which is so concentrated in the peel's oil. You can eat kumquats whole, peel and all, or just eat the peel. Kumquats also come candied.

I'd tried kumquats before, but having bought them at supermarkets, had been very disappointed. This time, I tried some organic ones at the local farmer's market — I just could not believe the difference. Like biting bits of sunshine.

Here's a recipe suggestion: slice some and put them in chicken salads. Or sandwiches. For lunch today, I made a sandwich of leftover chicken, kumquats, celery, and lettuce. I gave it a Middle Eastern twist by making a dressing of yogurt, tahini, garlic, salt, soy sauce (just a drop or two), pickled chili peppers, and chopped parsley. Or course, I wrapped a pita around the entire concoction. Filling and healthy and cheap and oh, so good... I think Julia would have approved!

What I Just Cooked: Apple Empanadas

Last night I made mandu and had about half a dozen wrappers left over. Not really enough to save but too much to throw away. So today, I decided to make dessert with the leftover wrappers. Actually, the whole dish was a leftover treat. I had apples and cream cheese, so I shredded one apple, sugared it, threw some pumpkin spice in and added a big spoonful of cream cheese. After a good mix, I stuffed the mixture into the leftover wrappers and deep fried the parcels. The result was a kind of dessert empanada.

How did it turn out? I'd give the apple empanadas a solid A.

Itadakimasu

Itadakimasu is the Japanese way of saying grace before a meal. A way of thanking everyone who contributed in the preparation of that food, from the people who grew the food to the people who made the meal. I've long thought before every meal we should take the time to remember and acknowledge where and how our food comes to us. To thank the plants and animals for giving their life to sustain ours. It seems to me in thanking just a god, you lose our immediate connection to the physical world around us. In a world of cubicles and boxes, where physical contact is more accidental and brutal than kind or purposeful, it seems more important than ever to remember our interdependence, that it can be a beautiful thing. Itadakimasu is a nice, simple way of saying all that.

Cooking Without Money

I was delighted to find out that there's an Italian dish called "potatoes with escaped lamb" (patati con agnello scappato). The dish contains no lamb, thus the "escaped lamb"! I got all this in Amanda Hesser's NYT article "1971: Mrs. Sebastiani's Malfatti". "Mrs. Sebastiani's" features an Italian peasant dish made with bread, spinach and Parmesan. Hesser explains, "It’s a more direct descendent of the cucina povera from which the dish originates, when cooks would make a meal of bread and what few ingredients they had."

Hesser's article reminded me that I wanted to blog about cooking on the cheap. At the moment, there's a real worry about "recession obesity", the fear that with less money available for fresh fruits and vegetables, people will eat a diet of Spam and empty carbs, thus becoming even more obese than they already are. The thing is, in many parts of the world, the poor eat nutritionally, and oftentimes, well. It's just that in the US and Britain, people have forgotten how to cook well on a budget (they also don't know how to cook). And they've forgotten about cheap vegetables like kale, cheap cuts of meat like pork legs, and complex carbs like beans. I frequently advise people to buy a good Italian cook book because so many of Italy's great dishes are based on cucina povera. I don't know of any cuisine that makes beans taste so good. And the recipes are so simple that you don't really need to know anything more than how to boil water. And if you can't get filled up on pasta e fagioli (pasta and bean soup), you need to see a doctor.

For a simple pasta e fagioli recipe, click here. The recipe is from Epicurious and directed at Americans so all the ingredients are easy to find.

One last thing, most Italian recipes will call for expensive Parmesan (and don't use the thing in the can because that is not Parmesan). I can't afford Parmesan. So I'll buy a small piece of Pecorino or Piave. Also, for cooking, most Italians use the cheaper Grana Padano, saving Parmesan for grating on top of dishes right before serving. I've heard that Grana is creamier and that's why it's preferred for cooking.

Squirrel Cuisine

We have a lot of nasty tempered squirrels around the house and I'm always kidding my husband by saying that he should go out and shoot a bunch for dinner.* Well, I guess I wasn't the only one thinking this because now there's a whole industry in Britain revolving around wild squirrel meat. Yes, nouveau squirrel cuisine has arrived.

I think I should begin with a little history lesson. This one is called The Battle of the Red and the Grey. Once upon a time in Merry Old England, the cute little Red Squirrels lived very happily in the cozy countryside, nibbling nuts and playing alongside the Hobbits and the elves. And then one dark day, an evil armada of North American Grey Squirrels arrived, devastating the landscape. The invading squirrels were big and nasty; the invasion was swift. Poor little Red Squirrels.

But all was not lost. Hearing the cries of the little Red Squirrels, the Gamekeepers of the Nation rose and began shooting the hell out of the nasty Grey Squirrels. Now, Gamekeepers are a thrifty lot. They don't like anything to go to waste. So what did they do with the piles of dead Grey Squirrels? Why sold them to pubs for the public to eat, of course! Well, imagine their surprise when fancy chefs (and even TV chefs) started buying the squirrels by the wheelbarrel full. And they're getting creative. One hotel restaurant is turning the nasties into mock Peking duck.

So how do nasty Grey Squirrels taste? According to an article in today's NYT's Dining & Wine section, it all depends on what the nasties have been eating. If you order squirrel pie, hope your dead squirrel lived on nummy nuts. Apparently, the NYT couldn't get enough of the story, going into a depth rarely explored in that publication.

If you'd like to cook a squirrel, the Guardian website has a squirrel pastie recipe (pasties are basically Welsh empanadas).


*For details, click here.

What I Just Cooked: Beans and Swiss Chard

I saw this basic beans and Swiss chard recipe on a Lidia Bastianich show. All I needed to do was blanch some chard in unsalted water, which I did. Then I drained the chard and chopped it up after letting it cool. The rest was even easier. In a large frying pan, I threw in sliced red onions, garlic, tomato paste, cooked white beans, and crushed canned tomatoes and sauteed the whole lot in some hot olive oil.* What I found really interesting was that you fried the tomato paste before adding the canned tomatoes. As the beans started to coat in the paste, I got the idea to throw in a small amount of dark brown sugar — something about the coating beans made me think of Boston baked beans. I really regretted not having any bacon to throw in. At last, the Swiss chard was added and the dish was finished. Lidia suggested using this as a side dish to meat but I just ate it as the main.

So how did it turn out? I think I'll give this concoction a B.

*In Lidia's version, she added red peppers instead of the red onions.