01: Short Ribs, Rhubarb, Red Wine
Introducing Home Cooking Diary
Welcome to Home Cooking Diary, a newsletter on my journey as a home cook—the successes and failures alike. Part cooking log, part recipe recommender, and part chronicle of my thoughts as I feed myself and my family. This first installment is a “Dinner from the Diary” entry about a meal from some months ago, as will some others to come. Future letters will eventually be more up to date.
Dinner from the Diary, 6.26.22
Menu~
🍷Red Wine-braised Short Rib Ragout (recipe from Alexis deBoschnek’s To the Last Bite)
🥬Herby Salad (improvised by me and inspired by Alison Roman’s recipe)
🥮Rhubarb Crisp (recipe from Mark Bittman at NYT Cooking)
My intention was to serve this decadent-for-no-special-occasion meal the previous night it was served, but that did not go to plan. Despite having accomplished more complicated meals while caregiving for our three-month-old, I found myself unable to move beyond step one of the recipe—searing the precious (definitely not cheap) short ribs—before pausing to soothe him. A few times his pacifier dropped to the floor and he fussed, at some point I turned the flame off altogether to lift him out of the bouncer, and then all of a sudden he was really fussing and I had the realization that it was actually bottle time, or maybe I let time get away from me and he was overtired. In truth, both of those possibilities turned out to be reality, and it was at least two hours before I was able to return to cooking. Some might call it a “mom fail” (I am tempted to), but instead of feeling guilt all I could do was tell myself to slow down and pay attention—accept the limitations of my new life.
It turns out that a willingness to pause, or stop what I’m doing altogether, is required with an infant on the scene. I realize this surprises no one, but there is something about the onset of 3 months—my baby’s behavior and his needs shifted subtly, and I realized that feeding was no longer the primary challenge (by now I had that down thanks to combo feeding)—the new priority mission was making sure his naps were happening. It all feels pretty chaotic, and the ever-changing dynamic is the nature of the beast (I’m quickly learning).
And so, one of the lessons I’ve learned in my short time as a mother, is the fallacy inherent in any timeline I may have concieved for myself. Slowing down is imperative. My hungry and/or overtired baby does not care that I’m trying to get the beginnings of a short rib ragout in the oven—after all he won’t be eating it—so this meal was prepared over the course of two days, and not in four hours, despite being relatively simple in execution. I’ve found that I can cook time-consuming or even complex things as long as I’m patient enough to stop and come back later.
So why am I trying to cook meals that take four plus hours to prepare with a three-month-old around? Cooking has become the self-affirming hobby/interest that I make a point of indulging despite all the new things. To be able to cook at a time when I have very little time to do anything for myself, and I barely recognize my actual self in the mirror, really matters. At times, the feeling of loss of self is immense, and at other times I become overly conscious of the sameness of my agenda, or lack thereof, each day. It lifts my mood to make something, to be able to keep this hobby going, and feed my family while I’m at it. I’m sure there’s a point to be made here about the worthiness and rewards of domestic tasks, despite the gendernormative clichés inherent in the domestic. I suspect that some women feel that by giving in to domesticity itself we are not behaving like feminists, but I’ll save that thought for another time. I just really enjoy cooking.
But back to the meal I’m here to tell you about. I don’t often eat beef, but when I do, short ribs are my favorite. These short ribs were braised for three and a half hours in an entire bottle of red wine. I was caught off guard by the amount of wine, and chose to open a lesser bottle before proceeding with the braise, so my suggestion here is to only make this when you have multiple bottles of red wine on hand (or at least read the recipe in full before you begin, as I often fail to do). It’s finished with parsley and balsamic vinegar, both to balance all of the glorious richness and fat of the ribs. I served the ragout atop buttery polenta, and alongside a salad. The ragout recipe is from Alexis deBoschnek’s recent cookbook To the Last Bite and it was pretty easy and came out quite beautifully (despite having to leave those seared short ribs hanging overnight).
The salad I improvised, but was inspired by Alison Roman’s Leafy Herb Salad. Frankly, all of my salads are inspired by this recipe lately. It’s the perfect accompaniment to any dish, by being a bit lighter and bitter, relying more on the forwardness of lemon juice, and only accompanied by a healthy drizzle of olive oil, rather than being dressed in an oil-based vinaigrette. And it’s so adaptable with whatever salad greens I happen to have on hand. This time we had iceberg lettuce, dandelion greens from our local Farmers Market, fennel fronds, and torn mint. I tossed it first with a generous amount of salt and pepper, and then again with the aforementioned lemon juice, before drizzling on the olive oil just before serving. Too many times I’ve made the mistake of dressing the salad too early, and it all comes out sad and wilted.
For dessert I used up a bunch of rhubarb I had burning a hole in my fridge. During rhubarb season I can never resist it when I see it at the store. I think I’m still accustomed to its scarcity in NYC supermarkets but it’s actually quite plentiful in the Mid-Hudson Valley, where I live now, so I’ve inadvertantly cooked a lot of rhubarb this summer. If I had not broken up the preparation of the ragout across two days I would not have had the time or energy to make a dessert. I ran a quick search for rhubarb on my NYT Cooking app (my go-to resource for when I don’t have a plan) and decided on the easiest sounding recipe: Mark Bittman’s Rhubarb Crisp. I chopped up the rhubarb, tossed it with lemon zest and sugar, and topped it with a combination of oats, butter, spices (I subbed cardamom for the cinnamon), brown sugar, and pecans (mixed in the food processor). It went in the oven for 45 minutes. Perfectly golden. This was easy and foolproof and wonderful, but my late-season rhubarb was very tart and would have benefited from the addition of something sweeter. I love rhubarb on its own, but this crisp made me appreciate why it’s often paired strawberries. Luckily, I planned to serve it with vanilla bean ice cream, which was the perfect antidote to the extra, unexpected tartness.
If you enjoy a lengthy cooking project on a slow weekend day that will fill your kitchen with delicious aromas, I highly recommend a ragout. It was a perfect little feast for two, with plenty leftover to repurpose later in the week.