2 Day Ribs: Pan Seared w/ Chutney-Q Sauce

Chinese Photo Menu - Choose 3 Item!: 2 Day Ribs, Sweet Potatoes, Meyer Lemon Bacon Greens

The lesson with these ribs is that you need to try the same thing a few times to start to get into a groove of excellence. The "BBQ sauce" is a lemon raisin chutney. I pan-fried the ribs to finish them just because they were cut St. Louis style, which basically makes them as flat as possible (for pan-fryin').  No marinade was necessary. Pork Indian food style! We are fighting back against the drudge of the work week. Total prep time on day 2, the eating, was only 30 minutes after the resting period of 1 hour. In your face 7-8 hour work day!
 
Day 1 - Slow Roast!
Take one rack of pork ribs (baby back or St. Louis Cut).

Rub all over, and especially on the meat side with:
Turmeric
Cumin
Chili powder of your choice
Salt
Pepper
Ground mustard
... (I added Sichuan pepper for fun and numbing yo' mouth!)

Ultimately, turn it yellow.

Wrap the rack in foil and bake at 250 F for 3 hours.
Don't go too long or it will fall straight off the bone!

Day 2 - Sear!

Meyer Lemon Raisin Chutney-Q Sauce (make ahead of time, maybe on day 1)
Simmer all ingredients for 2+ hours:
1 cup vinegars (apple, white, maybe balsamic)
1 cup sugar (mostly sugar, a little molasses)
1-2 cups of raisins
2-3 meyer lemons diced and seeds removed
cumin
3 chilies de arbol
curry powder
ginger powder
thyme
bit of cinnamon
salt
pepper

 Rest ribs at room temp for 1 hour

Blend half of chutney with a little water, and taste for spicy level (add if desired) to make Chutney-Q sauce

Unwrap ribs and brush off rub (remove fat and use for frying!)

Need to rub the rub off!

Coat ribs in blended smooth chutney

Heat a large frying pan and add ribs as they fit when pan is smoking.

Almost ready to eat, just need to slather on the Chutney-Q Sauce

Cook in batches until slightly blackened, then remove and coat with more chutney.

Serve when all the ribs are reheated and black and crispy.

Jo says, "They are super soft!"

Amuse bouche: Amuse l'esprit?

The Fat Duck, known here at the Food Drama for the extremely representational food experience called Sound of the Sea (see photo), recently introduced a new level of experience into the dining process (source: SFGate). They offer diners holding reservations a chance to view an animated cartoon that is exclusive to reservation holders. The suggestion is to watch the animation a few times before dining and a few times after. Keep in mind that the Fat Duck books tables months in advance, and also that the reservation holder is only allowed 4 views (can you believe it?!).

Upon being seated at the restaurant the diner is given a bag of candy that is intended to conjure up the memory of the animation, which in turn conjures a memory of childhood. In a very similar gesture, the Sound of the Sea dish is served 'paired' with an ipod that plays soothing ocean noises.

There is something silly about this style of representational pairing. Ocean sound via an mp3 and ocean food via a diorama. Both of these representations are elementary illusions.  Does this compare to dollar shrimp tacos on the beach in Mexico? It is like preferring the Sistine Chapel to the natural beauty of wilderness. These dishes and experiences involve a great amount of artifice, technical skill, and money, but they are not genuine. While it may be deceptive at times, taste is never an illusion.

I must be a Phenomenologist of Dinner: "to the foods themselves!"

Not to say that I wouldn't be wowed by having the above plate placed in front of me. I just would rather be all the way inside of my food experience, rather than negotiating simple but competing levels of meaning. Taste and experience can be connected in far more interesting and complex ways. Ways which need not be self-conscious about their creativity. Were a theatrical suspension of belief possible, the Food Drama could get down, but these experiences do not offer such a thing.

Let's Give Ourselves Up to Third Class Luxury

Hermit Crab: bacon carrot & enoki mushroom

"I've ordered well, don't you think? A good meal should be a performance; the Edwardians understood that. Their meals were a splendid form of theatre, like a play by Pinero, with skillful preparation, expectation, denouement, and satisfactory ending. The well-made play: the well-made meal. Drama one can eat."
- Robertson Davies. The Rebel Angels.

Ants on a Hog

Zero google image results related to this topic....

I declare myself the inventor of this nutritious snack.

3 Day Ribs + Slow Cooking During the Week

Marinating ribs while the sun is still up.

The question of cooking during the week has plagued the American public ever since women emancipated themselves and abandoned the kitchen for the workplace. Cooking a hearty, American  style meal is difficult if you get off work at 5 or 6 and you want to eat before 8 to avoid feeling gross in bed. Specifically, cooking a meat protein source that is not a wealthy man's cut like a fine steak can be challenging when all you've got is a small window of time.

The meats I regularly purchase and cook include ribs, roasts, butts, shoulders, and bellies. Not only do I prefer the taste of melty slow cooked fat and collagen, but they are usually cheaper to boot! One of the opportunity costs of removing the housewife or househusband from the equation is that it is tough to cook anything but more expensive meat after work (pun?). Well worth it for equal rights and opportunities, but a pity for the amateur, cheap gourmand.

Cooking a heavy cheap(er) piece of meat requires multiple steps:
brining/marinating (1-48 hours)
acclimating to room temperature (30-60 minutes)
browning (10-25 minutes)
roasting (1-6 hours) braising (1.5-3 hours) stewing (1.5-4 hours)
resting/cooling (20 minutes - 4 hours/next day)
warming (20 minutes) grilling - 'gotta get the grill going' (45 minutes)

The fast possible combination would be: acclimating (30 min), roasting (1 hr), and then resting (20 minutes) = 1 hour and 50 minutes. In this case you have not browned your meat, you haven't brined or marinated it, and you've roasted it at a higher temperature then you might have done otherwise.

All this means is that you and I have to plan ahead!

Cooking a half rack of pork back ribs over 3 days.

Los ribs - ready to get started

Monday: Marinating (25 minutes of effort)
Assemble the ingredients for the marinade:
leftover coffee from the morning, poured back through the grounds to give it more body.
2 chipotle peppers
molasses
2 allspice things
bay leaves
pinch of salt

Stuff to make a marinade.

Heat it in a pan for a few to soften the chilies and melt in the molasses.

Cool it.

Forgot that I would need to cool the marinade so I split it up between some ice cold mugs.

Put it in a freezer bag with the ribs, and suck the air out.

Place in fridge on a plate.

Tuesday: Roasting (15 minutes of effort)
 Take the ribs out of the marinade, let them come to room temperature.
Reserve the majority of the marinade.
Double wrap them in foil with a little marinade.
Roast them at just above 200 degrees F for 4-5 hours.

Put them back in the fridge

Wednesday: Grilling (1 hour of effort)
Get the grill going hot.
Reduce the marinade with more molasses, vinegar, tomato paste, almond dust, or whatever to make a sauce.
Brush the sauce on the ribs and grill em for 15 min fat down until they are crispy for real.
Then finish 5 min bones down with the grill covered.

Grilling the ribs and some butternut squash stuffed with red kale and goat gouda.

They are super soft!

Moments in Food: Comfort

“...making a more delicious version of something that is both beloved and neglected is an ambition that feels like a calling 
to many chefs these days.”
-Pete Wells, NY Times

Down Home

waffle tacos, 

pound cakes, 

sweetbreads, corn dogs, 

bacon donuts, mashed potatoes 

eating the whole hog

fish in chickens 

in a lamb in a goat 

two goats in a camel

careful, don't choke

Believer: Atomic Bread

Check this from the Believer: Atomic Bread Making at Home.

A beautifully crafted food experience with a bunch of history on the side.

This is what the Food Drama wants to be. An adult version of our kindergarten blog.

Pork: Where Friends and Bugs Meat

Washing hands won't cut it anymore.

In this lengthy article: The rise of Meat-bred super bugs, Martha Rosenberg of Alternet details the current state of the meat/bacteria union.

The gist is that a few weeks ago "researchers found 230 out of 395 pork cuts bought in U.S. stores were contaminated with a super bug called MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)".  Being that this is a kid friendly blog, I will not be posting the pictures of my friend Alec's leg in the midst of a battle with MRSA. I will say that this is my primary personal reason for avoiding factory meat. Some folks are grossed out by flesh, some by bones, some by poor conditions of animals. I find the idea of eating bacteria, antibiotics, and medically resistant antibiotics to be totally nasty.