Kaddo Bourani
i love the willow trees along the Charles River. these are among the last trees to hang on stubbornly to their leaves in late November… i totally respect that.
I really thought that I would be elbow-deep in pumpkin recipes and posts by now… I certainly have enough pumpkin recipes bookmarked and 2 cans of pumpkin puree patiently awaiting their use in my kitchen. Perhaps what’s even more surprising is that my first pumpkin recipe of 2011 is a savory dish, rather than baked sweet!
The Helmand is an acclaimed Afghani restaurant in Cambridge that I’ve luckily had the opportunity to dine at several times- and lucky for me, almost every time was for free as it is a favorite of my department for recruitment dinners! I’d never cooked anything remotely resembling Afghani food before, and due to the complexity of spices that entice my tastebuds every time I eat at the Helmand, I was very intimidated to even try. Luckily, a good friend and a frequently visited blog paved the way into the unknown for me, and I decided to give it a go.
This dish epitomizes sweet and savory. Pumpkin slices are baked with a not-so-insignificant amount of sugar until they are candied and almost too sweet, with a silkily soft and yielding texture. Ground beef is cooked with tomatoes, turmeric, and coriander to make a flavorful and savory sort-of stew. And to round out the warm, sweet and savory components of the dish is a cooling tangy garlic-mint yogurt sauce. The dish on the whole, especially on a chilly fall day, is utterly fantastic, it’s comforting and filling, and so flavorful, just the thing I am sure I will continue to crave throughout the winter!
Braised Short Rib Dumplings with Spiced Orange Dipping Sauce
Of course, as soon as I wax poetic about gorgeous spring-y weather, warm sunshine, bright flowers, and flip flops, cruel fate punishes me with dropping temperatures and downpour. On top of that, I have caught the quarterly seasonal-change-induced cold. At least our ceiling is no longer leaking.
I saw this article in the NY Times a month ago and could NOT get short rib dumplings from Café Boulud, in New York City, out of my head.. for three very simple reasons. First, succulent braised beef? Second, dumplings with crispy browned bottoms?! Third, sweet and spicy and citrus-y dipping sauce?!?! Do you see why I could think of nothing else?!
Well, to be honest, I DID think of quite a number of other things (birthday dinners, Brazilian fish stew, sugar-crusted popovers, just to name a few), but even a month later, I was dying to try them and so here they are!!
With the California-like weather we were getting this past Saturday, I feared that the days of braising (and soups and stews) were over until next fall. I should have had more faith in crappy New England weather, as the temperature dropped enough on Sunday to make it almost necessary to braise something in my kitchen so that I wouldn’t have to turn on the heat.
After almost three hours of braising (and a full bottle of red wine… IN the braising liquid I mean, NOT directly into my liver!), I was left with beautifully tender beef that almost fell apart as I transferred the meat to a plate. Once mixed with the Quintessential Asian Flavorings (a.k.a. garlic, ginger, green onions, soy sauce), a healthy dose of fragrant sesame oil, fresh citrus juice, and leeks (substituted for daikon radish), the filling was ready to be wrapped up in home-made wrappers of just flour and water.
The sauce was a sticky sweet syrup that begins by dumping sugar directly into a pot and heating it until it becomes a brown liquid. I was skeptical about this, as I have never heated sugar solo before, usually there is some sort of liquid partner (i.e. melted butter) to dissolve into. My dad is probably shaking his head in disappointment right now because his daughter didn’t remember that even sucrose has a melting point, thus bringing shame upon his hardcore chemistry background. But just as the recipe (and chemistry) dictated, at some point the heated sugar turned into a liquid state (brown) and once the Quintessential Asian Flavors were added, along with fresh cilantro, orange and lime juice, and some spicy heat, I just HAD to taste this wonderfully fragrant bubbling sauce… and subsequently burned my tongue. duh.
These dumplings are seriously out of this world. I can only imagine what they must taste like at Café Boulud, without any substitutions or improvisations for an average household kitchen, because they were AMAZING even in my hands.
The braised meat, once reheated in the dumplings, becomes melt-in-your mouth beef goodness, savory and rich. The wrapper contributes a bit of crunch (with that lovely crispy browned bottom) so that each bite is a textural symphony of soft and crispy. The sauce is very very sweet, a little goes a long way, but the sweet heat completes the whole song. I am SO excited that there are still 30 of these guys frozen away, ready to be re-heated and enjoyed upon a moments notice!
Braised Short Rib Dumplings
adapted from Café Boulud via this NY Times article
makes about 45-55 dumplings
For the Braised Short Ribs (makes about 4-6 cups shredded meat)
The original recipe called for braising in 2 sticks of butter and I just couldn’t do it, I only used one… I don’t think the meat suffered by doing this, they are juicy and fatty enough as they are. As a consequence of this, I also halved most of the other ingredients for the braising, except the amount of meat and wine.
3 pounds beef short ribs, cut 2 inches thick (or about 2 pounds boneless short rib meat)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 750 mL bottle red wine
4 medium carrots, cut into 1/4 inch slices
2 medium sized onions, coarsely chopped
6 large garlic cloves, smashed
7 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
For the Dumplings
4-6 cups shredded meat from braised short ribs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large shallots, minced
7 scallions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup shredded daikon radish (I used leeks instead, not a great substitution, just that I like leeks and they are easy to find)
2 tablespoons yuzu juice (I used a combination of orange, lime, and lemon and added about 1/2 tablespoon of sugar to substitute)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons sesame oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
40-50 3 inch round dumpling wrappers from one 12-14 ounce package (or if you want to try home-made, there is a great tutorial from use real butter that I always use!)
For the Spiced Orange Dipping Sauce (I halved the recipe, the original made 2 cups worth of sauce)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1 small shallot, sliced
1 clove garlic, sliced
3 scallions, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 dried habanero pepper (I used a teaspoon of asian garlic chili paste)
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
juice from 1 lime
1 tablespoon soy sauce, or to taste
Braised Short Ribs:
- In a large saucepan, boil wine until reduced by about half (10-15 minutes). Meanwhile, place a large, wide Dutch oven over high heat. Add olive oil and when it isvery hot, add short ribs and sear until well browned on all sides. Transfer short ribs to a platter.
- Heat oven to 300 degrees. Return Dutch oven to medium high heat. Add carrots, onions, garlic, and thyme. Sauté until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add butter and continue to sauté until vegetables are tender, another 2-4 minutes. Add brown sugar and tomato paste. cook, stirring, another 2-3 minutes.
- Return short ribs to Dutch oven and sprinkle with flour. Stir well, until flour is incorporated and beginning to brown. Add the reduced wine and bring to a boil. Skim any foam (there was none for me). Cover, leaving lid slightly ajar, and transfer to oven. Cook until meat is very tender and falling off the bone, about 3 hours.
Dumplings:
- Shred short rib meat in a large mixing bowl, discarding any bones or cartilage.
- Place a small skillet over medium heat, add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil. Add ginger, garlic, leeks and shallots, and sauté until translucent, about 2 minutes. Add to bowl of shredded meat.
- Add scallions, parsley, daikon, yuzu juice, soy sauce, sesame oil, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Place a dumpling wrapper on a work surface and spoon 1 tablespoon of filling in the center, in a slightly oblong shape. Lightly brush edges with water, fold in half over meat and press closed to form a half moon shape. Stand on end to flatten bottom. Repeat until all the filling is used.
- To cook the dumplings, the recipe recommended steaming first, then crisping up the bottoms on a skillet, but I do this all in one step: in a medium size skillet that you have a top for, add 1 tablespoon of oil, and heat on medium high heat. Place dumplings in the pan, bottoms down, you should hear the sizzle. Add 1/2 cup of water to the pan and cover. Reduce heat to medium, let the water evaporate, about 10 minutes. Uncover and turn up the heat to high, until bottoms are nicely browned.
Dipping Sauce:
- Place sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until sugar is melted and light golden. Remove from heat and carefully add 1/4 cup of water, avoiding splatters.
- Add ginger, shallot, garlic, scallions, cilantro, and habanero pepper (if using). Stir well, and return to medium heat. Simmer until reduced to a thing glaze, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add lime juice and orange juice. Add soy sauce to taste.
- Strain through a fine-meshed sieve, discarding solids (I didn’t do this, I prefer my sauce with all the “good stuff” in it). Serve at room temperature; may be refrigerated for up to one week.
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Just as I was congratulating myself earlier this week on surviving January in Boston (typically the coldest, snowiest, most wintery month that physically makes me ache for California for all 31 days), an ARCTIC FRONT (I am not even kidding, that’s what weather.com said) has crashed the party (what party, you ask? my LIFE party.. duh.) and kindly brought along his buddy, temperature in the single digits. SINGLE DIGITS. Let’s not even talk about wind chill. This is the temperature that will knock the breath out of you when you step outside, cause your eyes to water uncontrollably, and instantly freeze the snot you didn’t even know you had in your nose. Seriously, people, can anyone explain to me why the early settlers did not run south the moment they experienced their first Northeast winter?! It totally baffles me.
Battling the cold weather calls for warm, carb-heavy food, so this weekend I made spaghetti and meatballs. I like to use the combination of ground pork and ground beef for the meatballs because the pork adds a lot of moisture and flavor. I also use fresh bread crumbs, slicing a few slices of fresh bread and taking them for a whir in the food processor until they are pea-sized so that they maintain moist little pockets in the meatballs. This time I also hid a little bit of fresh mozzarella cheese in the middle of each meatball for extra indulgence. The sauce is really simple (and a cinch to throw together) to let all the wonderful flavors of the meatballs stand out. The meal was perfectly comforting; it almost made me forget about the artic party crashers.
Meatballs (makes about 30, a little larger than golf-ball sized)
3/4 lbs. ground beef (as lean as you can find it)
3/4 lbs. ground pork
1/2 cup bread crumbs (fresh, if possible, about 3 slices of bread)
2 eggs
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
1/2 onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (optional)
- Heat a few teaspoons of olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium high heat. Add the onions and garlic, and cook about 3 minutes until the onions have softened and slightly browned and the garlic is fragrant. Set aside and let cool.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Combine the meat, bread crumbs, eggs, parsley, parmesan, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add the cooled onions and garlic. Mix together with your hands (it’s the only way to get all the ingredients in the meatballs evenly distributed in each, and also helps the texture of the meatballs) until it looks homogenous.
- If stuffing with cheese, grab small handful (2-3 tablespoons) of meat mixture and pat into a mini hamburger patty (flat-ish circle). Place the cheese in the middle and fold the edges over, then roll the meatball between your hands, exerting a bit of pressure to form the meatball. Place the meatballs in a foil-lined baking dish or baking sheet, with about 1/2 inch between each meatball.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, until lightly browned and cooked through.
Easy Tomato Sauce (makes about enough sauce for 1 pound of pasta)
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes (you can use whole, diced, or pureed tomatoes, but the texture will be different and cooking times may vary to get the tomatoes broken down to the texture you want. I like to use San Marzano canned tomatoes because I think they taste much better than other canned tomatoes)
1 small onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons dry Italian seasoning (or any other seasonings you prefer)
salt and pepper to taste
- In a medium pot, heat 2 teaspoons of olive oil on medium high heat. Cook the onion and garlic until tender, about 3-5 minutes.
- Add the canned tomatoes and butter. Simmer for 15-40 minutes (puree will take the least amount of time, whole will take more time). If using whole tomatoes, stir occasionally and use your spoon to crush the tomatoes against the side of the pot to break them down into the sauce.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
We served these meaty beauties over spaghetti and sauteed portabello mushrooms. I was SO very excited to have leftovers for lunch today!
