I know we were just at Ad Hoc 11 days before, but I made our New Year’s Eve reservations way before they put grilled short ribs on the menu the same day we were going to The French Laundry. And I certainly wasn’t going to turn down a special end-of-2009 dinner of Prime Ribeye and Maine Lobster with Truffle Butter.

Prime Ribeye and Maine Lobster with Truffle Butter

I’ve had ribeyes at Ad Hoc before, but this was the first time Ad Hoc was allowed to serve the calotte (ribeye cap) alongside the ribeye. Normally, the calotte is trimmed from the rib roasts and sent up the road to The French Laundry where they serve it like this:

The French Laundry’s Calotte de Beouf Grillée (12.08.08)

You know how prime rib has that ring of meat on the outside that tastes way better than the middle? That’s the calotte. If you’re a real fan of beef, you already know that the calotte is considered the best part of the cow because it’s tender and loaded with flavor, and chefs have been known to save the calotte for themselves.

Ad Hoc Blowtorch Prime Rib

Here’s the ribeye broken into separate components.

Anatomy of a ribeye, from left: rib bone, the eye, and the calotte.
Picture from Ideasinfood.com.

Everything at Ad Hoc is served family style, but they portioned each platter so that everyone at the table got two pieces of calotte, two pieces of ribeye, a whole lobster tail and a whole lobster claw. It was served with steamed broccolini and Carolina red rice with black eyed peas. I don’t mean to besmirch the meltingly tender lobster—the whole claw fell out of its shell when it was picked up—the perfect medium-rare ribeye, or the accompaniments, but really…this meal was all about the calotte. It was especially gratifying to find out that the calotte and lobster tail were separate courses on The French Laundry tasting menu that evening, as well.

A full plate of food to close out 2009.

Normally, you can ask for seconds at Ad Hoc and they’ll oblige, but not on this night. It wasn’t a problem because my wife gave me some of her calotte because she was getting full and saving herself for dessert. The Chocolate Bombe was a dark chocolate hazelnut mousse served with caramel sauce and hazelnut brittle, a lovely way to end 2009.

The Chocolate Bombe was the bo— nevermind… ;)

Here’s pics of the rest of the meal:

And here’s Cibo Matto’s – Know Your Chicken on YouTube to ring in 2010!

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When I first saw the Blowtorch Prime Rib recipe in the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook, I knew I was going to make it for Christmas dinner. But this technique is so easy, there is no reason to save it for special occasions.

Blowtorching meat is fun!

Of course, the first step is actually buying a blowtorch, and there are several options available. My first choice was the Iwatani Professional Torch Burner because it’s compact and just plain looks cool. The butane cartridges are proprietary, but with all the Asian markets near me, they’re not hard to find. Being the chronic procrastinator that I am, I had to settle for what was available down the street at Lowes. The BernzOmatic TS3000 was cheap (~$26), came with a big can of propane called the “Fat Boy,” and I love the name BernzOmatic. :)

The lovely blue flame produced by the BernzOmatic TS3000.

Roasting the prime rib can be broken down to three steps. I used a 2-bone, 4½-pound standing rib roast that easily fed 6 adults, but you could use this technique with any size roast.

1. Place the rib roast on a rack in a roasting pan and sear the meat with the blowtorch until it starts turning gray and the fat starts rendering.
2. Season the rib roast with generous amounts of kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper.
3. Roast in 275F oven until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 128F. For our 4½-pound roast, this took about two hours. I use a digital probe thermometer so that I can monitor the temperature of the meat without opening the oven.

The blowtorch jumpstarts the development of the crust
that’s characteristic of good prime rib.

Roasting the meat at a low temperature ensures a beautiful shade of pink all the way through the meat. Rest the meat for at least 30 minutes before cutting into it.

Perfect medium rare after resting for 40 minutes.

Since everything at Ad Hoc is served family style, the prime rib is cut into thick chunks instead of more traditional individual slices. I think this allows a smaller rib roast to serve more people and cuts down on wasted meat, especially if there are light eaters at the table who can’t finish a whole slice of regular prime rib.

To serve the meat, cut the roast in half down the center and put the meat cut side down on the cutting board. Then cut each half into ½-inch slices. I think serving the meat this way is great because each piece is thick and has a lot of crust. Before bringing the meat to the table drizzle it with a little fleur de sel or kosher salt and some coarsely ground pepper.

Blowtorched prime rib with horseradish cream

The low cooking temperature means that there’s hardly any drippings in the bottom of the pan to make jus, but you don’t need it. The meat’s beefiness comes through loud and clear, and it goes beautifully with this horseradish cream.

Horseradish Cream (adapted from Ad Hoc at Home)
½ cup very cold heavy cream
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
¼ cup drained, prepared horseradish
½ teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

Put the heavy cream and vinegar in a bowl in a medium bowl and whisk until the cream and holds a soft shape (just before soft peaks). Whisk in horseradish, salt, and pepper until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for up to a week.

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Kalbi Taco (actual size at 1440×900 MacBook Pro resolution)

Korean BBQ tacos have been a street food phenomenon since LA’s Kogi BBQ trucks started drawing hundreds of hungry Angelenos to street corners around Southern California. Kogi’s popularity spawned a blatant knock-off, inspired others to start their own mobile food ventures, and compelled other Korean establishments to add Korean tacos to their menus, such as SF’s Seoul on Wheels, Namu, and John’s Snack and Deli, and NY’s Seoul Station). For food bloggers, creating our own version of the dish we don’t have easy access to becomes a fun little project.

Seoul on Wheels’ Korean tacos at Oakland’s Eat Real Fest 2009.

I set out trying to emulate the famous Kogi taco, and this led me in several directions. I focused specifically on kalbi tacos since I’ve always been a big fan of grilled Korean short ribs. In the past, I’ve relied on jarred marinades, but this time I wanted to make one from scratch. I put out a call for recipes on both Twitter and Facebook, and my friend Kevyn came through with an excellent kalbi marinade. Feel free to use your favorite kalbi recipe if you have one.

The question of corn v. flour tortillas doesn’t exist here because tacos should ALWAYS be on corn tortillas, but tortilla size is an important issue. I used 4-inch tortillas because it makes the tacos easy to pick up and eat one handed. However, the smallest tortilla that is carried by most mainstream American supermarkets is 6 inches in diameter, which I generally find too big and unwieldy for taqueria-style or street tacos. If you have Mexican market nearby, 4-inch tortillas shouldn’t be hard to find.

Figuring out the rest of the taco required a lot more research. I started at SteamyKitchen.com and Jaden’s recipe for Korean-style Kogi Tacos, which includes a BBQ sauce recipe developed for her by Kogi Chef Roy Choi. The Kogi BBQ sauce is intended to go with pork or chicken, but I think it works really well to balance out the rest of flavors in the taco. Tasty Eats at Home did her own version of Korean tacos, and I used her cilantro-red onion relish for this recipe. I like the color and flavor that the red onion provides over brown or yellow onions. The last major topping is napa cabbage/romaine slaw dressed with a chili-soy vinaigrette that I lifted from the New York Times.

I ended up making the tacos based on the recipe that follows three times, and by the third time, we pretty much had all the logistics down. I also made some other Korean taco variations a few days ago, and you can see those at the end of the post.

INGREDIENTS AND RECIPES
4-5 pounds of flanken-style short ribs
4-inch corn tortillas, 1 bag (at least 40)

Kalbi Marinade
adapted from a recipe by Kevyn Miyata
(for 4-5 lbs of short ribs)

1½ cups soy sauce
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup honey
¼ cup sesame oil
8-10 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed
6 large green onions, roughly chopped
1 Asian or Korean Pear (½ roughly chopped, ½ sliced then mashed by hand)
Toasted sesame seeds

Combine all ingredients except meat in a bowl and mix well. In a one gallon ZipLoc bag, combine meat and marinade. Let sit for 24-36 hours, flipping over the bag every 12 hours or so to ensure the marinade is distributed evenly.

Kogi BBQ Sauce
adapted from Steamy Kitchen
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp gochujang (Korean fermented hot pepper paste)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp rice vinegar
Sriracha to taste (optional)

Whisk together all the ingredients. If desired, add Sriracha a few drops at a time to the sauce until it’s hot enough for ya. :) If you have one, put sauce in a squeeze bottle to make taco assembly more efficient.

Cilantro-Onion Relish
adapted from Tasty Eats at Home
½ red onion, minced
1 tsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp cilantro
Juice of 1 lime
Pinch or two of salt

Add onions and rice wine vinegar in a bowl. Allow to sit for about 5-10 minutes. Drain and rinse. Add rest of ingredients to onions and stir to combine.

Napa/Romaine Slaw with Chili-Soy Vinaigrette
dressing recipe from The New York Times
2 cups Napa cabbage, shredded
4 cups Romaine lettuce, shredded
¼ cup soy sauce
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
2 small jalapenos, seeded and minced
1 tsp minced fresh ginger

Whisk together the soy, vinegar, garlic, jalapenos and ginger and set aside. Combine Napa and Romaine in a bowl until mixed well. You should have a nice green/white color contrast. For best results, divide slaw into batches and dress each batch as needed so that the greens don’t get soggy.

DIRECTIONS

1. Grill short ribs about a minute per side on a really hot grill.
   
   
2. Separate the kalbi meat from the bones and gristle. Cut the meat it into strips lengthwise, then turn 90-degrees and dicing the meat into a “brunoise” of kalbi, if you will. :) If you like the gristle, I’d separate that from the bones and dice it up too. Set the meat aside in a bowl until there’s enough meat to start making tacos en masse.
   Kalbi “brunoise”

   OPTION: After all the meat is diced up, you can either use it straight away or refry it to caramelize the meat so that each piece has a little crunch to it. This extra step is also good if you’re going to use the gristle since it lets it break down a lot more. I’ve done it both ways, and the extra caramelization is really nice.

3. Heat a lightly oiled cast iron skillet over medium heat. Toast tortillas 30-45 seconds on each side and set aside. Working with a partner or two in an assembly line works great here so tacos can be made right after toasting.
4. Start assembling the tacos by putting a little meat in the tortilla, then top with a bit of the cilantro-red onion relish, a little slaw, a little more cilantro-onion relish, and then drizzle a little BBQ sauce to finish. We eyeballed all of these amounts, but don’t overstuff the taco or else it will too hard to pick up and eat. You can arrange about eight tacos per plate.
   

VARIATIONS

• Replace the cilantro-onion relish with a pickled radish/carrot salad (known colloquially as “mu,” if anyone knows what this is actually called in Korean, I’d love to know.) This was my second-favorite version of the taco that we made.
  
• To go even more Korean, I stole an idea from my friend Euge and blended up a jar of kimchi to make a Korean salsa that replaced the Kogi BBQ sauce. I’m not a big kimchi eater, but I liked this a lot. If you like kimchi, this is a great alternative.
  

I’m not sure how many tacos this actually makes because we’ve never had to use all the meat for tacos, and it’s never a bad thing to have extra kalbi around. :) I do know that you can get at least 40 tacos out of 4-5 pounds of meat. You can easily scale this recipe down for your own needs, but I was cooking for parties and needed a lot of food.

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Pastrami made with a short rib slab. (second attempt)

Pastrami is one of my favorite things to eat in the whole world, but it never occurred to me that I could actually make it myself until I read Asian Jewish Deli’s Pastrami Reuben post. What caught my attention was that AJD used a slab of short ribs instead of the more traditional brisket or beef plate that is used to make pastrami, and short ribs are my favorite part of the cow.

Pastrami made with brisket.

A couple months later, I was reading through Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio and in the chapter on brines, I saw a recipe for corned beef with an additional pastrami variation. I decided I would give that version a shot, especially since the dutch oven bread I made previously from Ratio turned out to really well. Ruhlman recently posted his version of short rib pastrami using regular boneless short ribs, but I kinda took the wind out of his sails a bit when I mentioned AJD’s version to him on Twitter a couple days before it went online.

Short rib pastrami made with a standard cut of boneless short ribs. (first attempt)

The pastrami-making process is broken down into three steps: curing, smoking, and steaming. Curing is basically how you make corned beef. When you smoke and steam corned beef, you get pastrami. In fact, if you bought a prepackaged corned beef at the market, you could easily make this into pastrami, but I’d bet that doing it yourself will yield a better result.

Curing takes four days and is usually done with a wet cure, i.e. brine. Ruhlman prefers brining, especially for larger cuts of meat like a brisket. I also saw some examples on other Web sites where a dry cure didn’t penetrate all the way to the middle of the meat, so I decided to stick with a brine. After brining, the meat is rinsed, dried and then coated on all sides with a ground pepper/coriander rub before it is smoked and steamed.

Brisket pastrami sandwich (first attempt).

The first pastrami I made used a brisket point, and it was good, but not as salty as I expected it to be. I also had a couple pieces of boneless short ribs that I threw on the brine, and those smaller pieces of meat were closer to the flavor I was looking for. Upon reviewing the recipe in Ratio, I found a typo in the recipe that affected the ratio of water to salt. I guess I could have figured out the math since tere is a specific ratio for brines, but math was never my strong suit. ;-) I mentioned the discrepancy and verified the correct ratio with Ruhlman via Twitter and proceeded to make a second pastrami a couple weeks later.

Since my goal at the outset was to make short rib pastrami, I set out to find some a slab of short ribs for the second attempt. I found one at Baron’s Meats in Alameda, but if you can’t get your hands on one, you can simply use boneless short ribs since these are easy to find at your market or butcher. Also, since boneless short ribs are smaller, they’re much easier to handle than a short rib slab or an unwieldy brisket.

PASTRAMI RECIPE
adapted from Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio
This version of the recipe corrects the typo in the first edition of Ratio and converts the corned beef recipe into dedicated pastrami variation.

INGREDIENTS
1 4-5 pound brisket, short rib slab, or boneless short ribs.

Brine
2 liters water (half gallon)
25 grams of pink curing salt* (1 ounce or 5 teaspoons)
50 grams sugar (1¼ ounces or scant ¼ cup)
100 grams kosher salt
10 cloves garlic, flattened with the flat side of a knife
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon whole allspice
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick, crushed or broken into pieces
3 bay leaves, crumbled
1 teaspoon whole cloves
½ teaspoon ground ginger

* The key to preserving pastrami’s familiar red color is using pink curing salt (i.e. sodium nitrite). You can order it online at butcher-packer.com. You can omit it, but the pastrami will be brownish gray instead of red.

Dry Rub
Equal parts ground pepper and ground coriander, preferably freshly ground (enough to cover the meat)

DIRECTIONS
In a pot large enough to hold the entire piece of meat, combine all the brine ingredients in a large pot. Simmer and stir until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature before refrigerating. When the brine is completely chilled, place the meat in the pot. Use a plate to keep the meat submerged, if necessary. Refrigerate for four days.

Remove the meat from the brine and rinse well. Dry the meat and then cover completely it in the pepper/coriander rub. Smoke the meat until the internal temperature of the meat is 165F. This will take a couple hours or so. After smoking, steam the meat for a couple more hours until tender.

If you’re eating the pastrami right away, you can remove it from the steamer and start slicing it up. If you’re not serving the pastrami right away, you can let it cool and then wrap it up in plastic wrap and refrigerate it. Cooling the pastrami also makes it easier to slice thinly if that’s how you like it. Whether you keep it whole or slice it up, steam the pastrami for 5-10 minutes to warm the meat and give it a bit more moisture before serving.

I normally prefer a traditional New York-style sandwich of pastrami on rye bread with brown deli mustard or a pastrami reuben with melted and sauerkraut (as pictured above).

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Tapa is Filipino cured beef that is similar to beef jerky, and when I was home last weekend, my dad was raving about the homemade tapa he started making recently. He was eager to show me how it’s done, so I pulled out my camera and followed him step by step.

1. Dad uses three pounds of thinly sliced sirloin tip steaks that he gets at the local Mexican supermarket and cuts it into equal-sized strips with scissors.

2. Next, he marinates it for 10 hours in a basic mixture of vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and sugar.
   

   Tapa Marinade
   ½ cup soy sauce
   ½ cup vinegar
   6-8 garlic cloves, chopped
   1 Tbsp. sugar


3. After marinating, the meat gets layered in a food dehydrator that will run for 12 hours. A dehydrator simplifies the process of making tapa, but if you don’t have one, you can always use Alton Brown’s box fan method, which Burnt Lumpia did when he made his tapa. I don’t have a dehydrator, but I do have a box fan, so I’m going to use this method next time.
   
4. After 12 hours, the tapa looks like this…
If Lisa Lisa saw this, she’d say it was “all dried out.”
5. My dad is insistent on broiling the tapa for two minutes a side because I think he’s averse to frying in general, but frying the tapa in a little oil is a great way to finish it off before serving. One of the most popular ways to enjoy it is for breakfast in tapsilog (tapa, garlic fried rice (sinangag) and eggs (itlog)), which is how I like to eat it.
Tapsilog with Dad’s Homemade Tapa.

Last weekend I was home attending my high school reunion, so I’m not going to be home for Father’s Day this year. When I was a kid, it was my dad’s garlic fried rice that woke me up on Sunday mornings, and when I was out on my own, trying to replicate that simple dish was one of the reasons I started cooking. My mom had a stroke five years ago, and dad has been responsible for taking care of her—cooking all the meals, making sure she’s exercising and doing her therapy, and more importantly, keeping her smiling and laughing.

So this post is for you, dad. Happy Father’s Day, and I can’t wait to hear more of your culinary secrets.

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Another Christmas has come and gone and the deep-fried short ribs and “dismantled” prime rib were big hits.

The short ribs were cooked in a 135F/57.2C waterbath for 48 hours and then deep fried in 360F vegetable oil for a few minutes to crisp up the skin.

We had cookies and apple pie for dessert, although no pictures of those because we were so full that we couldn’t really move. Apologies also for the lack of prep pictures. It’s hard to think about stopping to taking pics when you’re focused on the task at hand. I’ll try and do better next time.

Merry Christmas! (if this applies to you! :-P)

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I’m in charge of Christmas dinner again, and I’m still a little torn on what I should make. The adventurous part of me wants to take a rib roast and separate the cap meat (i.e. calotte, deckle) from the actual ribeye…kinda like this:

From left: ribs, eye, cap.
Picture from Ideasinfood.com

Then I can cook the cap meat sous vide to a nice medium rare in attempt to partially recreate this dish:

The French Laundry’s Calotte de Beouf Grillée (12.08.08)

For the center cut, I would oven roast it to medium rare and end up with a sort of deconstructed prime rib cooked two ways.

The other part of me wants to go old school and roast a nice beef tenderloin or standing rib roast. I’ve been successful with rib roasts before but have never tried a tenderloin. But as old school as a tenderloin roast might sound, I’d probably endup cooking that sous vide anyway.

Aside from the main courses, Yorkshire puddings are definitely on the agenda, and I think my wife is going to make her garlic bacon mashed potatoes. I am extremely tempted to make this Macaroni and Gravy recipe by fellow food blogger Lainie as a second entree, and I know my cousin Cristy, who hosted Thanksgiving, has something up her sleeve.

If you’re looking for some Christmas recipes, you might want to give these a try:

• Prime Rib with Jus — my own hybrid of Lawry’s and Cook’s Illustrated’s recipes
• Yorkshire Pudding — from Cook’s Illustrated…a lot of fun to make
• Thomas Keller Oreos — made these for Christmas presents last year
• Sweet Potato Pie — an easy recipe that I’ve been using for years

I’m not sure if I’ll be posting again before Christmas, but if I don’t, I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday season!

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Thanksgiving was at my cousin’s this year, and we both agreed we didn’t want to do turkey. I decided that I would make a big batch of Bistek Tagalog, only this time (and inspired by Marvin at Burnt Lumpia) I was going to grill it. Bistek is great as a traditional single-pan dish, but I was confident that grilling the steak would make it even better.

Unlike previous versions of bistek I’ve made that used thinly sliced New York or sirloin steaks, I picked up some flap steak at Costco. Flap steak is very similar to skirt steak, cooks quickly, and is extremely tender. Again, you can use almost any cut of steak to make bistek, but I think that skirt, flank, or flap steaks might be the best cuts of meat for this dish.

I used the same methods as in Bistek Tagalog II (Kalamansi version). I got some more kalamansi from our family friend and ended up needing 60 of them to get almost 1.5 cups of juice. I mixed this with a cup of soy sauce (to ensure there was proportionally more juice than soy sauce) and four chopped garlic cloves to finish the marinade. The meat should be marinated for no more than an hour before putting them on the grill. (Make sure you save the marinade to make the sauce later).

On the Grill

I grilled them for about 5 minutes a side on a very hot grill and then rested the meat for 10 minutes before slicing it against the grain. The meat ended up being between medium rare and medium, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Slice against the grain.

I had a bit of trouble getting the onions onto skewers, so I just put them directly on the grill. I lost a bit of onion this way, but for the most part it worked well. I’m sure you could fry up the onions in a hot, dry frying pan or grill pan if you want to maximize your onion yield. :) When you’re done cooking the onions, mix it up with the meat.

While the meat rests, take the remaining marinade and cook it down to your desired consistency to make the sauce. You might find that you don’t even need the sauce after you try the meat, but it’s always good to mix it in with your rice, too. We ended up pouring the sauce into a gravy boat so that people could just pour it on the meat if they wanted.

Of the three different bistek’s that I’ve made, this one is by far my favorite. Grilled meat always trumps pan-fried in my book, and the flap steak was also the ideal cut of meat to use for bistek. A pan-fried flap steak would also be excellent, but if you have access to a grill, by all means use it.

How did it go over at Thanksgiving? The bistek was the first platter to be finished off, and I also got several compliments on it, so it went very well. :)

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend…now it’s time to focus on Christmas dinner!

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We went to Ad Hoc for brunch today with some friends (and Ad Hoc virgins). I think brunch is a great way to introduce Ad Hoc to the unitiated. The menu follows the pictures.

I’m not really sure if I can pinpoint the real highlight of this meal, but the Blood Orange Granité is a strong contender. Those are strong sentiments when you consider the main course included prime ribeye with chanterelles and pasta and was one of the best entrees I’ve eaten at Ad Hoc.

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We’ve been cooking a lot for my parents this week, and when my mom showed me the bags of kalamansi (Philippine musk lime) she got from her friends, the first thing I thought of making was Bistek Tagalog (Filipino Beefsteak).

My mom said that the bistek she grew up with a had a strong citrus flavor, so instead of the 1:1 citrus/soy sauce mixture that I used before, I reduced the amount of soy sauce to let the kalamansi juice come to the forefront.

When my mom tried my bistek, she said it reminded her of home, which was the ultimate compliment.

I think regardless of whether or not I have kalamansi on hand or not, I’m going to go with this version of the recipe instead of the previous one.

INGREDIENTS
Thinly cut steaks
1 onion, thinly sliced into rings

Marinade:
1 cup kalamansi juice
3/4 cup soy sauce
4 garlic cloves, minced

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine marinade ingredients and marinate steaks for no longer than 30 minutes.
2. In a skillet, cook the steaks over medium high heat. If you’re using thinner steaks, this should only take a few minutes. After the steaks are cooked, remove from skillet and place on a plate. Keep warm.
3. Add the onion slices to the pan and cook until softened. Top the steaks with the onions
4. Add the remaining marinade to the skillet and reduce for about a minute to make a sauce. If the sauce is too strong, add a little water to dilute it a bit. When the sauce is ready, pour over the steak and onions.
5. Serve with steamed rice.

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I’ve raved about Alexander’s Steakhouse before and have been trying to manufacture excuses to go back. My birthday was as good a reason as any to make my return. My previous post has all the background info on Alexander’s, so let’s cut to the chase.

We were greeted with a nice amuse of cold sunchoke soup with crouton.

My wife ordered the pan-roasted halibut with beurre noisette of porcini, butternut squash, chestnuts, and brussels sprouts. Alexander’s might be a steakhouse, but their seafood is also excellent.

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So we went back to Ad Hoc so that my sister in law could try their brunch. As luck would have it, Prime Ribeye with Poached Eggs was the main entree, but check out the Smoked Pork Bruschetta. Here’s the menu and pics:

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This installment of Lazy Barbecue is all about beef ribs. Now, I love a good rack of baby back ribs, and it’s no secret that I love me some beef short ribs (see here, here, here, here, and here). I’ve even written about making Cook’s Illustrated’s Texas-Style BBQ Beef Ribs, but this version is a little easier.

I did these ribs two different ways. One batch was kept in slab form and cooked for around six hours. The end result was fall-off-the-bone ribs, which tasted great, but I wanted ribs with a firmer texture. The ribs were so tender that it was actually a challenge to keep the slab intact for this picture.

When you’re at the store looking for ribs, you want to find beef back ribs that look like this:

Picture from Nimanranch.com.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether you want to do the slab or the individual ribs, but I like cutting up the slabs because you can get a nice crust on all sides of each rib.

INGREDIENTS
Your favorite barbecue spice rub
Your favorite barbecue sauce
1 slab beef back ribs

1. Sprinkle rub on ribs and refrigerator uncovered overnight
2. 1 hour before cooking, remove ribs from fridge and wrap in foil. You can also put the ribs on a cooling rack set over a foil-lined cookie sheet.
3. Preheat oven to 225F.
4. Cook ribs for at least three hours for firmer ribs and more than five hours for fall-off-the-bone ribs.
5. 30 minutes before removing from oven, open up foil and baste ribs in your favorite BBQ sauce. Finish cooking uncovered.

NOTES

• You can buy Texas Best Barbecue Sauce and Rub direct from their Web site.
• For a smokier flavor, try rubbing the ribs with a little liquid smoke before applying the rub.

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My friend Maria was in town on business, which gave us another excuse to go to Ad Hoc. I learned there were some issues with the menu on this night. Originally, the main course was supposed to be veal osso buco, but by the time we arrived for our 9pm reservation, the main course was prime New York steak. Apparently the osso buco wasn’t up to standard and they made some changes on the fly. A coworker who had been there earlier in the evening said he was served pork belly and that they made the menu change after the first table had received their osso buco.

Can’t wait to go back in August when my sister-in-law comes to town.

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• The French Laundry (with an Ad Hoc chaser)

No marinades. No drowning meat in sauces. Just meat, a good spice rub, and the oven. This is about as easy as good food gets.

We’re not allowed to grill or barbecue where I live, so this technique is perfect for us. It’s also great for lazy cooks since you can use a digital probe thermometer to tell you when the meat reaches the right temperature.

INGREDIENTS
Your favorite spice rub
1 beef tri tip (any size)

1. Sprinkle rub on all sides of the tri tip and let stand at room temperature for at least an hour. I suppose you could do this overnight, as well, but make sure tri tip is at room temperature before you start cooking.
2. Preheat oven to 400 F
3. Sear both sides of the tri tip, fat side first, approximately 5 minutes per side
4. After searing, place meat fat side up on a rack set on a foil-lined cookie sheet.
5. Place in oven and cook until the internal temperature is 125 degrees. (I had my digital probe thermometer in the tri tip, so I didn’t really keep track of time, but it was somewhere between 20-30 minutes.)
6. When meat reaches temperature, remove from oven and wrap in foil, resting for 10 minutes before slicing. The meat will continue to cook and you should end up with a medium rare/medium tri tip.
7. To serve, slice tri tip against the grain into 1/4-1/2 inch thick slices. Serve with your favorite BBQ sauce.

NOTES
I used a BBQ Spice Rub and BBQ Sauce from Texas Best. Texas Best BBQ Sauce was top rated by Cook’s Illustrated magazine a few years ago, but it was impossible to find because they had ceased operations. A couple months ago, Texas Best resurrected itself is now back in business. Check them out at www.texasbestbarbequesauce.com.

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Our first visit to Ad Hoc was a year ago today, and though it might seem strange to commemorate the occasion, I had a major culinary epiphany that evening. If you read my review of that first Ad Hoc dinner, I think you can actually see the light bulbs going off in my head as dinner progressed. The entire experience made me reevaluate how I thought about food and cooking, and in many ways, it’s why this blog even exists.

That first visit was followed by 13 more in the last 12 months, including our Ad Hoc “anniversary” dinner last night. (We did celebrate our second wedding anniversary there last September with some delicious Texas-style Barbecue.) The ever-changing daily menu helped spawn the Ad Hoc Menu Archive, one of this site’s most popular pages. You can see all of my Ad Hoc-related posts, including my attempts at replicating their awesome fried chicken, on this page.

Last night’s meal seemed to take this year-long Ad Hoc journey full circle. It featured beef short ribs, one of my favorite things to eat in the whole world (esp. when sous vide is involved), and it was the focal point of our first visit to Ad Hoc. Of course, Ad Hoc always finds ways to change things up so they don’t serve you the exact same meal twice.

Here’s last night’s menu:

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• The French Laundry (with an Ad Hoc chaser)

UPDATE 11/29/08:
I made a grilled version for Thanksgiving. Check it out!

UPDATE 11/2/08:
While this recipe is still good, I have a different version that I like a lot better. I’ll leave this recipe up for archival purposes, but for better results (IMO), see the newer post.

—

Bistek Tagalog (Filipino Beefsteak) is one of my favorite dishes, and it’s so easy to make that I’m actually disappointed in myself for not making it before. Traditionally, it’s a simple marinade of soy sauce, kalamansi juice and garlic, and you can use almost any cut of steak. Kalamansi is a musk lime that’s native to the Philippines, but I only had lemons on hand, so I used those. Next time I make this, I’ll see if I can get my hands on some kalamansi. Otherwise I’ll use the regular supermarket limes or maybe mix lime and lemon juice.

Many recipes I saw called for chuck, flank, skirt or sirloin steaks, but I used some thinly sliced New York steaks that I found at Safeway. I also saw some recipes that used red onions, but I’m used to either yellow or white onions in this dish. Use whatever you prefer. You can also plate this however you like. I like to mix the onions and sauce up with the rice, so that’s why they’re separate on the plate.

INGREDIENTS
1 pound of thinly cut steaks
1 onion, thinly sliced into rings

Marinade:
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine marinade ingredients and marinate steaks for no longer than 30 minutes.
2. In a skillet, cook the steaks over medium high heat. If you’re using thinner steaks, this should only take a few minutes. After the steaks are cooked, remove from skillet and place on a plate. Keep warm.
3. Add the onion slices to the pan and cook until softened. Top the steaks with the onions
4. Add the remaining marinade to the skillet and reduce for about a minute to make a sauce. If the sauce is too strong, add a little water to dilute it a bit. When the sauce is ready, pour over the steak and onions.
5. Serve with steamed rice.

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Special occasions call for special restaurants, and when a friend and former coworker decided he was going to pack it up and move back home to the ATL, it was the perfect time for some old friends to get together, reminisce about the good old days and send him off in style. We quickly came to a consensus on Alexander’s Steakhouse in Cupertino, a modern American steakhouse with Japanese influences that does some pretty amazing things with meat.

The first thing you notice when you walk into the restaurant is the meat locker on the left that contains huge slabs of dry-aged beef. It’s always nice to know when a restaurant is aging its own beef, and as a meat lover, it’s really a sight to behold.

We were presented with a really nice ahi tartare amuse bouche to kick off the meal. A few of us decided to try the Hamachi Shot off the small plates menu, one of Alexander’s most popular appetizers (it’s also the cheapest at $4). It’s a shot glass filled with hamachi, red chili, frizzled ginger, avocado, and truffled ponzu, and you simply stir it up a bit and then shoot it. It’s quite a rush, and I loved the slight kick you get from the chili.

Salads quickly followed, including my Baby Lettuce salad with yuzu vinaigrette, red radish, ten kasu, and the optional bacon lardons (of course!). The Iceberg Lettuce salad featured living watercress, point reyes blue cheese, and apples and was plated beautifully. Before our main courses arrived, we cleansed our palates with an intermezzo—a refreshing shot of mango juice and chopped strawberries.

Between the eight of us, only three different entrees were ordered—five orders of the 10 oz. filet mignon, two orders of the Melange a Trois (including mine) and one Misoyaki Sea Bass. The filets were excellent and topped with shiitakes and candied bacon. The sea bass was served with sansho crispy squid, tempura green beans, curried trout roe, beurre noir, and their crunchiness was a nice contrast to the buttery, melt-in-your-mouth fish.

The guest of honor and I both ordered the Melange for its variety—Prime Rib in Natural Jus, Braised Shortrib with Brie en Cocette, and Bavette Steak with Green Olives and Bleu Cheese. I also added a piece of Seared Foie Gras to “round out” the meal. :-)

I really liked the prime rib with its smooth, buttery texture and the natural jus was delicious. The shortrib/brie combo was topped with puff pastry, so it was like a really beefy and cheesy pot pie. The Bavette was really good on its own, and seeing it topped with a slice of seared foie gras made it even more decadent. I have to say despite all the hype foie gras gets from foodies, it doesn’t get me all that excited. I think it’s good, but it’s nothing really mind blowing either.

We had a pretty good assortment of sides with our meal, including the Mac and Cheese with Truffle Oil (good but didn’t need the truffle oil), Mashed Potatoes (creamy and perfect), Creamed Spinach (excellent), Asparagus with Bernaise (good), and Haricot Vert with Bacon (too full to appreciate). Of these, the creamed spinach was a standout because of the crispy filo strands (I tend to like things that make food crunchy).

For a steakhouse, Alexander’s does some really creative things with sweets, and luckily, most of us managed to save some space for dessert. Around the table we had the aptly named Divinity (chocolate soufflé with créme anglaise), Ooh! (chocolate sphere filled with fudge, chocolate black olive ice cream and black velvet cake), Blush (mango panna cotta with passion fruit sorbet and honey gelée), and Velvet Ropes (blueberry lavender créme brülée with maple ice cream). The chocolate decadence of the Ooh! was my favorite of these, but I also liked the mango panna cotta. The soufflé was also really good, but I wasn’t really into the hints of lavender in the créme brülée.

If you’re too full and choose not to order dessert, you’ll still get a glimpse of where they’re coming from when they bring the cotton candy to the table. On previous visits, the cotton candy was much smaller and part of a petit fours that concluded the meal. (Can you say “whimsical” boys and girls? I knew you could) Now, you’ll see carnival-sized helpings of cotton candy being delivered to tables while you eat. I don’t know if they change the flavors of their cotton candy, but last night’s was grape, and it was awesome. (I also love grape-flavored things, like Kool-Aid, Jolly Ranchers and Dimetapp.)

INFORMATION
Alexander’s Steakhouse
10330 N. Wolfe Road
Cupertino, CA 95014 map
408.446.2222
Web Site

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You know you’re eating well when you’re at a Korean BBQ joint feasting on beef brisket, pork belly and some beautifully marbled prime kalbi. In fact, I think you can judge the quality of the meat by whether or not you’re tempted to start eating the raw meat right when it’s brought to the table, which almost happened at Cham Sut Gol when that platter of beautifully marbled prime kalbi arrived.

The kalbi was great and served in its most pure state—no marinades or sauces needed—just a little butter on the grill and the marbly meat would take care of the rest. I’d never had Korean style brisket and it was excellent, and I especially liked the sauce that came with it. The sliced pork belly was also pretty amazing and was accompanied by a strong but perfect salt/pepper oil that really enhanced its inherent porkiness.

But aside from the meat, a perfectly fried mackeral was another highlight, but I didn’t eat much of it because I was busy cooking and eating the meat while my wife and some friends tore that fish apart.

Ban chan selection was good, and the service was attentive. Parking might look like an issue, but they do have valet when it’s busy, and we didn’t have any issues finding street parking.

INFORMATION
Cham Sut Gol
3700 W Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90019 map
323.734.9292
Web site

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After the success I had with the Momofuku-inspired Braised Beef Short Ribs a couple weeks ago, I thought I’d give braising another try, this time with Beef Bourguignon. There are so many ways to prepare this classic dish, but I was looking for something quick and dirty. This is where Anthony Bourdain comes into the picture. Bourdain’s Boeuf Bourguignon recipe has been hailed for being both delicious and incredibly easy, so I went looking for it online since I don’t own the Les Halles Cookbook yet. A little Google-fu led me to the Washington Post, and I was on my way. Here’s a picture of the final product, and yes, it was as good as it looks.

I had to tweak the recipe a bit to accommodate the ingredients I had one hand. To start, I used four pounds of bone-in English cut short ribs. I only had one onion, but we did buy an enormous leek at the farmer’s market that morning, so I used that to compensate. I also didn’t have a bottle of Burgundy handy, so I used a bottle of Magnificent Winery’s House Wine that was left over from our 2005 wedding.

To finish the dish, I strained the braising liquid before reducing it down a bit, and then roasted some carrots and potatoes in a separate pan before adding it to the meat. This finishing step ensures that you have freshly cooked vegetables in the stew and not the mushy ones from the braising liquid.

The recipe that follows after the jump is basically how it was printed, but with my modifications.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 pounds bone-in beef short ribs, English Cut
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 1 large leek, bottom only, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 pound of baby carrots
• 1/2 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, halved
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 bouquet garni (a tied bundle of herbs, usually thyme, bay and parsley)
• A little chopped flat-leaf parsley

DIRECTIONS
Stage One
Season the meat with salt and pepper. In a Dutch oven, heat the oil over high heat until it is almost smoking. Add the meat in batches — NOT ALL AT ONCE! — and sear on all sides until it is well browned (not gray). You dump too much meat in the pot at the same time and you’ll overcrowd it; cool the thing down and you won’t get good color. Sear the meat a little at a time, removing it and setting it aside as it finishes. When all the meat is a nice, dark brown color and has been set aside, add the onions and leeks to the pot. Lower the heat to medium high until the onions and leeks are soft and golden brown (about 10 minutes). Sprinkle the flour over them. Continue to cook for about 4 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add the red wine. Naturally, you want to scrape up all that really good fond from the bottom of the pot with your wooden spoon. Bring the wine to a boil.

Stage Two
Return the meat to the pot and add half the carrots, garlic and bouquet garni. Add just enough water (and two big spoons of demi-glace, if you have it) so that the liquid covers the meat by one-third — meaning you want a ratio of 3 parts liquid to 2 parts meat. This is a stew, so you want plenty of liquid even after it cooks down and reduces. Bring to a boil, reduce to a gentle simmer, and let cook for about 3 hours, or until the meat is tender (break-apart-with-a-fork tender).

You should pay attention to the dish, meaning to check it every 15 to 20 minutes, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot to make sure the meat is not sticking or, God forbid, scorching. You should also skim off any foam or scum or oil collecting on the surface, using a large spoon or ladle. When done, remove and discard the bouquet garni.

Strain the braising liquid and discard the contents of the strainer. Let the dish cool on the counter and then refrigerate at least 24 hours.

When you’re ready to eat, remove the meat from the bones and then reheat the bourguignon on the stove over low/medium heat. While the stew is reheating, put butter in a skillet and add the potatoes and remaining carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally and seasoning with salt and pepper, until browned and nearly tender, about 20 minutes. Add to meat. Taste mixture and adjust seasonings if necessary, then garnish with chopped parsley and and serve with bread or with rice.

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