Sasha's Kitchen: Hawaiian Short Ribs

I've made short ribs twice in the past couple weeks.  Both times I made boneless beef short ribs using a lean cut of meat.  The first time, I used Thomas Keller's recipe from Ad Hoc at Home.  I liked the Ad hoc short ribs - they were good and braised nicely using his braised short ribs recipe, but I wasn't fully impressed with the flavors.  I found another recipe for Hawaiian short ribs in Martha Stewart's Everyday Food.  It was a very simple recipe that left the short ribs with a great Hawaii inspired flavor, which I adapted for my tastes, using an oven rather than a slow cooker.  I love visiting Hawaii and enjoy most Hawaiian inspired cuisine so this was a new favorite.

 Hawaiian Short Ribs with Pineapple
1 large red onion cut into wedges
4 cloves garlic, diced
3 tsp ground or diced fresh ginger
2.5 lbs boneless beef short ribs
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
6 T rice vinegar
1 1/2 T Sriracha hot sauce
3 cups cubed pineapples
scallions, for serving

Place the onions, ginger, garlic, pineapple, soy sauce, hot sauce and rice vinegar in a large stock pit.  Add the ribs on top and cook at 300 for about three hours, or 350 for about three hours, depending on how much of a rush you are in to get dinner on the table.  Serve the ribs and pineapple (which soaks up the flavors wonderfully) and top with scallions. Enjoy!

Sasha's Kitchen: Hawaiian Short Ribs

Sasha's Kitchen: Food & Wine Pairing: Braised Beef Short Ribs With Wagner Vineyards Cabernet Franc

I'm not a huge red meat eater.  Most of the time, I am content eating pasta, chicken, veal, fish, grains, fresh fruit etc . . . As long as everything is farm fresh and organic, I don't need a ton of red meat in my died.   But every so often, once or twice a month, I get a craving for red meat.  I like my meat lean, fresh and organically raised, but yes, I do enjoy a meal centered around a nice cut of red meat every so often, whether it is steak, short ribs, brisket or braised stew beef like a beef bourguignon.  I am disappointed when my bi-monthly red meat indulgence is not a good lean cut of meat, because there is nothing I detest more than excess fat.  For last night's dish, I prepared boneless short ribs, which were a wonderful lean cut from Fresh Direct.  I braised the short ribs in a braising solution that was pretty much a mixture of a full bodied red wine and chicken stock, with plenty of herbs and vegetables mixed in.  I always add a small amount of tomato paste to my braises for flavor.  I generally avoid adding more tomatoes than that though, otherwise the sauce is too heavy and overpowering.

For tonight's dinner, I paired a full bodied wine to complement the red meat, the 2007 Cabernet Franc that I received from Wagner Vineyards, a Seneca Lake Winery which is well known as one of the top Riesling producers in the Finger Lakes, and in the United States as a whole.  I've tried a lot of great Finger Lakes Rieslings, but not yet a Cabernet Franc.  Cabernet Franc is similar to Cabernet Sauvignon, but buds and ripens a week or two earlier, which allows it to thrive in cooler climates like the Finger Lakes of New York, and Southern Ontario, as well as the Loire Valley (France).

Wagner Vineyards' 2007 Cabernet Franc was quite delightful.  It was a full-bodied wine that had hints of berries - mostly cherry and perhaps a bit of red currant.  It wasn't too dry, but had just a bit of a burst of cherry and a pleasant aroma.  I thought that it paired nicely with the red meat and the wine complement of the sauce.

Cabernet Franc Grapes: Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Sasha's Braised Beef Short Ribs

2 cups dry red wine (either use Cabernet or a red cooking wine)
2 1/2 quarts of organic, low sodium chicken stock or beef stock (I used chicken stock)
4 T canola oil
8-9 boneless beef short ribs (about 3 to 3.5 pounds)
salt to season
pepper to season
flour or matzo meal for dredging (use flour, unless you are doing this during Passover)
10 cloves of garlic, diced
1 onion, diced
3 large handfulls of baby carrots
2 stalks of celery, cut into small pieces
1 medium leek, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup parsley
2 tsp diced ginger
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup parsley
3 T tomato paste
2 sprigs of thyme
1 sprig rosemary

Heat half of the oil in a large Dutch Oven on medium high.  Season the boneless short ribs with salt and pepper and dredge in flour or matzo meal.  I used matzo meal so not to overtly break Passover (yet!, this holiday isn't lasting the full eight days for me though), but you would ordinarily just use flour.  Sear 4-5 minutes on each side until fully browned.  Set the meat aside on a plate.

Using the same pot, add the vegetables and herbs.  Add the remaining Canola Oil and brown the vegetables lightly for about 7-8 minutes.  Then stir in three tablespoons of tomato paste.  Add the wine, chicken stock and seared beef short ribs to the pot.  Bring to a boil and then cover the pot and put it in an oven that has been preheated to 350 degrees.  Braises the ribs for about two and a half hours in the oven.  When you open the pot, they should be tender and fall apart when you cut them with your fork.  You can serve with the sauce as is (we did and it was great) or you can reduce the sauce if you prefer a thicker sauce to accompany the meat.

Short Ribs

Sasha's Kitchen: Food & Wine Pairing: Braised Beef Short Ribs With Wagner Vineyards Cabernet Franc

Sasha's Kitchen: German Street Pretzels & Braised Beer Short Ribs (from Marcus Samuelsson)

As part of doing this project, I am trying to experiment with new types of cuisines, new culinary experiments and new cultural influences in my food. I had heard quite a bit about the Chef Marcus Samuelsson, and I decided to purchase and review his new cookbook, New American Cuisine, in a series of posts over the next several weeks.

Marcus Samuelsson, a well known American chef, was born in Africa (Ethiopia) in 1970 and, after tragically losing his mother at a young age, he and his sister were adopted and raised in Sweden. He currently lives in the United States, where he is currently an advisor to the Institute of Culinary Education, in New York. He came to New York in 1991 to serve as an apprentice at the Scandinavian restaurant, Aquavit, where he eventually became executive chef at the age of 24. He subsequently has published numerous books exploring his cultural and culinary roots, including a Scandinavian Aquavit Cookbook and an African cookbook.

Samuelson's new cookbook, A New American Cuisine is intended to be a cross-section of the culinary influences that make up the melting pot that is America. It includes influences of his multi-cultural background, as well a mixture of the the variety of cuisines and ethnic traditions that have become part of American society. What's interesting is that his recipes aren't really German, Japanese, Ethiopian, Creole or French per se, but they often mix different culinary influences and it is this that make them distinctly American. Really, then there is no such thing as American food without adding a cup, dash and a pinch of the different ethnic and cultural traditions that make up America. We have become such a melting pot that we don't even notice it that our cuisine seamlessly mixes these influences, just like we do in our everyday lives.

With that background, it is not surprising that the President invited Marcus Samuelsson to be the guest chef at his first state dinner (yes the very same state dinner that was crashed by the wanna-be reality TV stars). The link above includes a full discussion of the state dinner and menu.

I decided to try two of his German-American Dishes: Beer Braised Short Ribs (page 277) and Caraway Pretzels (page 117).

Beer braised short ribs are a dish I have been meaning to try as I am not crazy of the other short rib braises that I have tried that use a very heavy tomato sauce. Samuelsson describes his beer braised short ribs as having been influenced by the Germanic traditions he discovered in Milwaukee, but they are purely American (rather than simply German) because of the Asian influences in his recipe.

The recipe, found on page 277 of his new cookbook is as follows:

2 T red Chile paste
3 pounds beef short ribs
1/2 cup of soy sauce
4 cups beer (I used a lager, Blue Point Toasted)
q tsp salt
3 T olive oil (I used truffle olive oil)
2 red onions, diced
one three inch piece of ginger
3 bay leaves
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 cup mirin
2 T ketjam mains (An Indonesian soy sauce; I substituted regular soy sauce)
1 T honey
2 scallions
1 T butter
I also added a couple handfulls of carrots, which were delicious with the braise




First, I smeared the chile paste on the short ribs, as Samuelsson instructs, in a baking dish. I added a mixture of the beer (1 cup of beer, although he only says to use 1/2 a cup, and 1/4 cup of soy sauce). I allowed this to marinade for 4 hours, rotating the ribs once.

Next, I heated the truffle olive oil and sesame oil in my Le Creuset Dutch Oven (I love Le Creuset and it is so pretty; I wish it was cheaper). I added the garlic, ginger, bay leaves and onions and sauteed. Then I added the ribs, beer, rest of the soy sauce, chicken stock and mirin and brought to a boil. We cooked for about two and a half hours at 350 F (he says 300 F but we wanted it done a little faster).

After the braise was done, the ribs were removed and we prepared the sauce by mixing 2 cups of the remaining liquid with 1 T honey, 2 T soy sauce, another 1/2 cup of beer, 1 tsp salt and the butter. Then I added the scallions. The sauce was delicious with the ribs and had a beautiful color. You could taste the flavors of the beer, but without the alcohol. This was great because it didn't have the heaviness of most tomato-based braises.




We also made his recipe for Caraway pretzels, on page 117, which are supposed to be similar to German street pretzels. These were delicious and came out perfectly the first time.

1 T dry active yeast
1 T dry active yeast
2 T sugar
2 T brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp plus 1 T salt
4 cups flour
1 T baking soda
1 egg plus 1 T water for wash
2 T cheddar cheese
1/4 cup caraway seeds

First, I combined the yeast (I used more - 2 packages of 1/4 oz each, and I suggest that you do the same), water and sugars and let the yeast activate for a few minutes. Then I combined this mixture in artisan mixer with the flour and 2 1/2 tsp salt to form a dough.



Samuelsson says to let this rise overnight - but I didn't want to wait that long, which is why I added the extra yeast and my dough rose just fine in about 3 hours. The I divided into 10 balls (he says 12, but I only made 10 perfectly sized pretzels). I rolled it out and shaped into pretzels after printing out a picture of a pretzel from the Internet to use as a model.

Then I let them rise for about 45 minutes, as he instructs in his cookbook (they didn't change much), and then boiled in water with the baking soda, much like is done with bagels. I boiled for 20 seconds or so on each side. Before baking at 400 F for 20 minutes, I did the egg wash and sprinkled with healthy amounts of lowfat cheddar cheese and caraway seeds.

20 minutes later, the end result were some delicious German pretzels, which were a big hit. We have some friends living overseas in Germany now who are visiting for the holidays and I plan to test them on our friends tomorrow night and see how they measure up to the real thing (if my husband doesn't eat them all first!).






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Sasha's Kitchen: German Street Pretzels & Braised Beer Short Ribs (from Marcus Samuelsson)