Slow Cooker Bolognese Sauce

A few weeks ago I had eaten some pasta with bolognese sauce at Basta Pasta in Cambridge, and afterwards, I was totally craving more of the savory meat sauce. I remembered that The Kitchen had posted a recipe for making it using a slow cooker which sounded perfect, since I didn't really want to have to deal with hours in front of a hot stove during the summertime. Even so, you do need to spend some time sweating the vegetables, browning the meat, and reducing the liquids, but the end result is so totally worth it. The only changes I made to the original recipe is that instead of adding 1 cup of the reserved tomato juices, I reduced all the tomato juice from the 2 cans until there was only about 1 cup of liquid left and added that to the slow cooker. Also, I used a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork instead just ground beef.

Slow-Cooked Bolognese Sauce (from The Kitchn)
makes 6 cups

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup milk (whole or 2-percent)
1 cup white wine
2 28-ounce cans of whole peeled tomatoes, drained and finely chopped (juices reserved)
1 cup reserved tomato juices

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, and carrot and cook until the onion is translucent and all the vegetables have softened. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the pork and beef, breaking it apart with your spoon and cooking until it is just browned. Season with nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Stir in the milk and bring it to a rapid simmer. Continue simmering until the milk has reduced completely and very little liquid remains, about 10 minutes. Stir in the wine and simmer again until reduced completely, about 10 minutes. Transfer the beef mixture to the slow cooker.

In the same, now-empty pot, reduce the reserved tomato juices until you have about 1 cup left.

Add the chopped tomatoes and reduced tomato juices to the slow cooker. Stir to combine. Cover and cook on HIGH for 6 hours or LOW for 8 hours.

In the last half hour of cooking, remove the lid to allow any excess liquid to evaporate and reduce the sauce. The finished sauce should be chunky and creamy without being soupy.

Serve over spaghetti with a hunk of crusty bread for mopping up the sauce!

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Kalbi (Korean Barbecue Short Ribs)

Still Life of Marinade Ingredients

My friend Vince* is known for his kalbi recipe, so when I asked him for it, this is what he gave me:

-1 cup ajimirin sauce
-1/2 can of 7-Up
-1 kiwi
-1 yellow onion
-1 red apple
-1 pear...preferably Asian pear
-1/2 cup garlic

-Blend all these ingredients together and take 3 cups of the blend and mix it with the 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of soy sauce.

I laughed when I first read this because of the lack of instructions on how to prepare the fruits. Was I supposed to peel and core the apple and pear? I wasn't supposed to throw the whole kiwi into the blender, right? When I asked him for clarification, he said that what he sent me was what he got verbatim from his Korean friend. There was also something in the recipe about "tenderizing" the short ribs, but there were no details as to how to do that. Seeing as how kalbi meat is so tender already, I figured I could just skip that part.

Perhaps the hardest part about making kalbi is finding the right cut of meat. You want to get beef short ribs that are cut across the bones, not with, which is how they're usually sold in American grocery stores. I just found out via the recent post on thekitchn.com that this is called a "flanken" count (not the same as flank steak). The only place I've found this cut is at a local Korean grocery store. Sara Kate, who wrote the post, suggests "slicing the traditional three-rib short ribs down to the bones length-wise and splaying them on the grill" if you can't find the flanken cut.

Kalbi (Korean Barbecue Short Ribs)
serves 8-12 people

6 lbs. flanken cut beef short ribs
1 kiwi
1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
1 red apple, peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1 pear (preferably Asian pear, but I had a Bosc so I used that), peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
1/2 cup peeled garlic gloves
1 cup ajimirin sauce (I didn't have any so I substituted rice wine)
1/2 can of 7-Up
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup sugar

Cut the kiwi in half and remove the meat using a spoon. Add the kiwi meat to a blender along with the onion, apple, pear, garlic, mirin (or rice wine) and 7-Up. Puree using the blender. Measure out 3 cups of this mixture into a medium mixing bowl and add the soy sauce and sugar.

Arrange the ribs in a baking dish (you may have to use two depending on the size of your dish) and pour the marinade over them, making sure that all surfaces are exposed to the marinade. Alternatively, you can use two gallon-sized freezer bags.

Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours, turning the ribs around a few times so they marinate evenly.

Grill the ribs over high heat. I do about 3 minutes on each side because my ribs are cut pretty thin, but you may have to grill yours longer if yours are thicker. If you don't have a grill, you can also pan-fry or use the broiler to cook the ribs. I used my electric grill and cooked it outside because the smell is heavenly, but not something you want to stick around for days.

Serve with washed Romaine lettuce leaves, cooked rice, and ssamjang (Korean spicy bean paste). Each person should remove the meat from the bones and wrap the meat in the the lettuce along with the rice and bean paste. Don't forget to gnaw on the meat in between the bones; it's hard to get to, but oh so worth it!

If you're not planning on cooking the ribs right away, you can freeze them in the freezer bags after adding the marinade. When you're ready to cook them, defrost defrost overnight in the refrigerator.

I <3 Kalbi!

*Breaking news! I just found out that Vince liked the kalbi recipe so much, he ended up dating the girl that gave it to him! Perhaps I should rename this post: A Kalbi Worth Dating For....

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Cincinnati Chili

I've been wanting to make Cincinnati chili for quite a while but never found the opportunity. It's definitely one of those dishes you want to make for a large group, and what's more perfect after a day of skiing than some chili?

Cincinnati chili differs from what most people would consider traditional chili in that it's a bit more mild and watery and served on a bed of spaghetti and topped with mounds and mounds of fluffy, shredded cheddar cheese. In fact, it's probably more akin to spaghetti sauce than chili. The beef is boiled instead of browned to achieve a fine texture, and the secret ingredient is a bit of chocolate. Yes, chocolate.

Cincinnati Chili (based on this recipe)
Serves 14

4 lbs. 80% lean ground beef
4 cups water
4 (6 oz.) cans tomato paste
2 large onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 large bay leaves
4 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons unsweetened ground chocolate
2 tablespoons ground cumin
4 teaspoons ground allspice
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Hot cooked spaghetti (3 boxes worth)
Finely shredded cheddar cheese
Chopped onions
Small red beans

Combine ground beef and water in a large stew pot. Cook until beef is done, crumbling as it cooks. You want very fine particles of beef. Stir in everything but the last 4 ingredients.

Cover and cook, at a simmer for about one hour.

Remove cover and, if necessary, cook down to a good thick consistency. Remove and discard bay leaves.

To serve, mound a bed of spaghetti on your plate.

Add the chili.

To make 3-way Cincinnati chili, you'd add just the cheese at this point. For 4-way, you'd add either the onions or beans, and for 5-way, add both onions and beans.

Top with a mound of freshly shredded cheddar cheese.

The key to the dish is the shredded cheese. You want to grate it as fine as possible so that it will be incredibly fluffy and melt just from the residual heat from the spaghetti and chili, even though a layer of onions and beans. To do this, I used my new Microplane grater. Just look at that cheese; it's like sawdust! (But in a good, appetizing way).

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Curry Turnovers(?)

Okay, so I have no idea what to call these things. Even in Chinese I've heard them called both jia li jiao and ga li jiao. I asked my mom if one was Mandarin and the other Taiwanese or Cantonese, but even she admits she doesn't know. My guess is that the former is Taiwanese Mandarin and the latter possibly Beijing Mandarin or Cantonese. Anyone know? Anyways, whatever these things are, they're delicious. The first time I ever had them my mom made the pastry from scratch, and it was this incredibly complicated process of making two types of dough and then combining them so that you got this extremely flaky crust, kind of like this. But then one day I was flipping through some old copies of Better Homes and Gardens and noticed that there was this reader submitted recipe for something very similar that just used refrigerated pie crust, and I was sold. They also used mashed potatoes instead of pieces of cooked potato, but I decided to use mashed potato flakes instead to make it even simpler.

The most impressive part of these turnovers is the crimped crust, which of course, my mom taught me how to do. Here's a quick video to show you how to do it:

Curry Turnovers (or whatever they're called)
makes about 56

2 packages of refrigerated pie crusts (4 pie crusts total)
1 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup chopped onions
4 tablespoons curry powder
1 lb. ground beef, 80% lean is good (you don't want to get too lean)
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1 cup instant mashed potato flakes
1 egg yolk, beaten

Pre-heat the oven to 450° F.

Thaw and unwrap the pie crusts. Unfold and use a cup or cookie cutter to cut out 3" circles. Re-roll the excess pie crust and cut more. You should be able to get around 56 circles.

Saute the onions and 1 tablespoon curry powder in the oil until the onions are sweating. Add the ground beef and continue cooking until beef is brown. Add soy sauce and more curry powder to taste.

Add 1/4 cup potato flakes to bind the mixture. Continue adding flakes until all the liquid is soaked up and the mixture is no longer crumbly.

Place a little less than 1 tablespoon of filling in the middle of each pie crust circle. Fold in half and pinch the edges to seal.

Place the turnovers on a cookie sheet and brush the top of each with the beaten egg yolk.

Bake at 450° F for 9 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

The reason for the color difference in the turnovers above is that I used two different brands of pie crust dough: Pillsbury and Shaws. Believe it or not, the darker turnovers were made using the Pillsbury brand. I'm not sure if there is a difference in the thickness of the doughs or more likely the ingredients in the dough, but the Pillsbury brand was a lot easier to shape. Taste-wise, I think I like the Pillsbury ones better, too; it's just too bad they don't look as nice as the Shaws' ones. Oh yeah, and personally, I think these taste better once they've cooled down and aren't piping hot anymore. =)

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Beef Noodle (Soup) and Lu Dan

My mom is the best cook I know, and I'm not just saying that because she's my mom. Not only doe she make some awesomely impressive dishes for potlucks and the like, she also makes awesome everyday dishes just for us, and the best thing is, she's self-taught. One of the dishes that my brother and I always demand she makes when we're home is niu ro mien, or Taiwanese beef noodle soup. Actually, the translation is a little misleading because it's not exactly niu ro tang mien (tang means soup in Mandarin). The dish my mom makes doesn't have a whole lot of soup (although you could just add beef broth if you wanted, I suppose), it's more like a healthy amount of sauce.

One change I made to her recipe is that I used chuck beef instead of beef shank because I'm not a big fan of all the jing, which is the chewy gross stuff that is probably tendons and junk that other people seem to really like. So yeah, if you like that junk, use beef shank, which comes out much more tender, or maybe that's just because my mom made it.

My Mom's Taiwanese Beef Noodle (Soup)
makes 6 servings

2 scallions, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon ginger, minced
1 star anise
1 1/2 lbs. chuck beef (or beef shank) cut into 3/4" pieces
1/2 cup rice wine
1/2 cups soy sauce
1 1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons rock sugar
1 lb. angel hair pasta
1 small head napa cabbage, washed and cut into 3" pieces

1) In large saucepan, saute the first four ingredients in 2 T oil for 2 minutes. Add the beef and cook until just browned.

2) Add the wine, soy sauce, water, and sugar, and heat to boiling. Reduce to a simmer and cook with the lid on for 1-2 hours (1 hour is enough for chuck beef, may need 2 hours for beef shank).

3) 15 minutes before beef is done, boil water in a large pot. Add pasta and cook while stirring occasionally for 3 minutes. Add napa cabbage and cook for 2 more minutes. Drain off most of the water.

4) Divide the noodles and cabbage among 6 large bowls, adding a little of the excess hot water. Add the beef on top and ladle in some of the sauce (making sure to remove the star anise).

Another Taiwanese food I really like is lu dan, or soy sauce braised eggs. In Taiwan, these are so common you can get them at the ubiquitous 7-Elevens, but it's darn near impossible to find them here unless you make them yourself. Since I had a large amount of soy sauce mixture left from making the beef noodles, I decided to make some. (Note: these are different form cha dan, or tea eggs, in that 1) there is tea in the braising sauce for tea eggs, and 2) the egg shells are not completely removed for making tea eggs.)

Soy Sauce Braised Eggs

1) Add eggs to a pot of cold water. Bring the water to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 12-15 minutes. Transfer eggs to a bowl full of cold water to cool.

2) Once eggs are not hot to the touch, peel them.

3) Heat the soy sauce mixture leftover from beef to boiling. Reduce to a simmer and add the peeled eggs. If the level of the liquid does not cover the eggs, make sure to rotate the eggs throughout the braising process. Braise for 30 minutes.

That's it! You can probably braise the eggs in a straight mixture of soy sauce, water, and sugar (i.e. without braising beef or some other kind of meat in the liquids first), but for some reason, I've only had them cooked in a mixture that had first been used to cook something else. Hmmm, maybe it's because it's a Taiwanese thing, and we're kinda cheap and efficient like that. =P

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