We know it's tough to wait while you braise short ribs, but the low-and-slow method produces the juiciest, tastiest results. Red curry and coconut milk gives this super tender rib recipe a taste of Thai flavors.
Hawaiian chef and cookbook author Sheldon Simeon riffs on a classic Japanese technique for this sweet-and-savory grilled steak with sugar and soy sauce.
Every Sunday for several years when I was growing up in Manila, we'd pile into the family car and head out to our favorite Chinese noodle house for lunch.We kids could order whatever we wanted, but somehow I always chose the same thing: a beef brisket noodle soup with each element of the dish in its own bowl. The clear broth was deliciously beefy and the fresh wheat noodles supple and al dente. But it was the brisket itself that I always polished off. The moist hunks, tender yet pleasantly chewy, were infused with exotic aromatic spices that I found irresistible. Dipping each bite into a bit of bright red chile sauce (there was a jar on every table) made it even better.My father, who knew the owner of the noodle shop, said that each of the chefs, who'd been brought in from Hong Kong, jealously guarded his culinary secrets. The dumpling chef, for one, would retreat to a corner in the kitchen to make the fillings, hunching over so prying eyes would not see his masterful proportions. Not that anyone was looking; each cook was in his own nook furtively concocting his specialty.Knowing that raised the beef brisket in my esteem. After all, secret things happened in the kitchen to make it so good.For decades afterward, I was content to leave that brisket as just a delicious memory. But as I grew into a cook myself, that memory returned more frequently -- and most persistently after chance encounters with what I came to realize was its signature spice: star anise. And so grew my hankering, and courage, to conjure up the dish in my kitchen.It seemed such a daunting task, though, that I kept putting it off. But one day, I happened to ask my father if he remembered this brisket, and he surprised me by rattling off the requisite spices: fennel seeds, cumin seeds, cinnamon stick, dried orange peel, fresh ginger and of course, star anise. And don't forget, he said, the rice wine, soy sauce and Chinese crystal rock sugar. I wanted to yell, "Why didn't you ever tell me this?" But in fact, I had never asked. So instead I asked how he knew. "I used to do the purchasing for the restaurant when it first started," he said, quite matter-of-factly.I gathered the spices and went into the kitchen. I recalled helpful techniques from my father, an avid watcher of Chinese cooking shows. I consulted Chinese cookbooks.What I found surprised and delighted me. It turns out that my favorite brisket, a so-called red-simmered or red-braised dish, is also a favorite at Chinese New Year celebrations. Red is the color of prosperity, so a red-braised brisket (meaning that it's cooked in a reddish-brown sauce of spices and stock) symbolizes luck in the year ahead.It'd be easy to take this dish for granted today. My grandmother, though, who lived in a poor rural area of Guangdong, could only dream of the dish. "They didn't have the luxury of those spices," my father said.In a pinch, you could do without the cumin seeds or the cinnamon stick, but forget the star anise and this brisket will be a shadow of itself. It's the one spice this dish cannot do without. And star anise makes red-braised brisket even luckier. Native to China, the spice has aromatic oils that are concentrated in its eight seeds, each held in one of its eight segments. Eight, to the Chinese, is the luckiest number of all.It's a lucky dish for the cook, too: It's one of the easiest things to make for a party. Just blanch the beef, then leave it to simmer in a heady concoction of rice wine, soy sauce and spices. It can -- and ideally should -- be made ahead, whether it's the day before or the morning of dinner. That way, after a couple of hours of braising, the brisket can steep in the fragrant cooking liquid and settle into a lovely state of tender chewiness. All the while, the flavors continue to meld.It's best made with the leaner half of the brisket, called the flat cut, rather than the more familiar -- and fattier -- point cut. (A whole brisket, which comes from the breast section under the first five ribs, is usually divided into these two cuts.)These days, instead of serving noodles and soup with red-braised brisket, I steam or stir-fry some baby bok choy or nappa cabbage; the greens are a perfect foil to all that meaty succulence. And just as I did as a child, I reach for that jar of hot chile sauce.But for real proof of red-braised brisket's auspiciousness, consider that it is more long-sighted than you might think.Save the braising sauce and your fortune is set: Your next brisket will be even better. All you need to do is use this mother sauce in place of some of the water and replenish it with spices. Do this every time and your brisket will be more flavorful than the last. How lucky is that?
Bonafide bovines ahead.
Breaded and fried crisp, tender veal is smothered with bright tomato sauce and oozing, golden provolone and parmesan cheeses in this Italian-American classic.
Like many frequent cooks, I think of menus by season. Like most frazzled moms, I think of simplicity. And so in our home, it is the season of the stew.True, Southern California winters are so mild as to be confused with springtime, but when the temperature dips below 60 degrees, my firehouse-red cast iron Dutch oven is over a flame bubbling with some kind of stew or homemade soup. Inevitably, for inspiration, I go back to my childhood memories. And then I call my mother -- a whiz at making the one-pot soup meals that last two to three days.Every culture has its own version of comfort soups. In Mexico, it is puchero, a peasant stew with a variety of vegetables and meat. The origins of puchero come from Spain, with nearly all its former colonies creating their own twist on it. In the Philippines, the stew has chickpeas and is made of beef, while in Argentina it has chorizo and blood sausage. In Mexico, puchero varies from region to region, with campechanos eating it as a pork, beef and hen stew augmented in the end with chopped onion in orange juice, radishes with chiles and cilantro. Oaxaquenos add chickpeas and indigenous herbs.The one common characteristic is that you need a giant pot to make it. And after eating it, your body will feel so satiated and happy that you will need to curl up with a blanket on a comfy sofa.In my family, a puchero always meant chicken, but more important, it meant pampering. A little puchero, like all chicken soups, would cure any cold, right all wrongs in the world and lift my spirits. But my mother's puchero was embellished with that Mexican mix of flavors, an inheritance of cultures that are the result of so many conquests.What gave my mom's puchero its dense flavor was the cabbage (more Eastern European than Mexican) and the whole chicken (skin and bones) that she would toss into the enormous pot. A great cook, my mother knew that adding bones to any soup would make it more flavorful. She never bothered with chopping vegetables into small, Campbell's soup-sized morsels. Instead, she would throw in a couple of celery stalks, three to four carrots chopped in half, three or four zucchinis, half an onion, a handful of green beans, a few potatoes and corn if available (winter was not the best time for corn).We would eat this as a meal, with the chicken meat, vegetables and broth, along with accouterments of chopped cilantro, serrano peppers and a bit of lemon juice, with tortillas on the side.The next day, my mother would inevitably make sopa de fideo with the leftover broth. But every time I eat this noodle soup, I am brought back to my great-aunt's apartment in Mexico City, to the little nook outside the kitchen where we, the children, would sometimes eat. As Maria Luisa, the longtime and cranky cook, clanged plates and sang to the radio in the kitchen, my brother and I would slurp away quietly at the hot fideo soup, adding banana, avocado and crumbled cotija cheese into the tomato-infused broth.This is my all-time favorite soup. But strangely, it is also the source of my one and only great childhood accident. When I was 3, a piping hot bowl was placed before me, I tipped it over and it somehow landed on my face, causing significant burns. My mother cried and cried and prayed that I would not be left with scars. My great-aunt fired Maria Luisa on the spot. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and Maria Luisa was never let go (she stayed with my great-aunts until all were well into their 80s) and my face did not scar.As a testament to how delicious the soup is, I don't recall the incident; all I remember is the delicious tomato broth, the sweetness of the banana combined with the savory saltiness of the cheese and the buttery avocado dancing in my mouth.
Bonafide bovines ahead.
What's for dinner?! Quick and simple weeknight Enchiladas. Rolled flour tortillas stuffed with ground beef and onions smothered in enchilada sauce and melted cheese....
Tender veal scaloppine dredged in flour and sautéed in butter get a boost of brightness from a simple pan sauce made with white wine and a generous squeeze of lemon.
If you love outdoor cooking, there's nothing like taming a tough cut of meat through the mastery of a low and slow fire, or deftly handling a lean cut quickly over a hot grill. But often it's that signature touch -- a thoughtfully honed sauce -- that separates barbecue masters from weekend warriors.At once sweet, sour and spicy, the best sauces achieve a controlled balance of what might initially seem like contradictory flavors. These aren't run-of-the-mill sauces, mass-produced and available at any market. These sauces are special, and you tailor them to fit whatever you're cooking at the time.Start with a foundation. Most traditional barbecue sauces are tomato-based, drawing on tomato sauce, fresh or canned tomatoes, ketchup or a combination of these. There are also vinegar-, mustard-, broth- and even mayonnaise-based barbecue sauces.From there, add ingredients one or two at a time and taste carefully; you're looking for balance. Sweeten the sauce with sugar, or other options such as maple syrup, brown sugar or even molasses. (Because sugar burns easily, most barbecue sauces should be applied at the last minute to avoid scorching.)Give the sauce a tart note with any of a variety of vinegars, or try citrus juice or zest. Consider fresh or ground spices and herbs, and adjust the heat with fresh or dried peppers or hot sauce. Then season the sauce; add a little salt, or deepen the flavor with soy or Worcestershire sauce.Allow the mixture to cook slowly to give the ingredients time to mature and marry, much as you would with a homemade tomato sauce or chili. Like the best barbecue, a great sauce develops slowly, its flavor improving with time.Finally, consider taking the sauce to the next level by adding one or more signature ingredients. Think fruit juice, coffee or cola, chiles, agave nectar, horseradish or an unusual spice.Liquid smoke may be controversial in some circles for health reasons, but it can lend depth to a sauce, particularly when the meat is not smoked or grilled over an open flame but cooked on a stove-top grill or slow-cooked in an oven.One fun route is using liquor. For a Kentucky bourbon barbecue sauce, simmer some onion and garlic in a couple of cups of bourbon. A slow simmer will soften the onion and garlic, and the bourbon will mellow to buttery richness as the alcohol cooks off.The foundation of this sauce is ketchup and tomato paste. Sweeten it with brown sugar and molasses, then balance that by adding cider vinegar, pineapple and lemon juice (pineapple and lemon juice are natural complements to bourbon). Add depth with Worcestershire sauce, salt, liquid smoke and dry mustard, then spice it just a bit with a little hot sauce and chile powder.Slightly sweet, the sauce is perfect mopped over pecan-crusted pork spareribs. Coat the ribs with a seasoned wet rub of Dijon mustard, brown sugar and chopped pecans, then cover and bake them over low heat for two to three hours until they're meltingly tender. Shortly before they're done, uncover them and baste them with the barbecue sauce; the sauce will thicken to a beautiful shellac. Serve the ribs hot, with a stack of napkins.Or go a different route. Fruit is an increasingly popular ingredient in barbecue sauces, but it must be used with discretion. You don't want barbecue sauce to taste like jam. Roast fresh whole cherries in a little almond oil. (Almonds heighten the flavor of the cherries.)While the cherries are roasting, saute some onion with garlic and orange zest in a heavy pot until translucent, then stir in some fennel, chipotle and cumin powder to balance the sweetness.Puree the sauce, then add some whole cherries to give the final sauce added texture. The finished sauce is rich with flavor, not too sweet and perfect for stuffed pork chops or chicken.Barbecue often revolves around pork, but in Texas, beef brisket shares the spotlight. For this, you want a sauce that's a little more acidic to balance the richness of the beef and the power of the hickory smoke.This is a ketchup-based sauce, but it gets its personality from peppers cooked down with beer and super-strong coffee. It is rich with a gentle kick, not sweet, and tart enough to stand up to the complex flavors of a hickory-smoked brisket.Finding your own sauce is a matter of balancing flavors and careful cooking. Trust your taste and don't be afraid to experiment. Barbecue sauces have a mystique about them, but developing your own signature style isn't rocket science.
In this weeknight version of the Tuscan classic, a porterhouse steak just big enough for two is seasoned with rosemary, garlic, and anchovies, then cooked on the stovetop and served with peppery watercress and buttery pistachios.
A custom rub on an extra-large steak yields restaurant-worthy food for a crowd. This one pairs earthy, anise-y fennel with spicy peppercorns and chile flakes. This recipe comes from Andrea Reusing, chef at The Durham.
Tender brisket in a spicy, walnutty braise.
Battered and fried veal cutlets—scattered with horseradish, capers and lemon juice—is the perfect breakfast cure after a night of holiday revelry.
Super delicious, hearty and satisfying one-pot chili made with beef, red wine beans and vegetables. My dad's special recipe for the perfect comfort food!
Passover classic beef brisket gets updated with juniper berries and a garlicky lemon-oregano sauce.
Classic A.1. steak sauce adds zip to the gravy for this tender braised brisket from Boston's Durgin-Park.
Enjoy this sweet-and-sour update to a traditional brisket.
Adobo refers to a sauce that combines peppers and tomatoes with vinegar and spices to brighten its flavor. It's used in a variety of Mexican foods, including canned chipotle peppers (smoked red jalapeños), which add a key flavor to these burritos.
How to make the best Red-Eye Brisket Stew from Delish.com
Photos That Say More Than Just a Thousand Words - World's largest collection of cat memes and other animals
Don't have a few hours to spare to make chili? This aromatic and hearty beef chili recipe will guarantee dinner is on the table in no time.
VISUAL BEAUTY & INSPIRATION
I'm a great believer in long weekends away. Living in Los Angeles makes it possible to get to the beach, the mountains or the desert for three days, so it actually seems like a vacation.Because I'm always traveling with at least three children-usually more, because one or two of my kids' friends tag along-providing meals is a major issue. June Cleaver I'm not, but then there's the slow cooker. If you pack it, a hunk of meat and some leftover cooked vegetables, dinner for five or six or seven people cooks while you sun, sled or swim.
Looking for an impressive dish for the holidays? It takes a little time to put this dish together, but it's simple to do...and the results are outstanding and delicious.
One of many timeless recipes featured in American Food Writing is James Beard's take on this comforting noodle dish.
Rubbing prepared horseradish on the brisket and whisking it into the meaty sauce punches up the rich flavors here. Like most braised dishes, this bris...
This spectacular beef tenderloin recipe is simply seasoned with peppercorns and salt, the meat does all the talking and the result is a classic entrée that's just right for the holidays or any special dinner menu.
Bovinos genuinos por delante.
La race est originaire des Monts d’Aubrac, au Sud du Massif Central, dans les départements de l’Aveyron, du Cantal, de la Lozère et de la Haute-Loire (le Mézenc). Son aire d’extension s’étend essentiellement sur les zones dites difficiles des terres d’altitude (Aude, Puy-de-Dôme, Pyrénées-Orientales…), de garrigues ou de causses (Gard, Hérault, Landes…). Réputée pour ses grandes qualités d’élevage et de rusticité, l’Aubrac est une race de mères idéales pour la production de viande, en race pure comme en croisement avec un taureau de race à viande spécialisé. Les bases de sélection : En 2006, 41 941 vaches ont été suivies en contrôle de performances et de reproduction ; 34700 d’entre elles sont inscrites chez 560 éleveurs. Plus de 26700 filiations en race pure ont été enregistrées au Livre Généalogique en 2006 sur les 33 846 déclarations de naissance répertoriées dans les élevages inscrits. La race Aubrac est présente à l'étranger : depuis plus de 10 ans, la race exporte sa génétique sous forme de semences (1 110 doses en 2000), de reproducteurs (160 animaux inscrits en 2000) et d’embryons dans plus de 15 pays : Allemagne, Irlande, Suisse, Russie, Lituanie, Hongrie, Autriche, Grande-Bretagne, Espagne, Luxembourg, Portugal, Canada, Etats-Unis, Maroc, Italie, Belgique, Nouvelle-Zélande… Son histoire commence au XVII ème siècle dans le petit village d' Aubrac (AVEYRON), 1893 : création du Herd-Book Aubrac, on compte alors à cette époque 355000 vaches (dont 14000 laitières), après la 2nd guerre mondiale, on en dénombre 380000. Mais ensuite la race AUBRAC subit de plein fouet la double concurrence du tracteur (remplaçant les mythiques bœufs AUBRAC) et la disparition de l’activité laitière dans les burons (plus que 7000 laitières). En 1972, il ne reste plus que 102000 aubracs, puis en 1978 la race Aubrac est appelée à disparaître, car on ne compte plus que 55929 mères Aubracs. Refusant de voir leur race s’éteindre inexorablement pour ne retrouver son nom que dans la liste des espèces disparues, quelques irréductibles, convaincus des spécificités et de la supériorité de la vache AUBRAC sur bien des critères, ont décidé de faire redécouvrir la belle aux yeux noirs. Leur dynamisme et leur motivation ont abouti à la création de l’UNION AUBRAC en 1979 (aujourd'hui 630 adhérents) . Le standard de la race : Couleur : la robe fauve, unicolore mais nuancée, varie du froment au gris blanchâtre. La teinte est plus foncée sur les épaules et sur la croupe. Ce caractère est surtout accentué chez les mâles non castrés où l’avant main est proche de la couleur noir. Cornes : dirigées obliquement et légèrement en avant puis relevées et retournées en torsade, elles sont noires au sommet, la base devant être le plus blanc possible. Tête : le mufle, le bord des paupières et les cils sont noirs entourés d’une auréole blanche. La langue est aux 2/3 de couleur ardoise à noir. L’œil vif est maquillé de noir (yeux d’Andalouse). Le chanfrein est plat et droit. Le front est carré. Le chignon large est souvent crépu. Les oreilles sont de taille moyenne, fines et bordées de poils noirs. Belle et expressive, la tête se termine par un mufle court et large. Membres : ils sont d’une solidité remarquable. Chaussée d’onglons de couleur noir, l’Aubrac bénéficie d’aplombs excellents avec des jarrets sains non engorgés. Harmonie : planté sur quatre membres solides, l’Aubrac est un animal de taille moyenne, soudé et trapu faisant apparaître les caractères d’une bête robuste.
