Last night, I was inspired to make braised short ribs. A few weeks ago, I had experimented with the Chimay braised short ribs in the Zuni cookbook and decided to modify it, substituting the Chimay for Kasteel Rouge, a cherry-infused Belgian beer. The Zuni cookbook is awesome! And my variation turned out quite tasty. The best part is it only takes 2.5 hours to braise, not even that long. To accompany the meat, I grabbed my uncle's Flexitarian Table and went with the Shaved Winter Vegetable Salad with a paper-thin sliced fennel, granny smith apple and red cabbage. The salad was a great compliment to the short ribs which literally fell off the bone. You can't go wrong with either of these cookbooks. Check them out.
1 comment:
Fennel.... I've just been thinking about fennel while reading Euripides' Bacchae. Why Prometheus' stolen fire in a fennel stalk? Why the Bacchants' thyrsos as a fennel stalk? (The really tall, wild fennel you see all over around the Mediterranean, and in some places in California -- not our garden variety, though its stalk is pretty impressive, too.) What is it about fennel? The hollowness of the stalk, but also the milky liquid coursing through it? Tres phallic, yes. But think of fennel's taste -- distinctive and so "there," but so allusive, elusive. Very "feminine," too.
Boy, that dinner sounds good, Noah. If tastes have sounds.
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