Short Ribs with Cinnamon (HCE)

• 2 tablespoons neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn, or extra virgin olive oil
• 3 pounds meaty short ribs, more or less
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 28-ounce cans whole plum tomatoes, with their juice
• 3 tablespoons roughly chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Mise en place.
One of a sheer handful of dishes I've made about 4 or 5 times since I started cooking about two years ago. It can hardly be considered part of a "rotation" I might have (I no longer have such a habit), but it's a dish I deeply enjoyed. I've considered doing other variations HCE but I just don't think I will. I did make Anise-Scented Short Ribs, but they didn't hit the right spot for me.


Wikipedia:

The Maillard reaction (French pronunciation: [majaʁ], English: /maɪˈjɑr/ my-YAR) is a form of nonenzymatic browning. It results from a chemical reaction between an amino acid and a reducing sugar, usually requiring heat.

Vitally important in the preparation or presentation of many types of food, it is named after chemist Louis-Camille Maillard, who first described it in 1912 while attempting to reproduce biological protein synthesis.^[1](p79)

The reactive carbonyl group of the sugar reacts with the nucleophilic amino group of the amino acid, and forms a complex mixture of poorly-characterized molecules responsible for a range of odors and flavors. This process is accelerated in an alkaline environment, as the amino groups are deprotonated and, hence, have an increased nucleophilicity. The type of the amino acid determines the resulting flavor. This reaction is the basis of the flavoring industry. At high temperatures, acrylamide can be formed.

In the process, hundreds of different flavor compounds are created. These compounds, in turn, break down to form yet more new flavor compounds, and so on. Each type of food has a very distinctive set of flavor compounds that are formed during the Maillard reaction. It is these same compounds flavor scientists have used over the years to make reaction flavors.

Oh this could take a hour and half to get tender. Maybe it'll take four. Who knows with braising? I just have to spin the wheel at see and hopefully not do this so much in a short period of time that I get pissed at myself.


Garnished with Parmigiano-Reggiano and more freshly ground black pepper.
Put down the green canister; buy the real stuff and grate it yourself and you'll be so much happier. The REAL real stuff can only be made in "the producing areas near Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Bologna (all in Emilia-Romagna), and Mantova (in Lombardia), Italy." You'll know when you can see a bit of printing on the rind with phrase "Parmigiano-Reggiano." Save the rinds for soup and stock.

Arnold Palmer Cake: Part Two

Lemon Marscapone

• 85 g (1/3 C) lemon juice (about 3 lemons, plus the zest)
• 100 g (1/2 C) sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 gelatin sheet (1/2 t powdered)
• 115 g (8 T) cold butter
• 2 g (1/2 t) kosher salt
• 100 g (1/2 C) cold marcsapone

Mise en place for the lemon curd.

Actually used real lemons so I'd have the zest I omitted the first time around while making the lemon curd. It's worth noting that Christina suggests baking with nothing less than Plugra. I usually just go for whatever European butter is at the grocery store, but European-style is way more yellow and flavorful than even the organic regular stuff because the cows are pasture-raised and therefore the butter benefits from all the lovely chlorophyll they ingest.
I did manage to buy Plugra at the Charles River Plaza Whole Foods (which has the largest prepared-foods sections of any of the local stores), but it just wasn't as yellow as the Icelandic stuff I've been buying.

Anyway the lemon curd is chilling in the fridge since it won't combine with the marscapone until both are cold.

RAMEN!

An event I'm planning for 4/14. Contact me for more details:


Ok, you lucky dogs, I'm again pulling out the culinary stops and finally throwing my own ramen party.
Ramen, if you aren't aware, doesn't need to be as basic as the stuff you can buy down the street for 40 cents a packet (Perhaps even less!) and the truly great stuff is mysteriously elusive in the Boston area (infinitely less so in NYC sadly). You can go to Wagamama and endure their price-gouging and less than authentic fare. Or you can go to Sapporo Ramen in the Porter Square Galleria for reasonably priced, authentic, filling stuff (DO NOT order extra ramen the first time you eat there. I suffered for days.). Their one failing is that they use a chicken-based broth rather than a pork-based broth. For the record, this is hugely lame.

Let me slavishly amend this situation while following Momofuku giant David Chang's recipe where roasted pork bones simmer for 6 to 7 hours, I'm basically confit-ing pork belly in the oven for 2 hours, and braising pork shoulder for 6 hours. Among other things, geesh!, but I guarantee it'll be a mind fuck.

Guests are encouraged to bring nibbles, Japanese/Korean alcoholic beverages (Soju is pretty icky but I guess traditional. They serve it in magnificent slushy form at the Momofuku Noodle Bar, but I'm not exactly going to attempt that one.), and desserts (I guess frozen mochi might do it, but more ambitious, homemade suggestions are welcome). Please come equipped with your own Asian soup bowl, soup spoon, and chopsticks (The kind they use in Pho places). I'm sure you can get this at any major Asian Supermarket for about $5.

Also there's no way I'm making more than 20 servings of this stuff so please RSVP early and mention any guests you're bringing.

Arnold Palmer Cake: Part One

Although the grand reveal of the test run will be unveiled on Sunday afternoon, I'm making the components and assembling for my birthday party with the family two weeks from today. Maybe I won't break all the cake layers again.

Bitter Tea Soak and Tea Jelly

• 475 g (2 1/4 C) water
• 8 Lipton black tea bags
• 350 g (1 3/4 C) sugar
• 50 g (1/4 C) instant Lipton unsweetened tea powder [This took me a little bit of hunting and I eventually managed to find this Porter Square Shaw's. They only had the decaffeinated unsweetened instant tea, but I can live with that. However, I think the measurement by weight is grossly inaccurate. Perhaps later I'll go into why typically it's better to bake by weight rather than volume.]
• 10 g (1/2 t) pectin NH (easily obtained online) [Perhaps if you're willing to bake beyond a hobby level, but I used grocery store dry pectin. There's a possibility I will choose to actually buy pectin NH some day since it is sort of available on Amazon unlike something else I will mention in this entry.]
• 20 g (1 1/2 T) lemon juice

Doubled the amount of ingredients this time for the tea soak since:
a) I wanted to actually have enough to make the tea jelly this time
b) Hey I might as well have some left over to not just skip the soak since there isn't any!

In transferring this from container to container I spilled enough to warrant throwing four kitchen rags into the laundry pile I'm doing tomorrow... But progress!


Tea jelly mise en place

Almond Tea Crunch (Couldn't take a proper photo of any of this)

• 50 g (1/4 C) instant Lipton lemon iced tea powder [Whoa just now realizing that this calls for a slightly different thing than the Tea Jelly ingredient. My bad; this probably wasn't a fatal mistake.]
• 15 g (2 T) slivered almonds
• 55 g (1/4 C) almond butter
• 40 g (1/2 C) feuilletine [The item that IS NOT available on Amazon. I was considering ordering this from a gourmet shop based in NYC along with a moderate amount of pectin NH but I can't exactly justify paying 50% extra because FedEx ground is my cheapest shipping option. A cursory Google search turned up an idea on a forum that Chinese Love Letter cookies (Available where else but a Chinese market and also more commonly known as egg roll cookies) is an acceptable substitute for something Tosi considers "impossible to replicate." ]
• 30 g (3 T) confectioner's sugar
• 2 g (1/2 t) kosher salt

Part 2 and 3 to come in the subsequent days. Additionally, an entry on Short Ribs and Cinnamon (HCE) tomorrow.

Rolled Kaled with Tofu and Fermented Black Beans (HCEV)

• about 8 large kale leaves, washed (or collards, mustard greens and chard. I've been using chard because they consistently have large leaves at the moment.)
• about a pound of tofu (preferably baked, pressed, or panfried [I've gone with baked which is as easy and 1-2 pounds of tofu baked at 350 degrees F for 1 hour]
• 2 tablespoons neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 cup sake or mirin (Honestly I don't think sake has a place here) or water
• 1/2 cup fermented black beans
• soy sauce and dark sesame oil to garnish

Pretty, pretty rainbow chard. I didn't even glance at my other options when I saw this at the Whole Foods in Central.

Chopped chard stems nestling with the "minced" garlic. Bittman claims that he only goes so far to finely chop the stuff. ATK believes garlic pressing is the way to go (which is what I do when I cook ATK). I read at least a couple of times that pressing bruises or muddies or whatevers the flavor of garlic. But then again I'm also told that prep of garlic and onion right before use (like when it goes in the pan and not 30 minutes before) is the only way to get the optimal flavor from these ingredients. What the hell you say? I've read too much cooking literature, but I still refrigerate tomatoes even though that destroys cell walls and loss of flavor.


Wikipedia:

Mise en place ( literally "putting in place") is a French phrase defined by the Culinary Institute of America as "everything in place", as in set up. It is used in professional kitchens to refer to organizing and arranging the ingredients (e.g., cuts of meat, relishes, sauces, par-cooked items, spices, freshly chopped vegetables, and other components) that a cook will require for the menu items that he or she expects to prepare during his/her shift.

Resting on a bed of Trader Joe's Tri-Color Quinoa.

I've been Post-It Flag-ing the hell out of the Legumes chapter of HCEV so really I have no excuse to start eating a bit lighter for a little while. After packing tomorrow's work portion of Risotto Alla Milanese, I'm only left with a bit of a snack so I really should throw together that do-over I've been planning of Tofu-Stuffed Chard (It could be kale or any number of things, but I think I have better luck getting big enough leaves with chard) and Fermented Black Beans (Actually not black beans at all but soybeans. BTW, I'm still talking about HCEV.). I made it last week and aside from removing the stems and chopping them the prep was negligible. I'm making it again because I had the bright idea of making way too much Baked Tofu (Hello HCEV!).
Also I plan on using mirin instead of sake this time because alcohol is best cooked away in food. That didn't really happen with the lid on.

I swear I'm not becoming a vegetarian since I just transferred my 3-pound package of short ribs (courtesy of Davis Square's Mckinnon's, Boston's best variety of butchered meat at the best prices) from the freezer to the fridge so I can braise Short Ribs with Cinnamon (HCE) for the fourth or so time again this weekend.

Blog posts forthcoming about each of these and eventually I need to start writing the one about the Arnold Palmer Cake. Although I probably won't publish that until I unwrap it on Sunday.

The Overbearing Richness of It All

Here's a photo of the Sweet and Sour Chicken I mentioned yesterday. I used double paper plates while microwaving the dish at work and still it sloshed all over the microwave and the rug (though the latter entirely camouflaged the spill). This plus a MMB cookie was overwhelming in terms of richness. I'm eating a salad for my post-work meal tonight; definitely not leftover risotto.
I've known for a couple weeks that I need to pull back from the extravagance I seem to be exhibiting in terms of the recipes I choose while menu planning for bi-weekly grocery shopping trips my parents take me on (I'm also constantly shopping in the interim for items I don't dare ask my parents to buy, aren't available at Stop & Shop, or simply won't be at its peak by the time I get around to executing a dish [i.e., produce]). Yes, Sweet and Sour Chicken does not even touch the Cassoulet I made back in December (The Complete ATK TV Show Cookbook) and I later described as the heaviest dish in the world, but I need to start thinking lighter soon. Weekly batches of MMB cookies will not help with this.