It’s been a sloppy couple of days here as fall settles in—rainy, blustery, chilly. That might get some people thinking about warm, sunny climes somewhere. What I’m thinking about is short ribs. Meaty, flavorful and, yes, a little chewy, short ribs are one of my favorite “cheap cuts” of beef. Here are four recipes perfect for cold, rainy days. Continue reading “Making the most of the cheap cuts: four recipes for braised short ribs”
Lamb and turkey stand in for ground beef in these five burger recipes.
I’ve been thinking about burgers lately. Big, juicy, beefy burgers. So imagine my surprise when I dug through the Blue Kitchen archives and didn’t find a single beef hamburger. But I did find these lamb and turkey burgers, and I remember every one of them fondly. Continue reading “Five burgers, no beef”
A variety of Chinese and not-so-Chinese ingredients create a flavorful marinade for oven-baked pork ribs that aren’t ribs at all. Recipe below.
CALL IT CLEVER BUTCHERING, CALL IT GENIUS MARKETING, CALL IT BOTH. In the 1960s, Clifford G. Bowes took a section of pork that was hard to sell, cut it into meaty/fatty riblike slabs and dubbed it country-style ribs. Bowes, “one of the country’s top meat men and a meat consultant from Chicago,” according to a Chicago Tribune article from 1978, had hit a meat home run. Soon, butchers were using pork shoulder and the blade just behind the shoulder to keep up with the demand for country-style “ribs”—which are actually not ribs at all. Continue reading “Oven-baked, country-style Chinese Pork “Ribs””
Lamb is versatile, delicious and easy to cook. These six recipes showcase that versatility.
According to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” Ours turns to thoughts of lamb. To be fair, Marion and I pretty much fancy lamb year-round, but spring tends to be when many others think about cooking and eating this most delectable of red meats. If your thoughts are turning to lamb, here are some ideas for traditional and unexpected ways to cook it. Continue reading “Chops, burgers, shanks, stews, pastas, meatballs… Lamb, six ways from Sunday”
Just in time for Passover, a new cookbook offers recipes that are perfect for the holiday and all year long, like this Maple Glazed Rack of Ribs. Recipe below.
You know those meals and dishes that only come out for the holidays? The ones you wish you could eat all year long? That’s the idea behind Naomi Nachman’s debut cookbook, Perfect for Pesach: Passover Recipes You’ll Want to Make All Year. While the recipes in it are focused on Passover, as the title says, they can be served and enjoyed all year long. Continue reading “Perfect for Pesach: Maple Glazed Rack of Ribs”
A simple pan-seared steak gets support from store-bought cheats for a solo dinner that got cooked quickly and lingered over. What passes for a recipe follows.
Various events have us all in different cities tonight, with me home in Chicago. Often in this situation, I’ll take the opportunity to work late, then grab some takeout on the way home. That was the plan tonight. Until a fire alarm went off in our building, sending the last three of us at work down thirteen flights of stairs to a lobby filled with firefighters. We didn’t smell any smoke (so I probably have an office to show up to tomorrow), but it was clear we weren’t going back upstairs tonight. Continue reading “Pan-seared steak, quick side hacks and the pleasures of dinner for one”
Big chunks of pork shoulder are braised in a slow cooker in a tangy, slightly spicy tomatillo-based salsa verde until fork tender. Recipe below.
Every day, we get delicious reminders of the cultural richness immigrants bring to America. Our new old house is in Pilsen, a predominantly Mexican working class Chicago neighborhood. Walking to our el station in the morning on the way to work, we pass two or three street corner vendors selling homemade tamales and steaming bowls of pozole. Standing on the el platform, we are greeted by the fragrance of fresh tortillas being made in one of many neighborhood tortillerias. Continue reading “A little taste of Pilsen in a slow cooker: Puerco en Salsa Verde”
Ground coffee, whole cumin seeds, chili powder and cinnamon create an easy, amazing spice rub for pan-seared lamb chops. Recipe below.
I have really tried to like coffee. There was almost always a pot brewing in my house when I was growing up, and over the years, starting as a teenager, I tried many times to acquire a taste for it. Never happened. I’m not proud of the fact—I consider it a major social shortcoming on my part. But even though I don’t drink coffee, I’m intrigued by what it does to food. Continue reading “Simple and simply delicious: Coffee Cumin Lamb Chops”
An international ingredient list produces a hearty, one-pan dinner big on flavor and comfort. Recipe below.
With a headline like that, you’re probably expecting a decent backstory. Most of the recipes here at Blue Kitchen come with one. A new cookbook. An old family tradition. A restaurant discovery. Not this one. This recipe came from two simple questions. Continue reading “Korean-Italian comfort food: Pork Chops with Kimchi and Cannellini Beans”
Beef Stroganoff was invented in mid-19th-century Russia and embraced in America in the 1950s. Here, this comfort food favorite gets a welcome update/upgrade. Recipe below.
We are just back from a wonderful road trip that covered almost 2,500 miles and brought us to so many beautiful parts of America and left us dazzled with the natural beauty and grandeur of, well, pretty much everything we saw. Continue reading “Old school comfort food deliciously revisited: Beef Stroganoff”