Gremolata
(with Wine-Braised Beef Short Rib)

By ruhlman | Published: March 3, 2010

Gremolata topping wine-braised beef short rib, photo by Donna

I've had braised beef short ribs on my mind for the past couple weeks, working on a preparation for the current book, another for an OpenSky promotion, and also because we've got ten people coming for dinner on Saturday, and short ribs are the wintertime choice for entertaining! It's bleak and cold and wintery here, perfect weather for these rich short ribs.  They're also relatively inexpensive—important during the frugal post-holiday months.  And they can be prepared up to a week in advance, so I don't have to be rushing around at the last minute. What I want to talk about here, though, is the gremolata, which sometimes gets lost in the shuffle at the end, but is absolutely essential to the finished dish. Most are ...

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Posted in Beef, Recipes | Comments closed

Cultured Butter at Home

By ruhlman | Published: March 1, 2010

Cultured Butter, photo by Donna

Have had butter on my mind for the past two weeks (I often have butter on my mind, but it's been acute recently), and when my thoughts turned to Indian food the combination resulted in the desire to make ghee.  Ghee, the Indian version of clarified butter, is traditionally made with cultured butter that's cooked till it's lightly browned.  In the mood to experiment I thought I'd try doing it myself.  I wanted to know what it really tasted like.  And I wanted to know what genuine buttermilk tasted like. As we are a cowless family, I bought a pint of organic cream and used some of my yogurt culture.  The cream thickened and took on a gentle acidity in a day.  I then hammered it in the food processor, dumped it ...

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How To Make Grits
(Sauteed Grits with Sausage and Poached Egg)

By ruhlman | Published: February 24, 2010

Sauteed grits with poached egg and sausage, photo by Donna

Over the weekend I was working on a recipe based on the traditional low country dish, shrimp and grits.  I’d found excellent grits from this company at my grocery store, I tapped my friend and former instructor Eve Felder for her recollections of growing up in Charleston, and I made shrimp and grits for Donna, a late dinner after seeing the amazing Jeff Bridges performance in Crazy Heart. I’d made extra grits so in cleaning up after dinner, I poured the leftovers into a springform pan and refrigerated them.  By morning they were solid and sliceable. Donna happened to be setting up to shoot wine braised short ribs and semolina egg noodles.  I happened to be hungry.  I also happened to have some duck sausage and chicken sausage ...

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New Site Design!

By ruhlman | Published: February 21, 2010

Photo by Donna

The bright colors and bright minds I found in Ixtapa convinced me that I needed to brighten and clean up my blog.  The grays and and boxes were heavy and that combined with this winter that's already too long, made me hunger for a lot of clean white space.  So I asked my friend Joe to give me that.  I also put one of my favorite kitchen tools as a graphic because I love the lines of that spoon.  Often I'll read something or hear something that I want to get down or get out and it doesn't really fit in a regular post.  So Joe created place in the right column for these kinds of smaller thoughts.  I don't know if it will prove useful.  Comments are such an important and valued part of ...

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Why I Cook

By ruhlman | Published: February 19, 2010

Dicing Onion, photo by Donna

Dicing Onion, photo by Donna

I posted yesterday on twitter that I began cooking because I was hungry but continued to cook because I loved to eat, and it got me thinking.  There are so many different reasons to cook, as a number of twitters pointed out.  Self-defense was a good one!  And with the state of our processed food, one that every cook can claim!  Can I encourage other bloggers to post about why you cook?  Spell it out.  Writing it down forces you to know what you think.  When I was nine, I cooked because I was hungry and making things was fun.  Today, age 46 and devoted to family, I cook because: —I want my family to have great food all the time that’s tasty and good for their body and ...

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