The cafeteria at the Museum of the American Indian serves some pretty good food, notwithstanding this pile of gooey frybread. The other decent option is the cafe at the National Gallery of Art.
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Tag: food
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Grilled-braised beef short ribs
Ingredients: beef short ribs, onion, carrot, celery, red wine, rub spices, salt.
Short ribs are great grilled, but they’ve got some connective tissue that really wants to be braised. So, why not do both? First, your ribs should be big and chunky. If you’ve got thin-sliced ribs you should probably just grill them.
Start by getting your grill set up for indirect cooking. On my Weber, that means getting a smallish batch of coals going in the charcoal chimney and dumping those off to one side of the grill when they’re red-hot. If there’s greasy residue in your grill wait until that burns off – otherwise you’ll end up with a gross layer of black stuff on your meat.
Put some rub on your ribs. I like a mixture of salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, coriander, and allspice plus some fresh thyme or rosemary. Once the grill is hot and clean place the ribs on the side opposite the coals. Put the lid on. Turn them over after 10 or 15 minutes. Close the vent on the grill a bit if it’s too hot – you don’t want the ribs to cook too quickly. Check on the ribs every 15 minutes or so.
Meanwhile, heat up your oven to about 275F. Get out a braising dish the ribs will fit in. Pretty much any non-reactive (glass, enamel, stainless steel) dish or pot with a lid will work for braising. I like to throw some chopped onion, carrot, and celery in the bottom of the pot and soften that up a bit in some bacon drippings. This also gets the braising pot nice and hot for the ribs.
The ribs could be ready to braise after 30 minutes, but I like to let them go about an hour for more smoky flavor. When you’re ready, move them to the braising pot and pour some red wine in with them. Use enough wine to come about halfway up the ribs – not enough to cover them up completely. Bring the pot to a boil then cover and place in the oven. Check for tenderness after an hour, but it usually takes about 2 to achieve that desirable “falling off the bone” texture.
They’re good immediately, and even better reheated the next day. If you chill them you can easily separate out the layer of fat and harvest the gelatinous stuff for an excellent sauce.
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Crawfish party recap
We had the second annual crawfish party at our friend Aliza’s house earlier this month, once again stuffing ourselves with crawfish late into the night. This year we somehow managed to save a few crawfish to shell the next day for a tasty frittata.
Just like last year, I put together the boil spices based on the recipe from the Good Eats crawfish episode. This year I made two batches of spices – one less spicy and one with the standard amount of cayenne. I think the amount in the recipe is just right, but taste buds vary. The quantity of spices in the recipe is for one 40 quart boil, so I multiplied everything by 4 so we’d have enough for a couple of boils each in our 30 quart pots.
Instead of the corn in the recipe, we cooked a bunch of vegetables – brussels sprouts, asparagus, and broccoli. Having learned our lesson last year, we threw the potatoes in first then added the vegetables with the crawfish. The vegetables still end up well done, but not quite as boiled to death.
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Trays of crawfish
Taken at our friend Aliza’s crawfish party, where we boiled and consumed a whole bunch of crawfish. It’s almost crawfish season again, so we’ll have to figure out where to find them around DC. Acadiana has had them, maybe a bit expensive, but having someone clean up after you is certainly worth something.
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Pile of crawfish
Pile of crawfish by me