rhubarb short ribs

ok show of hands, how many of you did your homework and pickled rhubarb last weekend? it's ok if you totally slacked, this short rib recipe actually tastes its best when you take the full 48 hours to make it, which, coincidentally is the minimum amount of time that you want to have your pickles go for. so get started today for a badass supper on sunday. or! spend a week mentally preparing and then go for it, just in time for father's day. cause dad's love meat!!!! and if your dad is anything like my dad he also un-ironically likes the color of rhubarb (pink).

(aside)

pops, why are you wearing a pink shirt??

pops: pink is my favorite color!

pops, why is your collar popped?

pops: it keeps my neck warm!

…was a real conversation that we had in the early 2000s, right around a time when pink popped collars were making their rounds in the preppy crowds of suburban american high schools. but pops doesn’t have an eye on trends, he’s just logical in his fashion choices and undoubtedly literally thought, “pink’s nice, warm necks are also nice, ok time to start my day!” before he cleared his entire wardrobe to make way for 70 different bernie sanders t-shirts, he had a large quantity of ahead-of-his-time millennial pink garments.

(end aside) 

so my dad likes pink! which is part of my explanation for when you ask why we're sprinkling our father's day meat with hot pink pickles. the other part is that we have shit tons of rhubarb and rhubarb with short ribs, it turns out, is the chrissy teigen and john legend of braised meat land. 

this recipe is heavily inspired by the pomegranate molasses braised lamb that i just about died over at zahav last month. they're a multi day production where you cure, braise, rest, reheat, inhale, exhale, and the only smells that really come close to as good all are freshly baked challah and santal 26. these short ribs pull sweet and sourness from a sticky rhubarb jam situation and then get some additional sweetness from their bed of onions that over time get caramelized down to almost an onion jam. the amount of flavor is a lil absurd. to the point where i had to actually pump the breaks a bit with the braising liquid by watering down my chicken stock. but paired with crispy persian rice and a bright pink sour rhubarb pickle, you basically have a perfect dinner. it's actually the dinner i had on my birthday right before eggboy’s cake!

i've done all this with bone-in and boneless short ribs. boneless was easy to pick up in town, while bone-in i had to call around about and then special order which yielded some gnarly grocery store phone holding music. i didn't necessarily find that the flavor (in this recipe at least) was sacrificed by having boneless, so i'll say that you should go with whatever route you'd like since i'm already asking a lot of you by requiring 48 hours for this thing.

the tahdig (crispy persian rice) is a great companion to this!! if you’ve never had it, there are great directions here. it’s just really delicious good rice with a crispy saffrony shell that, when all mixed up with short rib juices, adds some nice texture to the perfect bite. (i made minis in little cocottes and simply cut the cooking times down by a few minutes.) we also had these short ribs in tortillas one night with fresh herbs and a pile of pickled shredded carrots and it was mad good too. you really can’t go wrong. at all. which is what i like about short ribs. they taste so good even if you’re out of shape in the meat department and have to google dumb things like how to cut them. 

---

rhubarb short ribs

serves 6

ingredients

Kosher salt

1/2 c + 2 tb (125g) sugar

1 tsp fennel seeds

1/2 tsp ground allspice

Black pepper

5 pounds bone-in short ribs or 4-4 1/2 pounds boneless short ribs

4 c (500g) rhubarb, chopped and divided

juice of 1/2 lemon

2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced

1 head of garlic, peeled, cloves smashed

2 tb olive oil

about 2-3 c chicken stock 

about 2-3 c water

for serving:

pickled rhubarb

tahdig (optional: top with crushed pistachios, chopped dates, and rose petals or ana)

clues

day one: in a small bowl combine 2 tb salt, 2 tb sugar, the fennel, allspice, and a bunch of turns of pepper. rub it all over the short ribs and place them in a big pan. cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. 

(get your pickled rhubarb going)

make the rhubarb sauce (this can be made on day 1 or day 2): combine 2 c (250g) of the chopped rhubarb, the remaining 1/2 c (100g) sugar, and a good pinch of salt in a saucepan and heat over medium high heat, stirring often. when the rhubarb softens and collapses into a purée, reduce the heat to medium and continue to cook, stirring often, until it reduces to 2/3 c (200g). this should take around 25-35 minutes. stir in the lemon juice, let cool, cover, and refrigerate until further notice.

day two: preheat the oven to 475ºf. place the onions, garlic, and remaining 2c (250g) chopped rhubarb in a roasting pan and toss with the olive oil. if you’re using the same roasting pan that you cured the short ribs in, give the pan a little rinse first to get rid of any excess salt. place the short ribs on top of the onion mixture and roast uncovered for 20 minutes, until browned. 

take it out of the oven and reduce the oven’s heat to 325ºf. pour in the rhubarb sauce and then add the stock and water until it comes halfway up on the short ribs. i do this by pouring in one cup of stock, and then one cup of water, and then another cup of stock, and another cup of water, etc., and stopping once i reach the halfway mark. (you could also just dilute your stock before pouring it in but then you run the risk of having leftover diluted stock.) cover with foil and then bake for 5-6 hours, until the meat is very soft and falls off the bone (if you're going with boneless use your imagination to imagine if they would fall off the bone or not). taste it, add more salt if you feel like it needs it. at this point you *could* give in and eat it, but it’ll be better if you let it sit over night. so let it cool, cover it, and stick it in the fridge.

(oh also on day two, you can get your tahdig rice soaking)

day three: preheat the oven to 350ºf. scrape off the layer of fat that’s accumulated on your short ribs and discard it. cover the pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until heated through. 

make your tahdig. 

slice your pickled rhubarb.

slice and serve your short ribs, spooning some of the juices on top. top with pickled rhubarb (and fresh herbs for greenery if you'd like), serve with tahdig!

leftovers can be frozen! 

Print this Recipe

---

-yeh!

los angeles

hello from the air! i am en route from los angeles to maui with alana, who is asleep already, lily, who is crying about hunger games, and stephanie, who is dusted with a pleasant coating of furikake due to a minor snacksplosion upon boarding. i can’t blame her, we were up before the sun to catch our flight after a very wild night of meat, gossip, and backstreet boys sing-alongs in koreatown. my stop in los angeles was entirely too short but i managed to squeeze in time with loved ones and some very meaningful firsts—some more overdue than others:

1. my first bite of spam. wow! spam musubi packs a deceptive amount of satisfaction into one compact delight. it’s, like, fried baloney sandwich satisfying and upon first bite it shot straight to the top of my list of things i’m most excited to experience in hawaii. 
2. my first time subbing out the bagel in my bagel and lox with *wait for it* a freshly baked popover, c/o karen. it was a textural revelation since lox and popovers require a very similar amount of energy to be exerted in order to bite through them. i would do this again, absolutely.
3. my first visit to canter’s!!! you didn’t tell me they had beaver mustard! what a jolly condiment. ordering a pastrami sandwich and an egg cream so far from new york made me a little uneasy, but from the comfort of a big squishy booth and over talk of paparazzi and time travel, i slowly settled in for a proper first canter’s experience. 
4. my first shaved ice. which also jumped right to the top of my hawaii list. so fluffy, so sweet, so perfect with black sesame mochi bits hidden throughout. 
5. my first time going directly from an 85-course korean barbecue carnivorgy to an alta california taco obligation where no menu item was left unordered and no hyperbolic shouts of joy were spared during the passing of the chorizo vampiros. 
6. my first spork tattoo sighting. should i reconsider my decision not to get a tattoo in hawaii?
7. my first dollar taco. small but extraordinarily mighty. 
8. my first gjusta, my first olive & june, my first boozy push-up pop (!!!).
9. my first time meeting adrianna, karen, lynn, and kelly, who are all every bit as wonderful as their internet presences suggest.
10. my first zankou chicken garlic sauce, which looks like nothing but tastes too good to be true.

phew! i am off to go have some seconds now. seconds of water, because getting dehydrated on a plane is a fear that i have. thank you, los angeles and all of your lovely people, for a perfect pre-hawaii weekend <3 <3 <3

-yeh!

malta

i’ve done these things one too many times now, and i think i’ve finally learned some lessons:

1. scheduled a trip to europe where half of it occurs on a sunday.
2. scheduled a trip to a warm sunny place where i tell all of my travel companions in advance, ooooh fuck it! let’s not plan anything and just chill by the beach with chips, beer, and brightly colored literature all day. 

both of those are fun for about five minutes and both of those i did this weekend in malta after my week in tuscany. lol. i mean it was great because i was with brian and alana in literally king's landing, and then later on we were saved by a cake recommendation c/o meike followed by a mean spaghetti pie. it was also sooo sunny! but in general, i think in my older post-college age i am learning that i need to plan things when i go places and not take the lazy route. even if it's the one and only touristy tour that operates on a sunday. rather, especially if it's that because those are actually kind of fun?

am i making any sense? i got off the plane two hours ago and i'm extraordinarily jet-lagged and still emotional from watching insurgent and pitch perfect 2 separated only by the emerson string quartet's recording of verklärte nacht. delta is nailing their in-flight entertainment these days.

it's well before eight and i'm going to bed. tomorrow is sugar beet harvest eve and the excitement is in the air!!! and then this weekend i have the first photoshoot for my book, so these next few days i plan to be nervous, excited, stressed, doing pilates, and furiously recipe testing.

how was your weekend???

-yeh!

ricotta stuffed whole wheat challah (and everything else that i ate over labor day weekend)

one uncrustable pb + j // at adult summer camp, to soak up the fireside marshmallow vodka and to fuel a late night game of heroes' quest with my new camp friends. i was the wizard! i named him frank and killed an ork with my sword and we totally crushed that game. 

one breakfast beer // if you've ever been sad that your summer camp days are behind you, just sign up for adult summer camp and then embrace the nice bearded guy at the breakfast buffet who is dispensing fancy breakfast beer from a keg.

another uncrustable pb + j // in the car on the way to minneapolis!

a pile of cherry tomatoes from our garden // also in the car on the way to minneapolis and while considering the idea that cherry tomatoes are nature's gushers. would you agree?

a vegetarian jimmy john's sammich // i think i'm becoming a vague vegetarian.

coconut bacon // no really, i actually think i'm becoming a vegetarian.

a roasted cauliflower and chickpea taco // prepared by none other than a couple cooks!!!! **happy dance** 

an ottolenghi's black pepper tofu taco // i brought tofu to a party. who am i. 

a boozy beef banh mi taco // melissa made beef and when melissa makes beef you stop entertaining the idea of becoming a vegetarian. 

pie, cookies, one luxurious bite of a morning bun // the details of which i must keep secret because they were test runs of recipes for sarah's book (!!!!) ohmygah, you're going to absolutely *need* that book. 

a variety of swedish pancakes // savored in #thefauxhouse over blog shop talk, glorious blog shop talk <3

one bite of many different glam doll donuts // with my brunch club ladies! 

a pile of salad // from whole foods on our drive back from minneapolis. our options were: stop at the state fair for dinner of fried things on a stick or stop at the whole foods for vegetables and more vegetables. we chose the opposite of yolo-ing on that one but now we have really fantastic hard-to-find-in-our-little-town vegetables for the week and i am so excited about it. 

ricotta stuffed whole wheat challah // i made these mini loaves of challah for the drive to summer camp on friday night! they were kind of in celebration of friday pizza night, because when you eat cheese stuffed bread with a fresh tomato, you basically have pizza. 

you can go a few different directions with these little loaves. i made a few personal-sized rolls and a few that are perfect for sharing with a friend (or perhaps... a date!). you could also make one large loaf, but that's not as fun. i tossed a bunch of za'atar into the dough to add extra flavor, and topped them with pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds for protein and prettiness. the seeds also add such crunchy textural fun to a fluffy challah and creamy ricotta party. these loaves are round because rosh hashanah is coming up (!!!), and yeah, with the whole wheat and seeds and everything they're definitely healthier than last year's marzipan challah and brown sugar challah, but you should go check those out too because the more challah the better the new year!

---

ricotta stuffed whole wheat za'atar challah mini loaves with pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds

makes 8 personal rolls or 4 medium shareable loaves

ingredients

dough:

2 1/4 tsp (1 packet) active dry yeast

3/4 c warm water

1/4 c + 1 teaspoon sugar

1 tsp kosher salt

2 c all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 1/4 c whole wheat flour

1/4 c za'atar, optional

2 large eggs

1/3 c flavorless oil, like canola or vegetable

filling

1 c ricotta cheese

additional shredded cheese (optional... i like using a sprinkling of parmesan cheese)

kosher salt

eggwash + topping

1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water

pumpkin seeds

sesame seeds

kosher salt + black pepper

clues

dough:

In a medium bowl, combine the yeast, warm water, and 1 teaspoon sugar and give it a little stir. Let it sit for about 5 minutes, until it becomes foamy on top. 

Meanwhile, in a large bowl or the bowl of stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix together the salt, flours, za'atar (if using) and remaining sugar. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and oil.

When the yeast is foamy, add it to the dry mixture immediately followed by the egg mixture and stir to combine. Knead, either by hand on a floured surface or with a dough hook for 7-10 minutes, adding more white flour as necessary (but try not too add too much), until you have a smooth and slightly sticky dough.

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature until it has doubled in size, about 2-3 hours. 

to shape:

Divide the dough into 4 or 8 parts, depending on how big you'd like your loaves to be. Pat them out into long rectangles (about 2 1/2" x 9" for personal rolls, 2 1/2" x 18" for medium loaves) and then spread with a thin even layer of ricotta. top with a sprinkling of additional cheese, if desired, and a sprinkling of salt. Roll up the rectangles the long way so you have long skinny snakes and and pinch the edges well to seal in the cheese. Roll the snakes into spirals to get round loaves and then let them rise for 30 more minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375ºf. 

Brush the loaves with a thin even layer of egg wash and then sprinkle with pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, salt, and pepper and bake until golden brown. Begin checking for doneness after 25 minutes. Let cool slightly and enjoy! Preferably with a fresh tomato. Do the challah/fresh tomato double fist.

---

-yeh!

photo credit to alex for that second to last photo (of what melissa titled "the real housewives of food blogging" 😂), and photo credit to eggboy for the photo of me with a wooden spoon that i whittled at camp!!!!