hot dogs with moroccan carrot slaw on jerusalem bagel buns + a summery backyard feast!

limb by limb i am peeling myself off of the couch and ending the post-eggsiswedding recovery and rehydration process. it took a solid few days but that’s ok because i had game of thrones to catch up on (which was broken up by the pilot of santa clarita diet, um… do we need to talk about this?) as of this weekend i officially have the following things: a very tall eggbro, experience making 320 wedding cake servings, and a beginner level proficiency for turning small talk into medium talk. i learned about zady and what it’s like studying feminism in texas, and then at the pizza place we invented a new revolutionary diet that is going to blow all of your minds (either for its brilliance or stupidity… celeste, would you like to take the lead on this one?). i am extremely excited to see all of celeste’s photos that she took over the weekend and to tell you about how the cake building went, but for now here is a sneak peek and here is another one.

today we are talking about summer grill parties! 

i was raised in a mayo-free household. i always thought that this was because i was raised in the 90s, and in the 90s, fat was evil. but then this weekend my mom told me that it was actually because “jews don’t eat mayonnaise unless it’s in whitefish salad or egg salad,” (two things that i absolutely did not eat when i was little). that lead to a quick trip down an internet rabbit hole that more or less confirmed this (i’ll let you get into it here on google). and while as an adult i now love mayo enough to qualify to be the captain of #teammayo, i still have a small amount of guilt whenever i eat macaroni salad or potato salad or coleslaw, the kind of mayonnaise-y things that i most often encountered when i was little since in those days the only times i’d see mayo were at other people’s houses, for barbecues and grill parties. it was an unwritten rule that stoopie and i were not to eat the salads at these parties. so similarly to how i inherited a portion of my mom’s aversion to creamy soups, i also inherited this macaroni salad guilt. which doesn’t stop me from eating it (eggbro’s aunt made a great one for the rehearsal dinner, and in january i learned the magic of the rainbow drive-in plate lunch) but it does encourage some sort of moderation and is also most certainly the reason for my relief re: all of these new pasta salads and potato salads i keep seeing around the internet that have swapped out mayo for olive oil. 

i love this trend, not just because of my reduced guilt, but also because i feel like there’s more creativity to be had with it. mayo-y salads showcase mayo and modesty and comfort, olive oil-y salads showcase brightness and flavor. they encourage fresh herbs and vegetables and are accommodating to loud spices. i like that their colors get shinier when they’re dressed. and it’s bathing suit season. olive oil just seems more appropriate for that.

so we had a dinner about it! my friends at california olive ranch sent over some of their olive oil and a few weeks ago when i had family in town, we picked radishes and herbs from the garden and then had a lovely feast in our backyard. cats and dogs were invited. bugs were not. here was our menu:

rainbow radishes // we can’t get them anywhere in town so we grew our own and they’re finally up! we served them with butter, olive oil, and flaky salt.

maureen’s lebanese potato salad with lemon and mint // i love this potato salad, i’ve made it multiple times. it is so bright and fresh.

ottolenghi’s pasta salad with spring vegetables and tomatoes // we used farro instead of pasta and it was fantastic!

hot dogs with moroccan carrot slaw and jerusalem bagel buns // see below!

chocolate frosted olive oil blondies // duhhhhh

ok, about these hot dogs: i love a crunchy fresh slaw on my dog. and herbs and cucumbers and onions and yes, this is essentially a salad on a hot dog so eat 12 because they’re basically healthy. this slaw is inspired by moroccan carrot salad which is the best part of any salatim spread. typically moroccan carrot salad uses cooked carrots that are chopped into coins, but to preserve some crunch, this slaw uses raw shredded carrots. they’re tossed with smoky harissa, nutty arbosana olive oil, a couple of chopped dates for sweetness, and lots of garlic. it’s wonderful on its own but its sweet smokiness goes so well with the sweet smokiness of a hot dog that it is something you’ll definitely want to do. you can totes use a veggie dog. you cannot use a carrot dog. that’s too meta. and if you don’t have a good hot dog bun source, go ahead and make some fluffy ones from scratch out of jerusalem bagel dough. 

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hot dogs with moroccan carrot slaw on jerusalem bagel buns

makes about 4 cups of slaw, enough to top about 12 hot dogs

ingredients

for the slaw:

2 tb fresh lemon juice

2 tb california olive ranch arbosana extra virgin olive oil

2 tb harissa

2 large cloves garlic, finely minced

1/2 tsp ground cumin

3/4 tsp kosher salt

black pepper

4 large carrots, shredded

1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped

4 medjool dates, pitted and finely chopped

for serving:

jerusalem bagel buns (use this recipe but instead of shaping 6 large bagels, shape 12 long buns)

hot dogs, veggie or meaty

thinly sliced cucumbers and onions

fresh mint leaves

mayo, optional

clues

to make the slaw, in a large bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, harissa, garlic, cumin, salt, and a few turns of pepper. add the carrots, parsley (reserving a small handful), and dates and toss to combine. cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (this can be made a day ahead). top with remaining parsley before serving.

to serve, top a hot dog with the carrot slaw, a few slices of cucumber and onion, a handful of fresh mint, and a drizzle of mayo, if desired. enjoy! 

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-yeh!

thank you, california olive ranch, for sponsoring this post! 

all photos by chantell and brett quernemoen!

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. 

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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! 

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-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!