(Belated Again) Chinese New Years Meal #6: Sichuanese "Send-the-Rice-Down" Chopped Celery with Ground Beef (Jia Chang Rou Mo Qin Cai)

Some recipes are far more trouble than they are worth.  We have made more than our fair share of dishes that take hours and involve dirtying up every single pot and pan in the kitchen, but turn out to be just ok in the end.  Other recipes are so simple and come together so quickly that you can't imagine that they will be that good in the end.  And then they end up blowing you away. Those recipes are few and far between, but this dish happens to be one of them.  There are less than 7 ingredients total in the entire dish, but there is so much flavor.  The broad bean paste gives the dish heat, but what I really enjoyed is the combination of ground beef and Chinese celery.  The meaty, rich flavor of the ground beef is a really good counterpoint to the grassy, distinctly herbal flavor (and crisp texture) of the Chinese celery.  I don't know how substituting regular celery for the Chinese celery would affect the dish, but I would definitely be willing to give it a shot.  I think if you use regular celery the recipe says that you need to peel the little celery strings off, which seems a little finnicky and irritating, but such is life.  If the flavor of the final dish is a rough approximation of the flavor of the Chinese celery in this dish, I would make it again and again.

Recipe after the jump!

Chilaquiles with Southwestern Pulled Brisket

What do you do when you have like 3/4 of a pound of Southwestern Pulled Brisket left in the fridge and 3 ripe avocados?  You could make more of the same tacos, but that's kind of boring.  I guess you could make sandwiches, but that's pretty boring too.  We had roughly 20 corn tortillas leftover from the tacos (Alex bought the family-sized package) so it made sense to make more tacos or something that uses tortillas rather than going out to buy bread.  I wanted to make migas or breakfast tostadas, but Alex decided (and since he was cooking I couldn't protest too much) that he wanted chilaquiles.  By the time I got home from work he had already put together the red chili sauce and fried up the tortillas.  I have to say, it's pretty nice to come home to a homemade meal that is already well underway!

The red chili sauce was not my favorite - I thought it was a little bitter/harsh.  It had a nice spice level, but I was a little alarmed by my first taste of just the chili sauce-coated tortillas.  But the bitterness worked fairly well with the leftover brisket (which was sweet and meaty) and the leftover pickled shallots (which were slightly spicy/sweet and nicely acidic).  If you don't have brisket you could try serving with a fried egg (or poached eggs) and the fatty richness of the oozing egg yolk might also work with these chilaquiles.  In that case I might add some honey to the red chili sauce to add a little sweetness to counteract the bitterness.  I wasn't originally planning on squeezing fresh lime juice on the top of the chilaquiles because I didn't want to make them any soggier than they already were, but I needed the additional freshness, acidity and bright flavor of the lime to really make it work.  When I tried another bite of everything after squeezing the lime over the top it all came together nicely.

Recipe after the jump!

Southwestern Pulled Brisket Tacos with Spicy Pickled Shallots and Spicy Green Onion Slaw

When left to his own devices, if I ask Alex to pick out a recipe for dinner he will pick an Asian (or Asian-influenced) recipe nine times out of ten.  I usually go with it, but Sunday night I wasn't in the mood for Asian food.  Thursday night Alex and I went to Ma Peche for dinner for upscale Vietnamese-influenced food.  Then we made a chicken stir-fry over sizzling rice for dinner on Friday.  On Saturday Alex and I took his brother to Biang! in Flushing and then gorged ourselves on dumplings that we picked up in Flushing that evening.  And then Sunday afternoon we made a tofu dish from Every Grain of Rice:  Simple Chinese Home Cooking.  Enough already.  Don't get me wrong - I love Asian food.  But sometimes I want to experiment with other cuisines.  I crave variety.  So I called an audible on the brisket recipe that Alex had selected (braised brisket with star anise, soy, etc.) and declared that we were making a brisket taco recipe I found on Smitten Kitchen instead.  The recipe at Smitten Kitchen called for cooking the brisket in the slow cooker for 8-10 hours but I was too lazy to get the slow cooker out of storage so we decided to braise it in the oven instead.  In some ways I wish we had used the slow cooker because the brisket might have been more tender, but whatever.  It might also have helped with the tenderness if we bought a brisket with slightly more fat on it.  Our brisket was fairly lean, but I wasn't going to hit the grocery store again for a fattier piece.

This dish was one where each element contributed to the final dish in some crucial way.  When I sampled each component I wasn't blown away by any of them.  But when you combine them something really delicious happens.  The brisket was sweet, meaty and (relatively) tender.  It represented one of the few instances where I thought that molasses did wonderful things to a dish by providing depth of flavor and sweetness, without being too overpowering.  The slaw and the pickled shallots added some much needed heat and acidity to the tacos.  I really liked the combinatation of olive oil and mayo in the slaw because it added moisture and creaminess without cooling the slaw down too much and making it heavy and mayo-laden.  As a side note, this isn't a slaw that I would eat on its own - I think it is a little aggressively spicy for that (perhaps if I used one chili it would be better for snacking), but it was the perfect slaw to serve on top of (or with) the brisket to really kick it up a notch.

Recipes after the jump!

(Belated) Chinese New Year Meal #5: Xi'an Potsticker Dumplings (Xi'an Guo Tie), Tofu Shreds with Baby Bok Choy and Tiger Salad (Lao Hu Cai)

When I first saw this recipe for Xi'an Potsticker Dumplings I got really excited because they look like the pan-fried pork dumplings from A&J Restaurant in Rockville, Maryland (pictured below).  A&J is one of my all-time favorite Chinese restaurants and I try to visit every time I find myself in Maryland.  The filling is different - I'm not sure that I have ever had Chinese dumplings with a beef filling, but I can't swear to it.  I know that I have never made beef dumplings at home.  I will be the first to admit that my dumplings don't exactly look like the ones at A&J (and their bottoms are a little bit more cooked than I had intended for them to be), but I did my best.  And I was really happy with the way they turned out.  I thought these wrappers were easier to make and less doughy than the wrappers from the Pork and Napa Cabbage Water Dumplings (Shuijiao) that we made last year for Chinese New Year.  There were errors in execution both times.  I am not a proficient dumpling maker and I am happy to admit that.  But I thought that all things considered, these wrappers turned out better and the dumplings themselves were easier to wrap.  And they they fried up really nicely.  While I really liked the wrappers, I was less enamored of the filling.  It was good, but when I want a dumpling I really want a nice juicy pork filling.  I think I would like to make the dumplings again (with pork) because the skins were awesome and they were easy to throw together. 

The tofu noodles were something of a challenge.  The problem with buying ingredients at an Asian grocery store is that sometimes you end up with ingredients with no instructions on how to cook them.  And that's what happened to us here.  Ours were labeled "tofu rolls."  When I got home and tried to search for "tofu noodles" all I ended up with were tofu skin noodles or yuba noodles that are much thinner.  So I had to wing it.  And it didn't occur to me until after we had already made dinner that I should have searched "tofu shreds."  Oops.  Luckily, our dish came out just fine.  I tasted a few of the tofu shreds prior to blanching them and decided that 2-3 minutes in a pot of boiling water should warm them through and make them tender enough to eat.  I originally wanted to make a variation on the liang pi cold noodles from Xi'an Famous Foods since we were making Xi'an dumplings, but it has been so long since I had them that I wasn't sure I could replicate them.  Instead we tossed them simply with the ingredients we had in the fridge - baby bok choy, garlic, ginger and dried chilis.  They were yummy.  I love how just a few ingredients - garlic, ginger and dried chilis tossed in the wok can really give a dish great flavor.  I know that some people might be put off by the texture of the tofu noodles, but I happen to enjoy how springy they are. 

The tiger salad was a last second addition to lunch after I realized that we only ended up with 12 dumplings.  I think we were supposed to have 16 (although the recipe never specified), but I ran out of filling after we made 12 dumplings.  I really liked the freshness of the dish and the bright flavor, but if I were to make it again I would cut down on the amount of Chinkiang vinegar because the dish was a little too acidic for me.   

Recipes after the jump!

Slow Cooker Korean Beef Stew with Napa Cabbage and Pickles

Alex and I have a rather glorious All-Clad slow cooker in the closet that we almost never use.  I am determined to change that this winter.  I want to make at least one batch of slow cooker chili and at least one stew (or other braised dish).  I guess this recipe would take care of the stew, but let's get a little crazy and make another stew because why not?  But seriously, a slow cooker is brilliant for a lazy Sunday wintertime meal.  You throw it together in the morning (or the afternoon) and wander off for a few hours.  And later that evening you end up with something warm and hearty.  Today we started putting dinner together around 3:30 pm.  After we seared up the beef and threw it in the slow cooker, we took the dog for a long walk and hung out on the couch for awhile.  And then around 7:30 pm dinner was ready!  This recipe was fairly labor-intensive for a slow cooker recipe - there were several stages and several pots used, but it simmered away unattended for 3 plus hours, which was nice.  The dish that finally emerged from the slow cooker was warm, rich and comforting - perfect for a slightly chilly lazy Sunday.  It had a rich meaty flavor from the beef and the beef stock, plus a nice sweetness to the broth overlayed with the aroma of toasted sesame oil.  With each bite you got shreds of sweet cabbage, hunks of tender beef, steamed rice, and the slight crunch of bean sprouts.  My favorite element might have been the pickles.  I really loved the how the pickles provided lovely little bursts of acidity and a little heat.  And they held up a lot better once we added them in the slow cooker than I thought they would.  I took a few bites and told Alex to break out the kimchi because I thought the kimchi would be a nice spicy side and would provide some complimentary (but absent) flavors and a nice textural contrast.  When I asked Alex what he thought about the stew he said (and I quote) "I think it was very good - I think serving it with kimchi made it better." 

Recipe after the jump!

Cumin-Coriander Beef Patties and Green Tomato Curry

There are very few dishes that I am instantly completely and utterly enamored of.  Dishes that I never want to change in any way.  Dishes that are completely perfect as is.  I had a good feeling about this meal, but I thought it had the potential to go wrong in a big way.  I was fairly certain the Cumin Coriander Beef Patties would be good because those flavors are ones that we are pretty familiar with.  We use a lot of cumin, cayenne and coriander in the apartment and we know they taste marvelous together.  And let's be honest - ground beef is a pretty forgiving medium.  How often have you had a truly bad hamburger?  And they were very tasty - with a nice crust on the exterior and tender and aromatic interiors.  If you look at the picture above you can see the flecks of cilantro and onion in the patties.  Yum.  But the Green Tomato Curry made me a little nervous - I figured it had the potential to either be surprising and delicious, or just plain weird.  But I think Alex's word's said it all, "This... is awesome."  And I concurred.  It was amazing.  The Green Tomato Curry had the most amazingly vibrant combination of tartness, heat and sweetness.  I loved it.  It was funky and delicious.  It had a lot going on, but everything just worked together so... perfectly.  I think this is the first Sri Lankan recipe we have ever attempted at home and it was a smashing success. Yay!  I knew Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid wouldn't let me down.  Strangely enough, earlier this week I had decided to do both of these recipes this week on different nights before I realized that the cookbook actually suggested serving them together.  Pure genius.  They really worked together, although I suppose you could serve the curry with a number of different kebob recipes or serve the patties with a number of different side dishes.  They don't have to be served together; they just worked very nicely together.  We served everything with frozen garlic naan from Trader Joe's, but I think the recipes would also work with basmati rice or roti.  Anyway, I wish there was more to say about these recipes but there really isn't, except to say that if you like spicy dishes, you should make this one ASAP.

P.S.  I know that neither of these dishes look all that impressive, but don't let that dissuade you from making them because they really are stunning.  They just aren't very pretty.

Recipes after the jump!

Roast Bone Marrow with Parsley Salad

Lunch today felt very... virtuous.  Broccoli from the farmers' market with a spiced yogurt sauce?  How much more virtuous could you be?  I mean honestly.  And then dinner was as far from virtuous and healthy as we could get.  Dinner was pure gluttony.  Bone marrow is like the best butter ever created and then some.  It is a heart attack on a plate.  It is delicious.  And I had no idea until today how easy it is to roast bone marrow until tonight.  You just stick it in the oven for 20 minutes and you're done.  Ta-da!  Our average meal is 10 times as complicated.  Even so, this might be the first (and last) time we ever do it in the apartment because I can only get behind so much gluttony at home.  Somehow eating bone marrow at a restaurant feels indulgent (verging on decadent) but not unforgiveably so.  Eating it at home makes me feel like I gained 10 pounds.  Everyone knows that calories you consume at a restaurant don't count!  Regardless of the insane calorie and fat count, it was an excellent experiment.  Not only did I get to cook something new at home, I got to try a Fergus Henderson recipe.  For those of you who aren't quite as obsessed with the world of food and restaurants as we are, Fergus Henderson is the Brittish chef who popularized nose to tail dining.  And according to Bon Appetit, he is the one who helped popularize bone marrow on restaurant menus around the world.  Thanks Fergus!  I don't think that our bone marrow was quite as good as the marrow I have tried at Ouest or Prune, but it was pretty tasty.  I hear that the bone marrow at Blue Ribbon is amazing, but I haven't tried it there yet.  This preparation reminded me very much of the bone marrow at Prune - which is served with a simple lemony, parsley and caper salad, grey sea salt and well-toasted bread spears.  You really need that bright, fresh and acidic parsley salad to cut through the richness of the marrow.  You also need nice crusty, well-toasted bread to spread the roast marrow on.  And then you need to go run 5 miles to work off those calories. 

P.S.  There is a back story to this meal.  We were at the farmers' market this morning when I was on my vegetable kick and I decided that we should get some Boston butt from one of the farms to make Kalua pork.  But they were sold out.  And the people there thought Brady was so cute (and realized how incredibly spoiled he is) that they told us we should buy him some marrow bones as a treat.  Marrow bones you say?  I decided instead to buy myself the marrow bones as a treat.  Hey - I went to spinning today.  I totally deserved this!  I also bought some leaf lard, but I am going to save that for another day.  In case you are as clueless as I initially was, leaf lard is not made from leaves (or any vegetable product).  The word "leaf" refers to the cut of the pig and leaf lard is the "highest grade of lard" and supposedly makes amazing pie crusts.  Who knew?

Recipe after the jump!

Faux Turkish Manti

I know I mentioned Alex's challenge to make a week's worth of original recipes months ago.  And I also know that we're midway through our annual week's worth of Chinese New Year recipes.  But I have been conceptualizing this recipe for some time now - since before he even mentioned that challenge.  And if I were to publish an actual week's worth of original recipes I would want this to be one of them.  But I don't know if I am ever going to get around to doing it.  However, I will try to make more original recipes of our own from here on out.

We have been buying pre-made Turkish manti (both frozen and dried) from Kalustyan's and making it for years now.  It is one of my favorite quick and easy pre-made meals.  Another favorite is the tarte flambee from Trader Joe's.  I'm not sure when and how I first discovered manti, but I think it was from a tiny whole in the wall Turkish place near my first apartment.  Since moving uptown it has become much harder for us to get our semi-regular manti fix.  The last few times I have gone to Kalustyan's they haven't sold or stocked manti.  It was a huge disappointment.  And it is something of a trek to get down there now.  So I decided that we should make some manti of our own.  Only instead of making traditional manti (which involves making dough and then folding lots of teensy little dumplings), we could make a play on manti - all of the same flavors, but a simpler method.  So instead of making dumplings stuffed with a beef and onion mixture, I picked up some fresh pappardelle and topped it with some sauteed beef and onions.  And then I used the traditional yogurt and butter sauces (or at least what I consider the traditional sauces).  I thought this was a very satisfying play on manti.  The flavors were all there, but it was so easy to put together.  I was incredibly happy with it.  The best part is that from now on, we can make these faux manti at home whenever we want them.  Go us!

Recipe after the jump!

Korean Rice Bowl with Steak, Asparagus and Fried Egg

After a few weeks of working late and not being able to cook, it has been pretty exciting to be able to cook dinner every night since Monday.  I have weeks of recipes that have piled up on me, just waiting for me to have some free time to cook.  This take on bibimbap was one of the ones that I have been dying to make.  Given how excited I was to make this dish, it's not at all surprising that this is my favorite dish we have made this week by far.  To use Alex's favorite phrase when he really likes something we made it was "kind of awesome."  I concur.  It was kind of awesome.  All of the ingredients worked perfectly together - the sesame salt on the asparagus, the marinated flank steak, the fried egg with the runny yolk and the fluffy white rice.  The Korean hot pepper paste added the perfect level of flavor and spice.  There are a few ingredients and a few steps (which requires the use of a few pans/pots), but it all comes together pretty quickly.  And every component to the dish plays off every other component in a way that really satisfies.  The dish is delicious - a real winner.  There is literally nothing I would change about it.  And that almost never happens.

Recipe after the jump!

Kogi-Inspired Bulgogi Tacos with Spicy Slaw

When I went out of town last weekend I instructed Alex to eat leftovers and use up some ground beef we had defrosted.  I thought he was going to make some tacos (as in the type that comes in the Old El Paso kit with the taco sauce, taco seasoning, and hard taco shells).  Alex likes those box kit tacos, but it's usually a fairly hard sell to get me to indulge because I would rather have shrimp tacos or fish tacos.  Or if I have to have beef tacos, how about skirt steak tacos?  Since this was his one opportunity to have ghetto box tacos without having to sell me on it first, I was pretty surprised when Alex told me that instead of box tacos, he was making bulgogi tacos from a recipe he found online.  Then again, Alex loves Korean food so I guess I shouldn't have been all that surprised.

So I brought in some of the leftovers for lunch today and was actually pretty impressed.  Go Alex!  The tacos are pretty delicious.  Now, I say all that with one caveat.  You absolutely have to make the slaw and you have to serve your tacos with a decent serving of slaw on top.  The slaw is really what makes the tacos so good.  The beef is good - slightly sweet, with just a hint of sesame oil.  But if you have it by itself it's kind of dry and boring.  And you wouldn't immediately realize that the tacos are supposed to be Asian-influenced.  But when you add in the slaw, you get much needed moisture, all kinds of flavor, a little bit of spice and a nice crunchy texture.  I really liked the addition of the ginger in the slaw because it really brightens the dish up.  For some reason I wasn't digging the flour tortillas, which I don't think really go with the tacos.  But I'm not sure what alternatives exist.  I think corn tortillas (and hard taco shells) wouldn't work at all.  Maybe just some lettuce to make ssams?  Flour tortillas are probably the best option, but maybe I will try eating more of the leftover meat as a ssam and see how that goes.  Alex's take on the tacos was that they were tasty and relatively easy to make.  He said (and I agree) that they reminded him of the burritos from the Korilla BBQ truck.  Actually, another option with the ground beef and slaw is to make it into a burrito with some rice, etc.  Apparently I should leave Alex at home alone for the weekend more often because when I do yummy leftover lunches await.

Recipe after the jump!

Japanese-Style Hamburgers (Wafu Hamburgers)

I know, yet another "burger" for the blog.  Only this one isn't really a burger.  It's a Japanese burger without a bun.  According to the cookbook (and to Wikipedia), it's most similar to a Japanese version of a Salisbury steak.  I have neither seen nor tasted a Salisbury steak, so I don't know whether that is a valid comparison or not, but I trust Wikipedia so I am going to go with it.  This version of Japanese burgers includes tofu, which from what I understand is not traditional.  Instead it was the attempt of some home cook to lighten up the burger (and perhaps to make it a little more economical as well).

If I hadn't made the burgers myself, I wouldn't have known that the ratio of tofu to beef is roughly 2:1.  Actually, I wouldn't have known or guessed that there was tofu in here at all.  The burger patty basically tastes like ground beef, although it does taste a little lighter than your typical all beef burger patty.  I would say that the biggest difference between these burgers and an all beef burger is the texture.  The burgers are noticeably softer and more crumbly.  Since they are so soft and crumbly, they are a bit delicate so you need to be careful when handling them and flipping them over in the pan.  Alex said that if he were to make the burgers again he would increase the heat on the pan a little so sear the burgers a little better on each side.  Since the burgers are very tender and soft, they would benefit from searing to form a crust.  I might actually garnish the burgers with some additional minced scallions for color and flavor, but I don't really think that it's necessary - I just really like scallions.

Recipe after the jump!

Green Beef Curry with Thai Aubergines (Eggplants)

As our last Southeast Asian meal before heading off to Colorado, I thought it would be a good idea to use up the remaining Thai ingredients - the Thai basil, Thai eggplants and kaffir lime leaves in particular.  The only recipe that I could find that used all of the ingredients, including the Thai eggplants, and didn't require yet another trip to the grocery store was this one.  So we made it.  I know it's a pretty lame reason for choosing a recipe, but sometimes I am lame.  I just can't help it.  And considering we will be leaving tomorrow for an entire week, I really didn't want to go out and buy more ingredients and more groceries.

I guess it is no surprise that this recipe was my least favorite of the six Vietnamese and Thai recipes that we have made over the course of the last week.  I thought that it was the least flavorful, which is kind of surprising considering the punch that our green curry paste packs.  I also thought that the beef got a little tough and didn't absorb much of the curry flavor.  Neither did the eggplant.  I wish that we had lightly salted the eggplant or something before tossing it into the curry.  If the eggplant had simmered in the curry for longer it would have absorbed more flavor.  And if we had used a different cut of beef it would probably have been more tender (and potentially also absorbed more flavor).  I thought that while the recipe was perfectly fine, it was no better than the curry you could find at any of a thousand Thai restaurants around the country.  We have certainly made better curries before and I hope that make even better curries in the future.  I just purchased Mangoes and Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent and I think that it has some Sri Lankan and Indian curries for us to try.  Seeing as the cookbook is by the same authors as Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia (a cookbook we love and have had some real success with), I have high hopes!  I also just bought Asian Dumplings: Mastering Gyoza, Spring Rolls, Samosas and More, so get ready for some more dumpling recipes after we return from Colorado! 

Recipe after the jump!

Chinese New Year Meal #5 - Red Braised Beef Noodle Soup (Hong Shao Niu Rou Mian)

There is a Chinese restaurant near my parents' house in Maryland called Michael's that makes a phenomenal version of hong shao niu rou mian (red braised beef noodle soup).  They also make a good wonton soup and a good pan-fried noodles, but that's beside the point.  I haven't found a restaurant in NYC that makes a version of hong shao niu rou mian that is anywhere near as good as the version from Michael's.  What makes Michael's version so good is that the broth is deeply beefy and flavorful and the beef is similarly flavorful and fall apart tender.  I also love the pickled mustard greens and cilantro on top.  So for last night's Chinese New Year Meal, I decided to try to recreate that soup, adapting a recipe from Fuchsia Dunlop's Hunan cookbook for Changde Rice Noodles with Red-Braised Beef.  Instead of rice noodles, we used fresh Chinese noodles made from wheat.  We also played with the amounts of spices and other ingredients and added a little sugar to give the broth some sweetness.  Then we made a homemade beef broth from beef shin bone (with a decent amount of meat still attached), scallions, ginger and more seasonings.

The braising liquid from the beef is super flavorful and delicious, but you just can't serve a bowl of it - it's too rich and heavily seasoned.  But we found that by straining a cup of that braising liquid and adding it into the homemade beef broth we ended up with a ridiculously delicious beef broth, that wasn't exactly a traditional hong shao niu rou mian broth, but was certainly delicious.  First and foremost, you could taste the beef, flavored with cinnamon, star anise, ginger, Sichuan peppercorns, and fermented black beans.  Actually, the broth and the noodles were our favorite part of the dish.  Alex and I both agreed that while the beef was good, it wasn't as flavorful as we thought it would be given its 3 hour soak in the braising liquid.  I think part of the problem was that we used stew beef, which didn't have enough fat to really help soak up the flavor.  In the future I might use brisket, which has a lot more fat (and therefore a lot more flavor and a better texture) than stew beef.  Alex said this was his least favorite of the dishes that we have made for Chinese New Year thus far, but I'm not sure that I agree.  I will say that it was not my favorite meal we have made out of the five Chinese dishes we have made this far, but I thought that it was pretty freaking good - particularly the broth!  If I absolutely had to pick a favorite at this point it would probably be the Salt-Fried Pork.  Just so you know.

Recipe after the jump!

Cincinnati Skyline Chili

Alex has been wanting to make chili in our slow cooker for some time now.  We actually planned on making chili tonight, but we didn't have our act together early enough today to do that, so we decided to make chili on the stove top instead.  And since Alex has family in Cincinnati he wanted to make Cincinnati chili, rather than Texas style chili.  I really wanted to make a chicken chili (I had this recipe flagged), because I have never been a particularly big fan of chili (partially due to the fact that many chili recipes are chock full of beans and I am just not into kidney beans).  Granted, I think I have eaten chili a grand total of 3-4 times in my entire life and it tends to be from random ski lodges so this isn't a particularly well-informed opinion.  But I do like chicken chili.  And for some reason, I like white beans, so that might be a contributing factor in why I like chicken chili, but not beef chili.  

I still don't particularly like beef chili.  This experiment was no exception.  Sorry Alex.  It was an uphill battle from the start.  I don't really like chili, I thought that chili could not possibly be improved by the addition of cinnamon and other exotic spices like cardamom, and I thought that chili served over spaghetti just sounded weird.  Alex told me I was overthinking it.  That I should essentially think of the chili like a meat sauce served over pasta.  So I did.  And it just didn't do it for me.  I believe my response was that I have had better pasta sauces.  Alex on the other hand, did enjoy the chili.  And was more than a little sad that I didn't.  I might try again tomorrow because I have it on good authority that chili is better the second day.  Alex thought that the chili could use a little more cinnamon.  I thought it could use a little more heat.  And a different texture.  It just felt very grainy...  I read somewhere online that you're supposed to serve Cincinnati chili with oyster crackers.  I think I would really have liked that addition.  But I have to admit that nothing would have made me fall head over heels in love with this dish.  I can't help it.  I just don't like chili.  But it did make the apartment smell delicious!

Recipe after the jump!

Short Rib Rendang and Coconut Rice

This short rib rendang was inspired by the version served at Fatty Crab.  The only experience I have with making any sort of rendang was at a cooking class Alex and I took at the Institute of Culinary Education last Christmas, where we made chicken rendang.  So this was something of a novel experiment for me.  I found the actual recipe from Fatty Crab online and was all excited about it until I discovered that it called for all sorts of esoteric ingredients and was overly complicated.  Assam skin and Gula Jawa?  What are those?  Anyways, not going to happen.  So then I looked back over the recipe from our chicken rendang and then looked at a few other recipes online and decided to just throw something together and hope for the best.  I figured there were some ingredients that showed up in all of the recipes (ginger or galangal, chilis, coconut milk, toasted coconut, shallots), and only a few ways to braise short ribs.  How wrong could I possibly go?

My short ribs cannot compete with Fatty Crab's, but that is no surprise.  Fatty Crab is fantastic at putting together very aggressive, funky, delicious flavors and I am nowhere near that skilled (or that bold when it comes to flavoring).  I also had to dial down the spice level of the dish (we only used 3 Thai chilis) because Alex didn't want me to blow any of our friends' tastebuds out with Thai chili peppers.  I wanted to throw in five chilis, but Alex was worried it would get too spicy.  Oh well.  Next time!  For our first attempt at short rib rendang, without a recipe to follow, I think we did a pretty good job!  A little more tweaking and the recipe will be truly fantastic! 

And just as a side note, these short ribs taste even better the next day (like with all braised things) as the flavors have time to concentrate and really infuse the meat while sitting overnight in the braising liquid in the fridge.  We had the ribs for lunch today and they were just that much sweeter and more flavorful so I highly recommend making enough short ribs so that you can eat them as leftovers too!

Recipe after the jump!

Banh Mi Sliders

I'm not sure where I came up with the idea for these sliders.  Sometimes the genesis of a particular recipe is clear, but this is one of those instances where we had ground beef defrosted for no particular purpose, and two nights ago I decided while laying in bed that we should make Vietnamese-inspired burgers.  So I started listing the ingredients that I wanted to include in my burgers until Alex basically told me to go to sleep.  Haha.  Originally I wanted to make actual full-size burgers, but after looking at the width of the baguette I picked up from Sullivan Street Bakery, we realized that there was no way a burger would fit.  So we decided to make some cute little sliders instead.   

We seasoned our sliders with fish sauce, soy sauce, sriracha, shallots, and brown sugar.  Fish sauce sounds like a really strange addition to a burger, but it didn't make it fishy at all.  Instead the fish sauce gave the meat great depth of flavor and replaced the kosher salt I usually throw in my burgers.  The brown sugar gave the meat a nice subtle sweetness that I thought was a very pleasant counterpoint to the other more savory flavors of the burgers.  I have to give credit to Alex there because the brown sugar was his idea.  The sliders were really juicy from the fish sauce, soy, sriracha and shallots, which was awesome because it's very easy to dry sliders out since they are so little.  There is nothing worse than biting into a slider and realizing that the meat is so overcooked and dry that you might as well be chewing on a hockey puck.  I'm not sure that you could taste the sriracha, but every once in a while when you had a bite there was a hint of spice that I don't think came from the jalapenos although it's really hard to say.  The toppings were a really nice touch as well.  I love being able to customize your burgers.  I also love adding things like quickly pickled carrots and daikon because they cut through the rich fattiness of the burger and give it a really nice freshness.  The same goes for the cilantro, jalapeno, and the cucumber.  All of those toppings are traditional banh mi toppings, as is the mayonnaise, although it's not always kewpie mayonnaise.  These might not be my favorite burgers that I have ever made, but they are definitely up there.

Recipe after the jump!

Beef Tacos with Radish and Avocado Salsa

So it seems that I like radishes.  A lot.  Who knew?  After we made (and loved) the Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Radishes, Mint and Ricotta Salata I decided to pick up some more radishes in the hope that we would get more sugar snap peas from our CSA.  But there were no sugar snap peas to be had last week, so I had to figure out something to do with our radishes.  This recipe was one of those recipes that just seemed to come together perfectly.  I had already defrosted a nice skirt steak and happened to have just picked up cilantro, scallions, and corn tortillas the other day.  The only thing we needed was an avocado.

Steak tacos are one of my absolute favorite quick and easy meals. Skirt steak and hanger steak are both so inherently flavorful that they make fantastic tacos. I have made several different variations - on the blog alone I have made Skirt Steak Fajitas with Lime and Pepper, Six-Spice Hanger Steak Tacos with Pickled Onions, and Skirt Steak Tacos with Roasted Tomato Salsa.  This version was delicious.  I loved the salsa.  It had very little heat, but a ton of flavor.  And the combination of the avocados and radishes gave the tacos some really nice textures to go with the bold flavors of the steak and lime juice.

Recipe after the jump!

Stout-Braised Short Ribs

These short ribs were the dish I originally intended to make on St. Patrick's Day.  But with everything conspiring against me, I tabled them for this weekend, when I would have more time to prep and braise them until they were fall off the bone tender.  Granted, these short ribs don't feel very seasonally appropriate seeing as it has been gorgeous outside all week, but what can you do?  And as there is really no way to lighten up a dish of braised short ribs without losing everything that makes them luscious and delightful, I didn't even bother trying.  Sometimes you just have to be a gluttonous carnivore, spring weather or no.  That's really all there is to it.  And then you have to remind yourself to eat salads for the next few days to make up for your indulgence, but that's another matter entirely.

I was a little worried that braising the short ribs only in Guinness would make them a little bitter, but went ahead with it anyway.  I considered adding some canned diced tomatoes (and their juice) to give the short ribs some sweetness and a little freshness and acidity, but decided that the whole point of braising the short ribs in stout was to really taste the stout.  I really wanted to pick up some Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout, but as this was originally supposed to be an Irish dish for St. Paddy's, I decided to just stick with Guinness.

The sauce is a little bitter, but not overly so.  While it is a little bitter, you can still taste the heartiness of the beef and the sweetness of the vegetables in every bite of the sauce.  Overall, I feel like this recipe is missing something, but Alex really likes it.  I also thought that the short ribs weren't quite as tender as I would have hoped.  Perhaps our short ribs weren't as fatty as usual, but the silky smooth mouth feel was missing for me.  Instead the meat was a little "toothsome" to use a word from Top Chef.  When I want short ribs I don't want toothsome.  I want the meat to basically dissolve in my mouth.  The meat can't be mushy, but it should be silky and incredibly tender.  And you shouldn't need a knife at all.  These short ribs weren't as tender as I like, but Alex has this thing against ribs of any sort that fall off the bone so these were perfect for him.  We usually see eye-to-eye when it comes to food (although he tends to like things a little saltier and a little spicier than I do), but this time we will have to agree to disagree.

Recipe after the jump!