Asian five spice short ribs

How can 6 hours of sitting on the couch watching football be productive? When you're also using that time to braise beef short ribs, of course! In the end, the meat literally falls off the bone, and a knife is barely necessary. The perfect combination of tenderness and extreme meatiness.

The first step is to lightly coat the short ribs with a spiced flour mixture, then quickly brown them on all sides, making sure not to crowd the pan. When the ribs are done, a braising liquid is made in the same pan, consisting of caramelized vegetables, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and beef broth. The ribs are added back to the pan and braised for 3 hours. The meat will shrink and retract from the bone, resulting in tender chunks of beef that just barely hold together.

Next, a quick five spice-honey glaze is made in a small saucepan, simmering on low heat until syrupy.
The ribs are coated with the glaze and placed under the broiler for a few minutes on each side, creating a sweet crust. We paired the short ribs with garlic mashed potatoes.

Asian Five Spice Short Ribs
From The Nourish Network
Serves 6

2 tsp vegetable oil
3 Tbsp five spice powder, divided
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
6 pounds bone-in beef short ribs
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrot
3 cloves minced garlic
2 Tbsp chopped ginger
1/2 cup soy sauce, divided
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar, divided
1 cup beef broth
1/4 cup honey

Preheat oven to 300. Heat oil over medium-high heat in large pot (oven-proof, if possible). Mix together 2 Tbsp five spice powder, flour and salt. Dredge ribs in the flour mixture, tapping off excess, and brown on all sides, making sure not to crowd the pan. Remove to a plate when done.

Add onion, carrot, garlic and ginger to pot and brown for 8-10 minutes. Deglaze pan with 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar and beef broth and bring to a boil. If your pot is oven-proof, add the ribs, cover and transfer to the oven. If not, transfer the ribs and everything else into an oven-proof dish. Braise for 3 hours and remove from oven.

When the ribs are almost done cooking, mix together honey and remaining 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar and 1 Tbsp five spice powder in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium and reduce glaze until syrupy, about 10 minutes.

When ribs are done, transfer to a cookie sheet and turn the oven to broil. Brush ribs with half the glaze and broil for 3 minutes. Turn over, brush with remaining glaze and broil another 3 minutes.

New Year's Eve Hot Truck!

If you attended Cornell University sometime between 1960 and today, you probably know, and love The Hot Truck. Parked below the West Campus dorms every night during the school year, the truck serves up french bread pizza to anyone willing to stand outside in the freezing Ithaca winter for an hour or more. Luckily, most of the customers are drunk enough not to notice the frostbite. I worked at Truck for two and a half years (as did my wife and several friends), taking orders, relaying them to Bob (the founder) and later Mike (the new owner), sliding the subs into the ovens, removing them when cooked, and finally handing them out to patrons. Saying that our group ate at Hot Truck two to three times per week for four years is probably close to accurate (hey, we were drunk, if that works as an excuse . . .). So when we all get together for New Year's Eve, as we have every year since graduation, Hot Truck is always on the menu.

I am in change of putting together the subs, containing everything from pepperoni and sausage, to BBQ chips, mustard and carrots. The standard sub, called a PMP, or Poor Man's Pizza, consists of butterflied French bread (preferably from the Ithaca Bakery), tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, topped with oregano and cooked at 450 until the cheese begins to brown. My favorite sub, the Scooby, is basically a PMP with pepperoni, meatballs, onion, garlic powder and red pepper flakes. After cooking is complete, mayonnaise and lettuce (grease and garden, or G&G, in the Hot Truck language) are added and the sub is placed in a paper bag. It's not clean, neat or healthy, but it's damn good.

Here is a quick sample of what my friends requested on New Year's Eve:
MBC - PMP with meatballs
Ken - PMP with sausage, pepperoni, onion, garlic powder, red pepper flake, G&G, BBQ chips (crushed and placed on the sub after cooking)
Sui - PMP with mushrooms, sausage and pepperoni

To make your own Truck, find soft french bread and slice it lengthwise, keeping the two sides together. Cover with tomato sauce and add garlic powder, hot sauce and red pepper flakes, if desired.

Next, layer on onion, meatballs, pepperoni and sausage, followed by cheese and oregano.


Bake at 450 for about 6-8 minutes, or until cheese starts to brown and the bread crisps up. Top with mayonnaise, lettuce, BBQ (or sour cream and onion) chips, and/or mustard.

Fold the two sides together, place in a paper bag and eat!

Make your own farmer cheese

Right after pig and beer, cheese is my favorite food group. I have no interest in breeding my own pigs (I think living with them would make me less willing to eat them) and I've brewed my own beer for almost ten years. So next on the to do list was homemade cheese. Making basic farmer cheese is amazingly easy and requires no special tools or ingredients. Basically, you heat milk, then add an acid (vinegar or lemon juice) to coagulate the curd. That's it!


Farmer Cheese

1/2 gallon whole milk
1/4 cup white vinegar

Bring milk to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When the milk begins to boil, remove from heat and stir in vinegar. The curds should separate from the whey within 5 to 10 minutes. Line a colander with two layers of cheesecloth and pour the milk over the cloth. The whey should appear yellowish (if white, add more vinegar and wait 5 t0 10 more minutes). Squeeze out any remaining whey and allow the curds to hang suspended over a bowl for several hours. Season to taste with salt.

Sriracha chicken wings

My wife only eats the "flat" section of chicken wings. Weird, right? Well, she's from Buffalo, so maybe she knows something that we don't . . .

Anyway, we've had a bottle of Sriracha hot sauce in our cabinet for a few months, but only used it as a seasoning, adding some on top of chili or beef enchiladas. After reading the latest issue of Bon Appetit, which has a feature on the sauce, I was inspired to make use of it as a main ingredient. For those of you who haven't tried Sriracha, its a thick, hot, sweet, garlicky sauce made from chili peppers. The most famous brand, Huy Fong, is found in a green-topped squeeze bottle with a rooster on the front.

My first attempt at a Sriracha-focused meal were these chicken wings, using a recipe I found online. Not surprisingly, they are really, really hot! But in a good way, with lots of garlic flavor, not just for the sake of killing your taste buds for a week.

Sriracha Chicken Wings
Slightly modified from White on Rice Couple

2 lbs chicken wings, lightly coated with oil
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup minced onion
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 Sriracha
1 Tbsp vinegar
1 tsp soy sauce

Preheat oven to 425. Spread wings out on baking sheet and lightly coat with oil. Bake for 20 minutes, flip, then cook for 20 more. In saucepan over medium heat, heat oil, then add onion and garlic, stirring until golden brown. Add ketchup, Sriracha, vinegar and soy sauce and simmer for 3 minutes. Toss wings with sauce and serve. (Warning - they are really freaking hot!)

Gourmet bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches!

BECs (or bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches) are something of an obsession at work. BECs can be celebratory (cBECs), morale boosters (rpBECs, which console those suffering from rejected papers) or pure time wasters (nothing kills an afternoon like a bacon-induced hangover/nap). However, the ultimate in BECdom was recently achieved when my friend returned from a trip to Spain with massive amounts of cheese and cured pork products. We decided that, in order to honor the tastiest of all animals, we would create the most gourmet BEC imaginable - the gBEC.

The first step in the creation of the gBEC was procurement of the thickest, most flavorful bacon we could find. This was cooked on a stove top griddle, and the bacon fat used to fry the eggs (hey, I didn't say this was healthy!). These were placed on giant Kaiser rolls and finished with slices of Spanish cheese and sausage. We contemplated pairing our creations with some homemade beer, but as it was a Wednesday afternoon (and we don't work in finance) we headed back to the lab sober, but definitely ready for a nap!

My dad's 11 layer cake

My dad doesn't cook. At all. This is why my mom was quite surprised when he came home from work last week saying that he wanted to make a 12 layer cake. Not "have made for him," but "make." My dad's love of his family is only surpassed by his love for the New York Times, which is where the cake in question was featured. It told the story of a 400 year old Southern woman who has made this cake by hand every day of her life (or so my dad relayed the story to me). My mom figured, OK, we'll make four cakes and cut them each in thirds. However, the article clearly stated that the traditional method was to bake each layer individually, and my dad believes in doing things the right way. Three hours later, the monster was complete (only 1 layer short). All that was left was to make the frosting - a gallon of sugar, cocoa powder and condensed milk.

The taste? Somewhere between pure sugar and, well, more sugar. Good, though! Here's the link to the recipe:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/dining/161brex.html?ref=dining

French toast with pears and pomegranate sauce

This is the recipe that always made me wish I had a food blog. It's relatively simple, tastes great, and most importantly, looks really fancy! It is our favorite weekend morning breakfast/brunch. Something that takes more time and skill than pancakes or waffles, yet is still do-able on a lazy Sunday before football. The only tricky part is making sure not to thicken the pomegranate sauce too much, in which case you end up with pomegranate caramel. Actually, maybe that isn't too bad after all . . .

French Toast with Pears and Pomegranate Sauce
Slightly modified from Bon Appetit
Serves 4

5 eggs
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
8 slices challah bread
4 Tbsp butter, divided
2 pears, halved, cut lengthwise into 1/3-inch-thick slices
1 cup pomegranate juice
3/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

Whisk eggs, milk and vanilla in glass baking dish. Add bread slices; let stand until egg mixture is absorbed, turning bread slices occasionally.

Melt 1 tablespoon butter in large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add pears and sauté about 3 minutes. Transfer pears to plate. Add 2 tablespoons butter to skillet and stir to melt. Add pomegranate juice and sugar and simmer until liquid is slightly thickened and syrupy, about 5 minutes. Remove sauce from heat.

Melt remaining 1 tablespoon butter on griddle. Add bread slices and cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side. Top French toast slices with pears, spoon sauce over, and serve.