Baked Fettuccine with Braised Short Ribs

Forgive me Reader, for I have dined and not blogged. It has been 7 months since my last submission. I have had gluttonous thoughts concerning braised meats and baked pasta. This last weekend we had dinner guests and made what may have been the best baked pasta dish ever. I’m almost afraid to try making it again.
One day in advance, I started with four pounds of beef short ribs, seasoned with salt and pepper. I browned the ribs in batches in a small amount of vegetable oil in large pan. (It’s not really a Dutch oven, but that’s what I would have used if I had one.) Once the ribs were browned, I tossed in chopped onion, celery, carrot, and bell pepper (roughly half an onion, one celery stalk, one carrot stick, and half a bell pepper if you are keeping score at home) and sautéed until the onion was soft. I then added a few cloves worth of minced garlic and sautéed for a few more seconds before adding about half a bottle of red wine. While the wine was coming up to a boil, I scraped all the crunchy bits off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.
I then put the ribs back in the pan, added a couple of cups of chicken broth and a can of tomato sauce. (Yes, canned tomato sauce, sue me.) I added a little more salt and pepper, a bunch of oregano and some paprika. Now the recipe I had read for inspiration cooked the covered pot in the over for 2 ½ hours, but we need the oven for baking something else so I pulled it out after half an hour and just simmered it on the stove top. I ended up keeping it at low simmer for about 3 hours. The meat at this point should be very tender and falling off the bone and the sauce should be rich, thick, and pretty fatty.
I removed the bones and the chewy cartilage around it - I like to eat the cartilage myself, but most others don’t like the texture – and then shredded the beef. I poured the sauce into a separate bowl and after making sure there were no bones left in it, let it cool overnight.
On the day of the dinner, I scraped the layer of fat that had hardened on top of the sauce. I spooned a small amount of sauce into a 9x13 Pyrex baking dish, and spread a layer of fresh fettuccine pasta on top of that. I then added a layer of zucchini slices, mushrooms, and shredded beef, followed by a few large spoonfuls of sauce, and some shredded cheese -a blend of mozzarella, fontina, and parmesan.
At this point I realized that I needed more sauce than I had left, so I stirred in another can of tomato sauce and some more wine. The next time I try this, I will have to add much more liquid during the braising.
Now, I finished filling the pan with more layers: pasta, veggies, meat, sauce, more pasta, a generous layer of sauce, and a final layer of cheese. I realized I had enough of everything except sauce to make a second pan. I ended up making a quick and simple marinara from canned tomato sauce, wine, garlic, and spices. This sauce wasn’t anything amazing but it did let me use up the rest of the pasta and beef, and was good enough for us to have for lunches or quick meals during the week.
The pan went into a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes and then was allowed to sit for 15 minutes. We served the pasta with a simple salad and a nice bottle of Vinho Verde. Overall, dinner was a great success, and I’m very pleased with the results even if I do need to modify the recipe next time to provide much more sauce.

Ribs!

This last week we started looking into getting some grass-fed beef directly from a rancher in eastern Washington. So, after thinking about beef all week and realizing we had nothing much planned for Saturday, I really wanted to cook some beef ribs.

So today we stopped at a butcher shop that we've wanted to try, and picked up some great looking beef short ribs that they had. I first applied a dry rub of salt, black pepper, and paprika. Then I wrapped them back up in the butcher paper to let them rest and come up to room temperature.

At this point, I was wishing I had a smoker in which to cook the ribs, but I've got a pretty decent technique for grill-roasting the ribs on my gas grill. I fired up the grill and let it get to a fairly high heat. I then turned off one burner and turned the other to a medium-low setting. I placed the ribs on the unlit side and closed the cover. After a few minutes, I saw that the fat dripping of the ribs was flaring up, and while I wanted a little char, i didn't want to burn them, so I used a squirt bottle to put out the flares and closed the lid again.

At this point it just took the patience to let the ribs cook for 3 hours, although with the aroma coming off the grill it was difficult. About half an hour before the ribs were done, I spooned a small amount of homemade barbecue sauce across the top.

At the end of three hours, I wrapped the ribs in aluminum foil and placed the foil packages in a closed paper back on the counter and just let them sit for another hour. I say this as if it were easy, but in fact it took a lot of effort not to dive into the foil packets immediately!

I served the ribs with some grilled corn on the cob and a salad. (Arugula and baby spinach with a lemon-balsamic vinaigrette.) I won't pretend that these ribs were even in the same class as the ones my brother cooks in his smoker, but they were delicious, moist, and tender. What a great way to end a sunny warm June day!

Summertime

It was beautiful in Seattle today (80 degrees and sunny) so we ate outside using our new deck furniture. We opened a nice prosecco and I grilled some mahi mahi filets, some zucchini, and some onions.

We served the fish in some warmed pita pockets with plenty of the dressing that Sabrina makes for fish tacos. (I believe it is basically vegan mayo and white balsamic vinegar.)

All in all, it was a delicious, but fairly light and refreshing dinner and a great relaxing way to enjoy the wonderful weather.

A Tale of Two Sauces

Last week, I had an inspiration for a couple of dipping/barbecue sauces that I wanted to make. When our friends invited us to a barbecue on Sunday, it seemed like the perfect venue to try them out.

For the first sauce, I pureed some fresh mango and a little bit of onion. I then added orange juice, balsamic vinegar, garlic, mild chile powder, along with some other spices, and simmered the whole thing for a couple of hours. This sauce came out with a balance between sweet and tangy, and went beautifully with both the grilled shrimp and the chicken.

The second sauce was a bit more of an experiment. I roasted some onions, red bell peppers and roma tomatoes on the grill. I then pureed these veggies with some white wine, olive oil, and some more mild chile powder. As this mixture simmered, it wasn't quite as sweet as I was hoping, so I added some brown sugar. In the end, this sauce had a good base flavor, but it was a little too one dimensional. I held back a little on the spices because I knew my friends had a low tolerance for heat, but I think I should added something with a little more kick. Perhaps a some hot cayenne powder and some vinegar might have helped... I may try some tweaks to the left over sauce.

One thing I did learn, was that putting the sauces in our blender for a few minutes at the end of the simmering made them much, much, smoother. I will definitely do this with any future sauces.

Memorial Day Breakfast

It seems appropriate to open this blog with a report on the most important meal of the day. This was a fairly typical weekend breakfast for us.

I made a frittata with... well... whatever I found in the fridge. In this case, I started with some onion sauteed in olive oil. I added garlic, spinach, black olives, green olives, and sun-dried tomatoes. I then poured in some beaten eggs and some feta cheese. After the eggs started to set, i finished it under the broiler for a couple of minutes.

We served it with coffee - topped with some whipped cream left over from last night's dessert; what a great start for the day!

Meanwhile, Sabrina was making banana-nut bread from the "Best Recipe" cookbook... it hasn't finished baking yet, but I expect we'll be having a second breakfast soon...