Dinosaur Stew

Although there isn't any Dinosaur meat in this (though it would be rad) I couldn't help but thinking that this dish looks completely huge, jurassic and downright dangerous. The combination of the beef rib bones sticking out of the chunky, meaty red caveman sauce and giant rigatoni looks like something a 5 year-old would make if he could cook. Or if some neanderthal had a range and iron skillet in his cave. Well, I unleashed my inner 5 year-old/caveman and Dinosaur Stew is the result. This hearty meal will warm you up during an ice age blizzard, or just a cold day for those of us that live in less exciting times. *Note, do the ribs first because they'll take about 2 hours.

Here's what you need:

For the meaty caveman sauce:
1 pound ground sirloin
Healthy splash of olive oil
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped (or garlic powder, in a pinch)
2 big cans (28oz) of peeled or whole tomatoes. If whole, crush them by hand, arrgggh!
big rigatoni (no. 24)
Salt+Pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
a few shakes of:
hot pepper flakes
thyme
basil


For the dinosaur bones
4 or 5 beef short ribs
Olive oil
1/4 cup flour, seasoned with salt and peper
2 cans of beer
1 cup beef stock or water

Here's what you do:

1) Heat up a good dose of olive oil in a large skillet or pan
2) Dredge the ribs in the flour, shaking off any extra and sear them in the oil, about 5 minutes each side
3) After they are nicely brown on each side, pour in your beer and water, move to low heat, cover and let everything simmer for about 2 hrs. Occasionally check the liquid levels, and add more water/beer as needed
4) With 40 minutes left to go with the ribs, its time to get started on the sauce. First, you need to brown up the ground sirloin, onions and garlic in the bottom of a high sided pan or pot.
5) After the meat is pretty much cooked through, add all the other ingredients and let it come to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, and let it do it's thing for 30 minutes or so.
6) With roughly 15 minutes left to go, time to start bringing a pot of salted water to a boil. After it's boiling, drop in a good handful of rigatoni per person and boil for 12-13 minutes, or, until its not quite done, and your test piece will feel springy in your mouth.
7) Now we're getting somewhere. The ribs should be about done now, so dump out most of the liquid from the skillet, but save some for flavor bonus points. Drain your pasta and dump that over the ribs in the skillet. For the finale, dump your sauce all over the previous two ingredients, and let it simmer on low heat for about 2 minutes, giving the pasta a chance to cook the rest of the way. Stir it well, making sure everything is covered.
8) Look at the skillet and tell me that doesn't look like a might delicious Dinosaur Stew, with the bones sticking out, the chunks of meat and tomatoes everywhere and the large tubes of rigatoni.

What to listen to:

Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
Aside from the obvious naming implications, the music also fits. Classic riff heavy stone-age rock is all you need for making and eating this dish.

What to drink:

Normally I'd say some type of big red wine, but since you already have the beer out, and considering this dish is more meat than pasta, a decent lager will do you no harm. Pilsner Urquell or Czechvar.

Enjoy!

Old Bay Battered Seafood Fryup

This recipe is fun, delicious, and you'll probably make a huge mess cooking it. The batter is loosely based on a recipe for fried pearl onions from my Batali cookbook Molto Italiano. While his original idea was certainly good, I wanted to make it into a full meal, and also, he had pecorino romano cheese in the batter, which in my opinion, didn't jive as well with the seafood as it did with the onions. I've included some seafood options to fry up in this mix, but by no means is this the totality of choices. Use your imagination! If it's from the sea, chances are it will work great in here. I decided that I'd kick it over to the East Coast with some old bay instead. Glad I did. You will be too.

Here's what you need:

For the batter:
2 Eggs, separated
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup milk (1% or 2%, depending on how thin you feel)
Dash of parsley
Healthy dose of Old Bay seasoning
S+P

Fryables:
1 pound peeled pearl onions (the little ones, about the size of a marble)
1 pound large scallops
1 pound previously cooked, de-tailed shrimp
About half a bottle of olive oil for frying

Here's what you do:

1) Separate your eggs, and leave put the whites off to the side for now
2) In a large bowl, combine all your dry batter ingredients, then slowly add your milk and eggs. Whisk it all together, or you can use a fork, or your hand or whatever. Leave this off to the side as well.
3) For your onions, boil them for about 2 minutes then dump them into a bowl of ice, or cold water. Theoretically this is called 'blanching.'
4) For your seafood, you can get a big pan ready, and throw everything in, just to heat it up and cook it a little bit before it goes into the batter.
5) So, with all your onions chilling and seafood slowly cooking, you can now whip up your eg whites into stiff peaks. Not going to lie, I have no mechanical or whisk, so I did this by hand, with a fork. It took me about 30 minutes of solid whipping. I don't recommend doing it my way unless you are dedicated to fluffy batter and/or have a mixer. You were warned.
6) Fold the whites into the batter, until they disappear, but don't be too rough with it, egg whites are delicate creatures and should be treated with care.
7) FINALLY, now we can get to the good stuff. Heat up your oil in a large high sided pan/pot.
8) You'll most definitely have to work in batches here, use tongs dip your choice fryables in the batter, shake off the excess and drop into your oil. Wait until it is deliciously golden on all sides then put into a colander or onto some paper towels to drain and dry. Each time you are finished a batch, sprinkle with some more Old Bay, and shake it around to get good coverage.

There you go, that's it. If this seems confusing or my instructions aren't quite clear, just use your head and think about this in required steps. It's a pretty hard dish to mess up though, and even though you'll have batter splatter all over your kitchen, it'll be more than worth it. Also, very easy to scale this one up, to serve a whole giant pot to some hungry people.

What to listen to:

Florence and The Machine - Lungs
This is a wicked and diverse album. It fits great because its upbeat, and covers a wide range of styles. The cooking process is quick you you'll feel like you'll be doing lots of stuff at once, but in the end its all worth it. Not sure if this has anything to do with the meal, but I love her voice.

What to drink:

Beer man, beer! This meal just crys out for beer, and not an overpowering one either. Moosehead in Canada, or some Sam Adams lager in the US. Both east coast beers, both very good.

Enjoy!

Slow Cooked Pulled Pork with Bourbon BBQ Sauce

The first time I had pulled pork was in Atlanta as a wee lad. I've been hooked ever since. Lacking the necessary smoker (or right now, even a bbq) I've had to rely on the goodness of southerners to make it for me. No longer. After my dad fired me an email talking about the food in North Carolina on one of his golf vacations, I decided it would be time to give it a shot. Now I'm not claiming that this is better than real smoked pulled pork, but for a guy in a studio apartment in LA, it's pretty darn good. What follows is less recipe and more technique. The whole process hinges on getting the best pork you can but other than that, it's light on ingredients. Most likely you'll have everything else you need lying around the kitchen. This is based on trial and error, as well as becoming student of old school southern bbq techniques.

Here's what you need:
- A 5-8 lb pork shoulder (called a Boston Butt.) You can have it either bone in or out, it doesn't matter. They usually have them pre cut and wrapped at the grocery store, but if they don't you can ask and the butcher will be able to give you that cut easily.
- Dry pork rub (you can buy this or make your own, depending on your inclination. DIY recipe is at the bottom)
- Bottle of regular BBQ sauce (again, I'm trying to keep this practical here. You can make your own bbq sauce, as I have done in the past. But for my purposes, going out and buying molasses and brown sugar that I'll only use once doesn't jive with my student budget)
- 2oz bourbon
- 1/4 cup vinegar
- Bottle of apple juice

Here's what you do:

1) Preheat oven to 250F. Make sure there are two racks in the oven, one in the middle and one on the bottom
2) Cover your pork shoulder in dry rub, really massage it in there, and let it sit for about 30 mins, giving a chance for the spice to do its thing
3) Pour some apple juice onto a baking tray, and put it on the bottom rack. You may need to top up the apple juice from time to time, depending on how much evaporates
4) Put your pork on a baking pan and put it in the oven for 8 hrs. Just put it in and thats it, you don't need to move it at all.
5) When the pork is about 20 minutes from being done, dump your bbq sauce into a pan and heat on low, then add some bourbon and vinegar to taste. You can also add some apple juice to the sauce if you want. Stir.
6) After 8 hrs (or internal temperature of 160F, I don't have a thermometer so I just estimate) take the pork out and put in a large mixing bowl. Using two forks, just start pulling the pork apart from itself, it should go pretty easily, considering how tender the pork will be. After everything is all pulled apart, just dump in your bbq sauce mixture and give it a good mixing with the forks.
7) Serve piled high on fresh kaiser buns.

Overall this meal is fantastic as it has little prep work, and the reward is simply mindblowing. Whats more, you can easily scale up this recipe for an epic pork party with little added work. Since modern gas ovens tend to give off a dry heat, the apple juice prevents the pork from drying out while giving it an nice hint of sugar and apple. The addition of vinegar to the bbq sauce thins it out nicely, giving the pork more of a Carolina vibe, rather than the thicker Kentucky/Texas sauces most of us are used to. The bourbon is just an added bonus.

What to listen to: Brock Van Wey - White Clouds Drift On and On
I'm not an emotional guy, but this album is what I would call "heartbreakingly beautiful." Slow builds and sighing releases, strings and vocals all come together for a moving experience. Which is exactly how you'll feel as your first bite of pulled pork is melting in your mouth.

What to drink: Since you already have the bite of the vinegar and the strength of the bourbon, I recommend a nice full hoppy beer. Fat Tire in the US, Cameron's Auburn Ale in Canada.

*For the DIY dry rub
3 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons sea salt
2 tablespoons cayenne pepper (I like it spicy, if you don't, you can leave it out and add heat as need be)
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme


Enjoy!