Creamy Navy Bean and Squash Gratin with Bits of Sausage (FM)

• 4 ounces Italian sausage, casings removed
• 1/4 cup half-and-half or cream
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary, or 1 teaspoon dried
• 3 cups cooked or canned navy beans, drained
• Salt and black pepper
• 1 small butternut squash, peeled and seeded
• 1/2 cup vegetable stock or water, or more as needed
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, optional [Didn't have any.  Moving soon so not buying any.]

Mise en place.

Cook sausage over medium-high heat but don't brown it too much.

Combine half-and-half, rosemary, beans, and sausage.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Layer squash, pour over water, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle over more salt and pepper.

Baked covered with foil for 45 minutes and without for another 45 minutes.

The dish was also quite good.  Unfortunately I managed to screw myself over by neglecting to wrap the dish and refrigerate it after cooking.  I wasn't done until 2 am so I guess some things miss my notice at that stage in the game.

Creamy, balanced, nutty...  Maybe I'll approach this dish again.

Grilled Kalbi (SP)

• 1 1/2 cups soy sauce
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
• 1/2 cup Asian sesame oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, chopped
• A small knob of ginger, grated
• 3 scallions, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 5 pounds bone-in English-cut short ribs, cut about 1/3 inch thick
• Cooked white or brown rice

Blend all the marinade ingredients together until slightly chunky.

Marinate the short ribs for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Grill just until they are charred on both sides.  A couple minutes each side.  Oh grilling in the dark...

Awesome though personally I would've upped the red pepper flakes.

Growing up, my parents and their friends would grill short ribs.  I don't think the flavor profile is too far off from one another.

Oxtail Stew with Lima Beans (SP)

• 3 pounds oxtails, cut into 2-inch segments
• 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons corn oil
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 10 ounces carrots (about 2 large carrots), peeled and coarsely chopped
• 2 green bell peppers, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
• 1 habanero pepper, finely chopped
• 3 plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• 8 ounces (3/4 cup) black bean paste [Um, Lee Jr and some other folks think this should be ubiquitous in supermarkets, but I had to use black bean sauce.  I do have fermented black beans, but I dunno if just whizzing them up in a food processor would make them a puree.  Those things are quite salty and 8 ounces is a lot of them.]
• 1 cup dry sherry
• 2 whole star anise
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 cup fresh or frozen lima beans    

Soak oxtail in cold water for 30 minutes.  Pat dry, toss with flour, and brown.

Mise en place.

Sautee onions, carrots (I actually didn't have any.  They had gone bad in the fridge.), green peppers, garlic, ginger, and habanero pepper (I actually just used a jalapeno).

Add oxtail, tomatoes, black bean paste, sherry, star anise, sugar, and pepper.  Then add stock and allspice.

Simmer uncovered for 3 hours.

Add lima beans and simmer for 20 minutes.

 

I was still totally braising the dish when my parents were over.  My mother tasted the sauce and said it was pretty spicy.  When I actually sat down to eat some of this (It was more like 5 hours of braising), I had to agree.

I don't know why since all I used was a damn jalapeno.  I could perhaps blame it on the black bean sauce since lord knows what was in that.  Overall, a good dish but overly hot.

BTW, Edward Lee Jr was my favorite cheftestant on Top Chef Texas and and overwhelming number of the recipes I found in his cookbook definitely seemed accessible and enticing.