Wine Braised Short Ribs

Yes, it absolutely tastes as good as it looks. A pillow of creamy, fluffy mashed potatoes with a tender beef short rib nestled on top with fresh herbs and a beefy red wine sauce coating it. Feel free to shed a tear over its beauty. Then head to the grocery store to buy some short ribs so that you can make this.

Short rib ingredients:
4 large short ribs, about 4 lbs
5 carrots
3 celery stalks
1 large onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 lb cremini mushrooms
8 sprigs of thyme
3 sprigs of rosemary
1 bottle dry red wine
2 cans beef consomme
salt and pepper to taste

Mashed potato ingredients:
5-6 medium potatoes
4 tbsp butter
1/2 cup fat free sour cream
splash of 2% milk
salt and pepper to taste

Mmmm delicious golden brown seared short ribs. That's step number one. Sear these bad boys and get some flavor going in your pan. I used a five quart dutch oven to make this, but if you don't have one you can use a stockpot or a large skillet. A five quart skillet would probably actually be the best option because more surface are and less depth is beneficial here. I'm really glad I thought of this now instead of when I made these short ribs. Anyway, while your short ribs are browning, chop up one onion, three carrots, and three celery stalks. You can leave them in fairly big pieces because they're pretty much going to dissolve into the sauce. That will be fixed later. Add them to the pan when the ribs are brown.

Add a pinch of salt when you add the vegetables to help them start releasing their liquids, which will help the brown fond stuck to the bottom of the pan begin to release. Fond is the good stuff. You want it in your sauce. While your veg cooks, finely chop the garlic and quarter the larger mushrooms. If they're pretty small, just leave them whole.

The mushrooms and garlic really only need to cook until the garlic becomes fragrant. Then comes the fun part. Add an entire bottle of red wine. It always smells incredible when you add wine to a hot pan, so just take time and enjoy that for second. 

As for choosing a wine, if you watch a lot of cooking shows or read a lot about food like I do, you've probably heard that you should only cook with wine you'd want to drink or to only use good wine or some such advice. Personally I think that's a load of crap. If you can tell the difference between the cheapest wine you can find and an expensive wine after they've cooked with all of these other flavors for several hours and you can genuinely say that one is noticeably better (I doubt it), then good for you. Use the cheap stuff folks. It doesn't make a difference. 

Now take some butcher's twine and wrap it several times around the rosemary and thyme. You don't even need to tie a knot. If you don't have butcher's twine, go and buy butcher's twine because you should have some as it's super useful. Add your herb bundle and consomme and put the short ribs on top of this mixture.

I've got four short ribs in that pan. I really should have thought of that large skillet idea earlier. It actually was a very legitimate issue that caused problems later on. Don't do this. Use a large skillet. Anyway, after they're in the liquid your work is pretty much done. Simmer them on low for four or five hours until they're nice and tender and the sauce has reduced. It should become thick like a gravy, but if it doesn't take a tablespoon of flour and add water to form a slurry. Add the slurry to the sauce and it should thicken up almost immediately. You can use cornstarch instead of flour, but just be aware that cornstarch thickened sauce will have a different consistency than flour. At this point you should taste it and add more salt and pepper as needed.

When there was about an hour left I cut the two remaining carrots into about one inch chunks and threw them in. I add the extra carrots because the celery, onions, and carrots that flavored the sauce will literally dissolve into it. This way you have delicious mushrooms and carrots that still have texture.

When the beef is tender and the carrots have softened slice the potatoes into large chunks and put them in a pot with cold water to boil. Once they're soft, strain them then put them back in the pot with the butter and sour cream. I make mashed potatoes with an actual potato masher because it leaves some chunks of potato, which I prefer over a super creamy mash. I add a little milk if the potatoes seem too dry then I season with salt and pepper until they're tasty.

I could stare at that all day. But then I wouldn't be able to eat delicious things like braised short ribs for dinner. Garnish it with fresh thyme and rosemary, and you've got a dish that will impress any sane person. Also, just so you know how tender these get, the meat on this rib was barely connected to the bone. This was actually the only one where the meat hadn't completely fallen off. 

I had leftover short ribs and sauce, and since there's a good chance you will too I'll share a little tip. This is equally delicious with noodles. I had some leftover dumpling noodles in my fridge from when I made chicken noodle soup, so I heated this up in the microwave with the noodles. It's really good and it's a slight alteration so that you don't get bored with your leftovers.

If you've never had short ribs braised in wine you need to make these immediately. I cannot explain how fantastic they are. I could go on and on about how good they are. They are absolutely incredible. Seriously they are just amazing. You'll taste them and and you won't be able to get them out of your head. You'll probably make them again the next day. You're definitely going to want to make enough to have leftovers. Sorry about that, I got a little too excited. These are good though, so you should make them.

The Cure for the Common Cold

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that this will in fact cure colds and probably other diseases. I do know for sure that this soup is better than your mother's, or at least as good as hers. I know it's true because my mom trusted me to make it and she even liked it. The secret to extremely simple, intensely flavorful chicken noodle soup is your oven. Yes, you will need your stove as well, but roasting is the most important part as I've mentioned before.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken plus 4  drumsticks
3 onions
6 carrots
6 celery stalks
1/2 bag of dumpling egg noodles

This is the color of the stock. This is what you want. Light stock will make you an extremely okay soup. This dark stock will make you the best chicken noodle soup you've ever tasted, and it couldn't be easier to make. Step one: preheat your oven to 425 degrees. I'm confident there will be no problems with that. Add the whole chicken and the drumsticks to a large stockpot (the extra drumsticks are optional, but they'll help boost the chicken flavor). Next quarter two onions, cut three carrots and three stocks of celery into thirds, and add that to the stockpot. Place all of that goodness in the oven, and let it get deliciously golden brown. It will take awhile, but you want to make sure the chicken, and all of the vegetables are golden. The onions may turn  black in some spots; don't worry about that. Also here's a free tip I just learned: if you leave the onion skins on your stock will be even darker.

When that happens, be smart. Don't be like me. Take the chicken out and cut off both breasts. If you leave them on, they will get completely dried out while simmer in the stock, which, I know, sounds weird. How does something become dry while sitting in liquid? I don't know, but that's what happens. Whether you use the meat in the soup is completely up to you. With the added drumsticks, I had plenty of meat, so I used the breast meat for other things. I'm talking to you, Chicken Salad. After the breasts have been removed, fill the pot with water and let it simmer for around four hours. 

After four hours, we have pure gold. Strain everything and keep only the chicken. Aromatics are cheap and we don't want mushy vegetables in our soup. Do not try to pick the chicken from the bones. You'll burn your fingers. Trust me. I've made that mistake once or twice or way too many, so that you don't have to. Put the chicken somewhere cold, and while you wait for it to cool chop an onion, three carrots, and three stalks of celery.

Let the vegetables simmer in the stock for an hour, or until they're nice and tender but not mushy. At that point you can cook your pasta. Cook it separately. That way everyone can have as many noodles as they want, and the stock and vegetable mixture can be used for something else if you get tired of leftover soup. When the noodles are done, put them in a bowl and add the liquid to get THIS!!

Okay that looks like a big bowl of broth with noodles in it. I SWEAR I put vegetables in. If you look at the picture up top there's even evidence of vegetables.

Make this. There's like a whole series of books about why you should. Or maybe that's not what they're about. I don't actually know. I mentioned leftovers. Do you like pot pies? Because I made a pot pie with the leftovers. You can add roux, peas, corn, and potatoes and have perfect pot pie filling. I've just given you two meal suggestions, so I think we're done here.

BBQ Popcorn

I brought some BBQ popcorn to a party last night and it was a hit, so I thought I'd explain how to make it because it's really easy. It's basically just regular popcorn with my BBQ rub that I use on pork and chicken. And popcorn I guess.

Ingredients for Gabe's Smoky BBQ Rub:

1/2 C brown sugar
3 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp chipotle powder
2 tbsp smoked paprika
2 tbsp ancho chile powder
1 tbsp dry mustard

Haha I made you eat mustard last night Ryan.

Anyway, mix all of those together and you've got the rub. You can sprinkle this on any kind of popcorn you want as long as there is butter or oil for the rub to stick to and it will be delicious.

If you want to make it like I did then you start with air popped popcorn. While corn explodes in the background, melt some butter. You want enough butter so that each kernel will have at least a little bit on it because it's our glue. One batch in my air popper needs about 3 tablespoons, but it makes quite a bit of popcorn. Once the corn is popped and the butter is melted, you add them together, but you need to be tossing the popcorn while you add the butter. That helps make sure butter gets on all of the kernels.

You may have noticed there isn't salt in the rub, that is intentional. It's hard to tell how much salt you're putting on your food when it's in a spice mix like the BBQ rub, so I always season with salt first then add the spice mix. I avoid premixed spice blends for the same reason. They usually have salt in them, but you don't know how much. Salt rant over.

After you coat the popcorn with butter, add popcorn salt to until it is sufficiently salty to your taste, and toss the popcorn as you add the salt. Popcorn salt is just really fine salt. You can buy it at the grocery store, or you can pulse some kosher, iodized, or sea salt in a food processor.

When it's salty, sprinkle on the rub. Again how much you add is totally up to your taste buds. Now you're ready to enjoy this tasty treat. I had one person think it was bacon flavored...so yeah it's pretty delicious.

Note: some of those spices may not be in your pantry, but you should be able to find them in the bulk spices section of your grocery store. Bulk spices are usually in the produce section in bags rather than in the spice aisle.

Smoked Turkey Wild Rice Soup

I should really work on my photography skills. Also food styling skills because those green onions are a sad, sad garnish. It may not be the most appealing visually, but I promise it is worth every second it takes to make. I love soup. Basically all of them, and this is probably my favorite. Earlier in the week I smoked a whole turkey and had the leftover carcass to work with, but it is as delicious with a roasted turkey or chicken. Just do whatever you need to do to eat this soup. I seriously ate it for two meals one day.

6 tbsp butter
1 large chopped onion
3 stalks of chopped celery
3 chopped carrots
6 qts poultry stock
1 1\2 tsp dried thyme
1 tbsp salt
1tsp ground pepper
1/4 C flour
1 C uncooked wild rice
3 C water or stock
1 C heavy cream
a pinch of green onion if you want a sad, sad garnish

The most important part of this soup (or any soup really) is the stock. Don't bother using store bought stock, broth, or base. If you're going to make soup, you're going to have to roast some bones. Even if you have an already roasted (or smoked) turkey or chicken, I still roast the carcass before making stock. You want to make sure most of the meat is removed first because it will get pretty dried out after roasting and simmering for a few hours, but after that just roast them in a 400 degree oven until they're really golden brown; about an hour. It's going to add tons of flavor.

After roasting I add a whole bunch of water, scrape up any delicious bits stuck to the pan, and let it simmer for at least four hours. I always add pepper to my stock, but never salt. I season the dish that it goes into as needed because if you season the stock before adding it to the dish you have to worry about how much the liquid reduces. Enough talk of stock; let's get into soup making.

First you need to chop your veg. I try to keep the chunks at maybe 3/16 of an inch. That sounds specific, but in my head an 1/8th is too small and 1/4 is too big. This soup also requires a roux, which means I start by browning some butter. Butter is delicious. Brown butter is like gilding the lily that is butter. If I'm frying something in butter, I almost always brown it first. It is possible to burn the butter, but if you watch carefully, it's pretty easy to tell when the butter is browned. Don't keep cooking it past that point. When your butter is browned, add the veg and let it sweat until the celery and onion are translucent. A little longer than the picture above. Next add the flour and let it cook for a minute. Some might stick to the bottom of the pot. Don't worry about it. After the minute has passed, add a few cups of stock. You don't want to add all of the liquid at once or it can get lumpy. Add a few cups. Stir. Add some more. Stir. Add the rest. Hope you didn't screw it up because if you did there's no way to fix it.

Now you can just let this simmer for a couple hours on low. Add salt and pepper to taste along with thyme. It's too hard to give estimates. I tend to prefer dishes saltier, I love lots of herbs, my mom adds crazy amounts of pepper to everything. The numbers I gave are a guide. Just taste it and add more salt, pepper, or herbs as you desire. Stir it every once in a while, and make sure it doesn't stick. While this is simmering, you can cook the wild rice. Add one cup wild rice to three cups water or stock. Let it boil then add a cover and reduce to a simmer. The rice will sort of pop inside out kind of like popcorn. It takes around 30-40 minutes. I didn't take pictures of it, but the change should be obvious. One minute, you have dark, riced shaped grain. The next, you have a weird, grayish, arched grain.

When the rice is done, drain any remaining water and add the rice to your soup pot along with the meat from the turkey or chicken carcass. Let that simmer for another 30 minutes. Adjust seasoning if necessary, then add cream and let the soup heat to a satisfactory temperature.

Even with the pathetic garnish, I wish I was eating a bowl of this right now. It is unbelievably delicious. If you've never had wild rice, make an effort to try some. The texture is completely different from traditional rice, and it is much more satisfying. You can also add different vegetables if you like. I know some people like mushrooms and some like red pepper. You can also add bacon and chipotle powder if you want something a little smoky and spicy. I can't say it enough, make this it's amazing. 

Super Bowl Brisket

So this is the ridiculously enormous piece of meat that I prepared for myself and some friends to celebrate America's favorite holiday, the Super Bowl. This is a 16.62 lb beef brisket. The chef's knife – included for scale – has a blade that is eight inches long and is about a foot in total, which means the brisket was about two feet wide. I trimmed off a fair amount of fat and it shrinks around 30%, but it is still a lot of meat. Five large dudes and one average sized finished about half of it, so with a few side dishes one of these could probably feed around 12-15 people.

There are many ways to cook a brisket, but one of my favorite techniques for cooking anything is smoking. Something unbelievable happens when you put a large chunk of meat in a heated box filled with wood smoke for a few hours (actually more like 16 in this case). The smoke flavor that penetrates the meat when you cook with wood is incomparable. That being said, you can still make a delicious version of this in the oven.

As you can see from the photo, the entire top of the roast is a thick layer of fat. A significant amount of that needs to be trimmed off, but an 1/8 of an inch left on is still desirable because the flesh itself is very lean and has little marbling. For the most part, you should be able to visually see how thick the layer of fat is, but when that isn't the case I usually try to take off more. It won't be a tremendous problem if you trim down to the meat in small patches.

Here is the trimmed brisket with the fat that I removed. Although it's hard to see on the actual roast, you can see from the pile of fat above the brisket that it was quite a bit. I'm not sure why the color looks weird on some of the trimmed fat. It looked completely normal in person, so maybe something weird happened with the color. PSA: save that fat. You can either render it and cook with delicious beef fat, or save it as is and grind it if you make your own ground beef.

As I mentioned earlier, this whole piece was about two feet wide. That presents a problem for me because my smoker is only slightly wider than a foot. Thankfully brisket is actually two pieces of meat usually referred to as the flat and the point. The flat runs the entire length of the brisket whereas the point is only about a foot long and ends near the middle. I cut it pretty much right down the middle. You can tell where the point ends because that section is much thicker than the part that has only the flat. The issue with this method is that the two halves are going to cook differently. The half with both flat and point is considerably larger and takes longer to cook.

Brisket ingredients:
1 whole packer brisket
4 tbsp kosher salt
1 entire batch brisket rub (recipe follows)

Brisket rub:
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp smoked paprika
2 tbsp ancho chile powder
2 tbsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tbsp chipotle powder

I put all four tablespoons of salt on the brisket, but I always apply more to the meat than the fat cap. The salt isn't going to absorb into the fat as well as it will into the meat. I also put the entire batch of rub on there even though it sounds like a lot. I don't just sprinkle the rub onto the meat I actually rub it in because it helps it stick to the brisket rather than just falling off when you lift it or turn it over. Ideally at this point the brisket should sit with the salt and spices overnight so the salt can absorb into the flesh.

I didn't have time to let it sit overnight, so here is the roast after the rub was applied right before it went in the smoker. I used hickory because it is my favorite wood when smoking, and I smoked it for 16 hours at 225 degrees. I wanted to smoke it until the internal temperature reached 203 degrees, but unfortunately that was not a possibility. It was 4 PM on Super Bowl Sunday, and I needed to get this brisket to the party I was attending because it was supposed to be the main dish.

This is the section that contained the point and the flat. When I removed it from the smoker it was at 170 degrees, and before I sliced it I allowed it to rest wrapped in aluminum foil in a cooler for 2 hours. 

After it's sliced, it looks and tastes pretty incredible. On the right you can see the separation between the flat and the point. The grain runs in opposite directions, so you can see the point where there are long lines, the flat where there are small sections, and a layer of fat between them. 

I feel the need to write a disclaimer here. Everything I've ever read about brisket has talked about how easy it is to screw up, and how it can be dry and chewy. This is the fifth time I've ever smoked a brisket and every time it's been delicious even though I have never done it like the experts who have far more experience than I do claim it should be done. I don't know if that is a fluke, or if I just have a different idea of what brisket should be than they do. All I can say is that this was unquestionably juicy and tender and it was removed from heat about 30 degrees lower than barbecue experts say it should be. If I'd had the time I certainly would have done it their way, but I am in no way disappointed with this result.

Alright here's another theory: barbecue pitmasters don't want regular folk to know how easy it is to make delicious brisket! If everybody knew, they'd be buying briskets like crazy and the price would go up. Brisket is like the cheapest cut of beef you can get. I paid $2.99/lb for this roast, which is cheaper than ground beef. It's not like this was low quality either. It was USDA Choice and Certified Angus beef. Let's make this a thing. We can call it the Great Brisket Conspiracy of 2014.