Project Foodie - Happy in the Kitchen: The first meal

Happy in the Kitchen: The first meal

Written by foodie pam

Monday, 21 January 2008

After Husband fell in love with Michel Richard's "Happy in the Kitchen" cookbook, we decided to start cooking some of his recipes on a regular basis. For our first "Happy in the Kitchen" meal we choose Syrah Braised Short Ribs. We've decided to cook about 30 of the recipes, but many of them are best suited for the summer since they use lots of the vegetables that I grow in my garden. Braised short ribs sounded perfect for a chilly January weekend. The recipe takes two days since the short ribs must sit overnight to, as Michel Richard says “give the flavors a chance to develop”. But for us the process took three days since we first had to go shopping for the ingredients. For our first recipe, we decided to use purchased chicken stock but otherwise followed the recipe as written.

Day 1

First up was shopping. We had to get slab bacon, which we knew was carried at a local butcher shop and bone-in short ribs which we assumed the same shop would have. We were wrong about the short-ribs and we quickly feared that this little adventure had just taken a nasty turn. Fortunately, Husband had a thought - let’s try Andronico’s. Andronico’s is a wonderful grocery store but not very close to our house. In this case, however, since we were already out and about we headed up to Andronico's. As soon as we got to the store we immediately went to the meat counter to see what they had and to our amazement they not only had bone-in short ribs but they had the European style cut that the recipe suggested we use. With our fears of failure gone, we then searched for everything else we needed and happily found that Andronico’s had it all. As a result we’ve assigned Andronico’s as the official Happy in the Kitchen grocer!

Day 2

We began cooking, or more appropriately preparing, since we always follow mise en place. The prep work for the short ribs went fairly quickly and in no time at all the large, very full, enamel cast iron pot was in the oven cooking. We only ran into one minor problem during this stage: how to fit everything in the pot and in what order to place them. This might seem trivial and was something Michel Richard apparently didn’t think worthy of explaining. The recipe stated that you add the seared short ribs to a large enamel casserole pot that contains some vegetables. At some unspecified point, we were also to add two bouquet garnis, one of which was a rather bulky construction using leek leaves. While we had verified the ribs would fit in our pot before starting, we really didn’t have much extra room and didn't consider everything else that needed to go in. After we got all the ribs in and topped them with the liquids, we realized we hadn’t put in either bouquest garni. The first, wrapped in cheese cloth, was easy to slide in but the leek encasement of herbs was a problem since we thought it should be submerged for better flavor. Husband was trying to arrange everything with the tongs but not succeeding so I knew it was time to take over. “Sometimes you just have to use your hands” I could hear in my head. Since I’ve never heard Michel Richard speak I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him but my mom yelling at me to use my hands! Wherever the thought came from it worked and a minute later we had everything arranged and the pot in the oven. Three and half hours later our cooking for day two was done.

Day 3

The last day was primarily Husband work - that is, removal of the bones from the meat sauce. I put the final touches on the sauce, which in addition to the two bottles of Syrah added the day before also contained a hefty portion of port. About an hour and a half later the ribs were ready for their final cooking. The aromas from the oven were amazing and we could hardly wait to try out our creation. That night we served the meat over wide parpadelle pasta along with lots of bread to soak up the absolutely delicious sauce.

The Result

The result was, as Husband says, “restaurant quality and absolutely delicious”. The sauce was thick and hearty; sweet from the wine, port, and honey, but not too sweet; and the short-ribs were soft as can be with an incredible flavor from the wine and spices. Sometimes when we cook from restaurant chef cookbooks the meals come out good, but not the same as we'd get served in the restaurant. If we got served this meal at Michel's restaurant, we would have been extremely happy. The meal lasted four nights plus one very good sandwich for lunch. While I generally get sick of eating the same thing after two nights, I did not get tired of eating this meal – it was that good. Would we make it again? Absolutely! Although the meal took three days the effort each day was only a couple of hours. In other words, compared to a Thanksgiving meal this was much less effort. One issue, however, is cost. The recipe uses 7 pounds of short ribs and two bottles of wine, almost a whole bottle of port, along with some other items. Spread over four nights the cost evens out some but this isn’t something we’d have very often – besides we’ve got the rest of the book to try!