Something happened to our Sunday dinners this busy season.  They’re usually what I manage to hang on to after watching our weeknight dinners dissipate one by one from thoughtful, healthy salads and planned entrees, to a quick forage through the wilted inhabitants of my veggie bin for something to saute with rice or pasta.  Throw in some garlic and it’s dinner, right?  Hardly, but it can be eaten in a bowl, sometimes as late as 9:30 p.m. while we’re huddled in our dimly lit family room in front of a recorded show and making weary attempts at questioning one another about the day.

It’s no wonder that looking forward to uninterrupted time in the kitchen draws my attention to the weekend where the result is pleasant time together over a meal that is special — read:  is served on a plate at a reasonable hour.  The idea of “special”  seems to be part of a process to me;  a recipe catches my eye and lingers on the periphery of the minutiae that accumulates in my head, and somehow I manage to remember the main ingredient while on one of my less than stellarly organized grocery shopping trips.  The remembered ingredient is then wedged into my freezer, which just might contain the very same ingredient somewhere in its depths, as a reminder that Sunday dinner is a possibility.  Hopefully, this classifies me as an optimist.

Time goes by.  Other ingredients are collected in other stop-after-work trips to the store for the cat food or laundry detergent I forgot on the previous trip, and because those ingredients are often perishable, they become part of a different meal (see above).  It’s a vicious cycle.

Finally, the day arrives as it does each year.  Busy season ends, and glimmers of a normal life surface.  The long-awaited day in the kitchen and meal are planned and the big question looms:  Will it have been  worth the wait?

Absolutely.

(And this has nothing to do, of course, with the fact that Chef Voltaggio not only took the time to comment on my effort, but put a shout-out about my speck in the food universe on his site, Voltaggio Brothers in “Food Writing.”)

A gracious and hearty thanks to Michael Voltaggio!

Michael Voltaggio’s Indian-Spiced Short Ribs

1/4 c. coriander seeds
2 T cumin seeds
1 T black peppercorns
1 T ground ginger
1 T ground cardamom
1 T cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
3 bay leaves, crumbled
2 T canola oil
4 boneless short ribs (10 to 12 ounces each), trimmed of fat
Salt
1 lg. sweet onion, thinly sliced
2 carrots, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
3 plum tomatoes, coarsely chopped
2 heads of garlic, halved crosswise
2 cups dry red wine
1 quart chicken stock or broth

Preheat the oven to 325° F.

In a cast iron skillet, toast coriander and cumin seeds slowly over medium heat until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.  Transfer seeds to a spice grinder and add peppercorns, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, crushed red pepper and bay leaves.   Pulse to a powder and set aside.

In a large casserole pan, heat the oil. Season meat with salt and cook over high heat until browned and crusty on all sides, about 15 minutes. Remove to a platter and set aside.

Add onion, carrots and celery to the same pan and cook over medium until softened and lightly browned, about 7 minutes. Add tomatoes, garlic and 3 T of the spice mix.  Cook until tomatoes begin to fall apart, about 3 minutes, then add wine, scraping up any browned bits on the bottom of the pan.  Bring to boil and reduce by half.  Add stock and bring to a simmer. Add the browned meat and juices to the vegetable mixture and season with salt. Cover with foil or a lid and place in the oven about 2 hours or until just tender but not falling off the bone.

Remove meat to a baking sheet and pour the rest of the mixture through a strainer into a saucepan. Press against the solids with a spoon to extract more juice before discarding. Boil the liquid over high heat until reduced to 1 cup.

While the sauce is reducing, preheat broiler placing a rack about 6- 8 inches from heat. Brush meat with sauce, then sprinkle lightly with some of the remaining spice mixture.   Broil briefly until sizzling.

Serve short ribs with some of the sauce spooned over.

We enjoyed this recipe with Aloo Gobi, a spicy Indian cauliflower and potato dish flavored with green chilies, cilantro, and turmeric which was also fabulous.

Notes:

• This fabulous recipe can be found in the April 2010 issue of Food & Wine and is one created by last season’s winner of Top Chef.  He and his brother Bryan have a great food forum at Voltaggio Brothers.
• The spice blend is a type of garam masala.  Ingredients for this blend vary from one recipe to another, and I’ve found it’s fun to try a variety.  This one is much different than others I’ve tried as it contains both cinnamon and cardamom.  The cloves are also an addition I’m not used to.  For the spice in my blend, I chopped up half of a red serrano chili, seeds and all.
• I rarely make a recipe as written but was fairly close with this one because it is so much different than any short rib recipes I’ve tried. I was intrigued from the start.  When I make short ribs, they’re always smaller than what is described in recipes of this nature and a couple make a nice individual serving.  There’s no way to slice anything off of the bone and arrange it as I might another cut of meat that’s been braised.
• This was almost a one-pot recipe.  I used my Mario Batalli orange enameled cast iron lasagna pan for this.  (And no, I’m not selling them.)  It works great on the stove top when I want a high brown that will be deglazed, then the whole recipe popped into the oven.
• I used hot-house tomatoes because I had them on hand.  A jammy Rosenblum Cellars California Zinfandel was used in the braise– about $12.
• This is truly an excellent recipe that seems like a lot of work, but isn’t.  Many parts can be made ahead if need be — like the garam masala.  This recipe makes enough for the short ribs and leaves a scant 3 T left over for other recipes.
• We liked this so much that I’m going to try it with a larger cut of meat just to see how the incredible flavor holds up.  I’m thinking that finishing it on the barbeque would be great.

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I love cooking with wine.  Although I do enjoy a dry white splashed into a pan of caramelized shallots for deglazing, or marsala stirred into a mixture of sauteed mushrooms and garlic before a bit of cream is added, I most enjoy meat or poultry braised slowly in red wine over the course of a Sunday afternoon.  Anticipation builds as a heavenly aroma fills the house making us all a bit anxious for dinner time to arrive to see whether the finished product lives up to its promise.

Sometimes, I’m a fairly hard sell.  It isn’t so much that the most recent recipe I’ve experimented with isn’t good;  they very nearly always are.  But think about it.  Once you’ve had an amazing version of something you truly enjoy, it’s challenging for anything else to replicate the wonder of that first bite.

Mention Coq au Vin and someone will ask about what the special occasion might be.  When you consider that any braise is done because the meat used is not an expensive cut, and needs to cook for a long time to make it tender, you know it isn’t necessarily a fancy dish.  In the case of Coq au Vin,  traditionally, the farmer’s old rooster became the dinner.  Bacon, mushrooms, onions, and a liberal quantity of red wine made for quite the send off for that old rooster, and a savory treat for the farmer after a hard day’s work.  All things considered, Coq au Vin is a one pot dish.

I’ve had my eye on a recipe for Coq au Vin I first saw in Saveur. The only reason I haven’t made it before now is that it required marinating the chicken overnight and sometimes my lack of planning gets the best of me.  That oversight hasn’t kept me from making Coq au Vin because I just choose a different version.  Unfortunately, that hasn’t solved the problem.  I’ve wondered about how the marinade might change the complexity of the flavors and whether this particular recipe might be the one to best all of the others.

Evidently, I’m not the only one. It just so happens that it’s the source of the next recipe I’d like to try for Coq au Vin.  Might it be the one?  I’d have to actually find a rooster that doesn’t have his feathers on to get started…and deal with his kidneys.

Coq au Vin

3 cups red wine
1 tsp. whole black peppercorns
3 cloves garlic (1 whole, 2 chopped)
2 ribs celery, thinly sliced
1 medium carrot, thinly sliced
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1  5–6-lb. chicken, cut into 10 pieces
3 tbsp. olive oil
8 sprigs flat-leaf parsley plus 1 tbsp.
chopped leaves
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs thyme
1/2 lb. slab bacon, cut into 2″-long slivers
3 tbsp. flour
2 cups Chicken Stock
2 shallots, chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tbsp. butter
18 pearl onions, peeled
1/2 lb. button mushrooms, quartered

The directions can be found here.

Notes:

• I used a whole, pre-cut chicken and included all but the gizzard, liver, and heart in this recipe.  With respect to the bacon, I’ve never taken the time to find out where I can get slab bacon, so just use thick-cut bacon:  about 10 strips because you can never really have too much bacon, can you?
• I chopped all the garlic and added it to the marinade.  I’d like to say I did this purposefully, but that would not be the case.  In any event, it was all going into the pot, so I decided it wasn’t a grievous error.
• I don’t make my own chicken stock.  I consistently use “Better than Bouillon” bases for my cooking.  They cost more, but are worth it when you’re making something nice.
• I used a small package of red pearl onions.  To prepare them, drop them into softly boiling water and allow them to cook for a few minutes before pouring them into a strainer and dousing them with cold water until they’re cool.  A bowl of water filled with ice cubes works just fine.  To peel them,  slice off the root end and the covers slide right off.  This still takes patience, so don’t underestimate the time involved in this step unless you’re an Olympic pearl onion peeler. You might assign it to an unsuspecting person related to you who happens to live in your house.  Train them early is what I always say.
• If I’m going to cook with wine, I don’t use anything I wouldn’t drink.  It’s tempting to go with something less costly, but taste it and then you’ll know.  You might be surprised at how great a $10 bottle of wine is.  The chicken isn’t expensive, so splurge on the wine. I probably committed a faux pas by using a lovely Rioja Tempranillo from Espana.  When you live in California, the French wine selection isn’t always that great (or you’re like me and don’t really understand what is good and what isn’t), and the Spanish selection is constantly improving.  There’s no logic in that explanation beyond the parenthetical insertion, but I’m sticking with it.
• Leave the skin on.  Resist the urge to take it off.  You’ll have other opportunities to avoid it later.  For example, peel it off after you’ve plated your portion.  Or, if you make this ahead, and you can do that, after refrigerated, the excess fat is visible, and you can remove it before reheating it.
• This is a very good recipe.  Very.  If you’ve not made Coq au Vin, it’s a great place to begin.
• The three of us enjoyed this with roasted parsnips and had plenty left over for another meal.
• If you’d like to try Julia’s version, it can be found here.
• Or you can read about which version is better at Chowhound. That would be the throwdown between Julia and Molly.

Ready for the oven.

Ready to serve.

Done.

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You’re wondering what peposo is, right?  Or perhaps you know what peposo is and you’ve already wondered how it ended up in a sandwich.  If you’re like me, you may even just want to take a big bite of it right now because it’s dinnertime and it would be much easier to have a savory Italian sandwich magically appear instead of needing to make dinner.  Oh, how I wish that might be so tonight.

This sandwich has quite a long story behind it, so I’ll share it soon — along with the recipe for the peposo, the roasted pepper salad, and the focaccia.  But it’s Wednesday, and I’m supposed to be wordless — or nearly so.

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I don’t often see skirt steak at my market so when I happen onto a package or two, I snap them up knowing that in the vast jumble of recipes waiting to be sampled that is my brain, I’ll surely find a good use for it.  The unfortunate aspect of this “plan” is that often I confuse skirt steak and flank steak.  What’s the difference?

Actually, they both come from the same area of the animal — either the short plate or flank which is on the underside in the center.  Both benefit from rubs and marinades to break down or tenderize the muscle, but skirt steak, a much more thin cut often needs to be either scored or pounded to further tenderize it.  Skirt steak is often used for fajitas.

When it came right down to it, I just needed a thin cut of meat, so skirt steak it would be.  I’d seen a succulent recipe for “Braised Beef Braciole Stuffed with Basil and Fresh Mozzarella” in a recent issue of Fine Cooking and had to try it — or a version of it since I didn’t have all of the required ingredients.  It didn’t matter because I can’t imagine that it would have been any better had I followed the recipe exactly.  Perfect for a special dinner, the possibilities are endless.

Basil Cheese Stuffed Skirt Steak

2 lb. skirt steak

1 c. Parmesan, freshly grated

1/2 c. sharp Provolone, freshly grated

1 piece dry sourdough bread

12 lg. basil leaves

1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil

1 lg. sweet onion, chopped

1/2 c. dry red wine

28 oz. canned tomatoes, chopped

2 pinches crushed red pepper flakes

1.5 oz. assorted dried mushrooms

If the steak is thick, slice it horizontally, then open it like a book.  To make this easier, make sure the beef is slightly frozen.  Use a meat tenderizer or plastic covered rolling pin to flatten it as much as possible.  Season both sides of the beef with salt and freshly ground pepper.

To make the stuffing, pulse the dry sourdough in a food processor until fine crumbs are achieved.  There’s no need to remove crusts.  Add the grated cheese and basil, then pulse to combine well.  Cover the tenderized meat completely with the bread crumb mixture.  Tightly roll the meat from the long end and secure with kitchen twine.

In a large skillet, heat half the oil on medium high heat.  Add the beef roll browning it on all surfaces.  Remove and let sit on a large plate.

In the same skillet, heat the rest of the oil and add the onion cooking over medium heat.  Add a couple of pinches of salt and stir occasionally until the onion is softened and a caramel color, about 8 minutes.  Pour in the red wine and deglaze the pan, scraping up all the browned bits from the bottom.  Allow to cook until the wine is nearly evaporated, about 2 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and bring to a boil.  Add the dried mushrooms and dried red pepper, stirring well to hydrate the mushrooms.  Lower the heat.

Nestle the meat into the tomato sauce and spoon sauce up over the roll.  Cover the pan and cook gently until the meat is tender, about 1 hour.  Remove from the sauce when done and allow to sit for 15 minutes covered, then slice and serve with some of the sauce.

Notes:

• The original recipe calls for flank steak which would have been easier to work with.  Maybe.
• If you don’t have kitchen twine, then toothpicks would do the trick.  Just make sure the roll is secure or you’ll lose the fantastic tasting stuffing in the tomato sauce while the meat is cooking.
• This was an excellent dish.  The flavors are perfect together.  The cheese is flavorful enough that you can taste it in each bite.  The original recipe called for mozarella, and as much as I enjoy it, I think the flavor would have been too mild for this.
• I always have dried mushrooms in my pantry.  Although I normally hydrate them first before adding them to a dish, the cooking time for this dish was long enough and the tomato sauce wet enough that the mushrooms would be able to release their intense flavor right into the sauce.  It worked out perfectly.
• We enjoyed this over a bed of fettuccine.
• If you’re not thrilled with the idea of the beef, tenderize some boneless chicken breasts and prepare the rolls the same way.  The cooking time will be less than an hour, however.

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Spring for many who crave slow roasted savory dishes can mean that it’s time for lamb — especially when there’s a special occasion to consider such as Easter.  For my family, however, this wasn’t the case.  Our tradition was far from a special dinner at home and a table set with my great grandmother’s china.  No, we were the more adventuresome type.

If my mother was successful in her relentless attempts to get my father out of bed, we’d try and make it to early service.  My mother was an amazing seamstress, so picture three perfectly dressed children (the girls in matching dresses, of course) with brand new shoes, Easter hats, and not a hair out of place, all waiting for the man of the house to get up so their day could begin. There was more than one reason to make that early service.  Father K. did the mass first on Sunday, and he was quite efficient, so rarely did the service last even an hour.  If we didn’t make the first service, then we would attend Father B’s mass which inevitably took much, much longer.  That service was always packed, too, so often we ended up sitting in the back or upstairs, and with no padded rails to kneel on.

First thing in the morning, we’d see the Easter baskets placed at the end of our beds full of candy and goodies, the best of which was usually a large chocolate foil wrapped bunny.  Each basket had exactly the same contents, because my little sister kept track and usually let my mother know it was a problem.  These baskets of goodies came in handy for what was usually a long drive after church, searching for the perfect spot to have our annual Easter picnic.  Every year the group was a bit different, but every year, we were on the road, picnic food wrapped and ready to eat sometime after the giant egg hunt.  We hunted real eggs — eggs that we’d colored ourselves, and then after finding them would end up as deviled eggs.

But lamb was nowhere to be found on the menu for that occasion.  So it wasn’t until well into adulthood that I finally tasted lamb.  Although I still don’t serve lamb as much as I do other meats, I am learning more about which cut to prepare, how to prepare it and with which flavors.

When I saw the meaty lamb shanks at our local Henry’s, I wasn’t looking for them, but had to have them knowing I’d put them to good use.  It didn’t take long to find the perfect recipe.  Absolutely perfect.

Braised Lamb Shanks in a Tomato Herb Sauce

To prepare the lamb shanks…

1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1/2 tsp. fennel seeds
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground coriander
2 lg. lamb shanks, about 3 lbs. total

For the braise…

1-1/2 tsp.  olive oil
2 oz. thick bacon, cut into thin strips
1 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. chopped carrots
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2  small strips lemon peel
1  bay leaf
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 c. dry white wine
1 c. diced tomatoes in puree, canned
3/4 c. good chicken broth

For the gremolata:

4-1/2 tsp. chopped fresh parsley, flat-leafed
1-1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1/4 tsp.  freshly cracked black pepper

Mix first 6 ingredients well and rub over the shanks. Let stand at room temp for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F and position a rack in the lower third.

In a lidded oven proof pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the shanks and sauté, turning until brown, about 1o minutes; remove from pan. In the same pan, over medium heat, cook the sliced bacon 1 minute. Add the onion, carrots, and celery, stir to mix and cover.  Cook until vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic; cook 1 minute. Then mix in lemon peel, bay leaf, and thyme. Pour in the wine and bring to a boil, scraping up browned bits collected on the bottom of the pan.  Add the tomatoes and chicken broth, then return lamb to the pot. Bring to boil again; cover and transfer the pot to the oven.

Cook the shanks until just tender, turning occasionally, about 1-1/2 hours. Remove the pot from the oven and tilt pot to spoon off any fat that is on the surface of the sauce. Place the pot over medium heat and bring to a slow boil,  uncovered until sauce reduces enough to coat a spoon and lamb is very tender, about 20 – 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

While the lamb is in the oven, mix the parsley,  lemon zest, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in small bowl for the gremolata. Transfer the lamb to a large shallow bowl and sprinkle with gremolata to serve.

Notes:

• This is a fabulous recipe.  It has a very Mediterranean flavor overall and is extremely tender.  There seem to be quite a few steps when the recipe is read through the first time, but they’re all very straigh forward steps and easy to accomplish.
• The original recipe called for capocollo or pancetta, but I had bacon on hand.  As much as I am a fan of bacon, it would be easy to leave out, add some olive oil instead of the rendered fat from the bacon and procede with the recipe.  Additionally, vegetable broth could be used instead of chicken broth.
• If you’re making this for a special occasion (instead of to feed your exhausted husband at 9:30 pm like I did…) it’s easy to prepare the other dinner items while the lamb is in the oven.  The last “boil” on the stovetop allows for last minute prep on other menu items.  We enjoyed ours with a basmati rice blend that we love.  We poured some of the sauce over the rice and it was perfect!
• These shanks were huge.  We each only ate half, so I’ve got plenty of leftovers and am looking for something with pasta….
• The original recipe, made with four shanks, can be found at epicurious. I simply split the recipe.

Here are a few photos from over the years connected with Spring and Easter.  Those certainly were the days.

My mother lost the battle and let me keep my Easter shoes on.

Easter in Spain 1964: Somewhere in the countryside. Caught snacking.

Ready for Church: Yes, my sister and I had matching clothes.

My mother to my two older boys: Look. They're right in front of you.

My youngest age 5

Yes, I took photos of my food then, too.

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