Swoon
N/Soto, Nimblefish, Beef Short Rib Party
I know we’re here to discuss food, but if you’re in LA, you can come see me read some new writing on Friday, March 8, 7pm at North Figueroa Bookshop 🤓
There isn’t a month where I’m not showing my love with food, but this Valentine’s Day felt like a good reason to go a little harder than usual. I already tend toward the rich, spicy, salty end of things, so maybe it’s not a surprise that I found myself making two different spiced beef short rib dishes (this is a marbled cut of beef that that is beautifully melty), both of which, were totally amazing. One is a braise with dates and tamarind that I made for my long-time valentines, Phoebe and Vinh;Paul, and the other is a Massaman curry that I made with my lovely girlfriend, Sarah — she says it’s the best meat she’s ever had, but you could easily use another protein.
Sarah and I also made some unreasonably delicious sesame Rice Krispie treats, based on an Eric Kim recipe, to which we added a little salt, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and just a little over half of the cereal, so they were dank as fuck. We brought them to a special event called Girls’ Gamer Night, where Sarah’s 5-year-old friend Mika plays video games with Sarah and a bunch of non-binary adults (including her parent), and everyone became addicted. They’re really, really good.
I was in Portland for a week, and had some great meals out with Sarah, plus I celebrated the anniversary of mine and Bianca’s friendship with a gorgeous meal at N/Soto.
Notable Restaurant Tastes
Let’s start with N/Soto, which is a chic, Japanese izakaya style restaurant with really excellent raw fish and sushi, and delicious cocktails. I wanted to go here with Bianca because when we first met, a little over a year ago, she told me she had previously been vegetarian, but was just starting to eat fish and I was like “Great, in that case, we can definitely be friends!” Now, she’s obsessed with handrolls and raw scallops and I couldn’t be more pleased. I’ve been to N/Soto with a few other special people, and I can safely say I love everything they do EXCEPT the skewers which I find so underwhelming.
We had a great selection of dishes, but favorites: the agedashi mochi with tempura shrimp that had little shiso leaves tucked in them, amazing firefly squid served with beet and passionfruit sauces, super custardy homemade tofu, an incredibly rich and earthy donabe with browned-butter rice and mushrooms, and the highlight: a raw Hokkaido scallop dish in a saucy kumquat broth, with chopped up toro, caviar, and uni on top. Plus exquisite conversation with Bianca, of course!
Meanwhile, in Portland, Sarah and I treated ourselves to a visit to our favorite omakase spot in town: Nimblefish, the most fancy-casual sushi bar experience, where usually a guy named Cody in a slouchy beanie serves us nigiri and talks about hipster aughts music with us. We regularly finish off a bottle of sake (this time it was one called Moon on the Water) and order 4 extra pieces of our favorite fish at the end — this time was no exception, and it was excellent! My other favorite eating experiences where a pop-up called Lupine, by our friend Rebecca, who made a bomb sour pork and red chile pozole, and my Valentine’s Day breakfast in bed spread made by Sarah — who even woke up early (!!) to surprise me with waffles and pandan espresso sours.
Sticky Beef Short Rib With Dates & Tamarind
This is a dish from Lara Lee’s Indonesian cookbook Coconut & Sambal, which I made a few Kamala alternations to, because I wanted it to be more spiced and less sweet. It’s served with rice and a zingy balado sauce, that’s supposed to be really, really spicy, but that I wimped down quite a bit. Phoebe brought some roasted veg to round out the plate, Vinh;Paul made a “loose” sesame banana cream tart, and the meal turned out great!
Ingredients for the braise
2.5 pounds bone-in short rib (5 of them)
3 tablespoons tamarind paste
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
4 tablespoons brown sugar
Ingredients for the spice paste
3 garlic cloves
2 inch piece of ginger
1/4 cup toasted shredded coconut flakes
1 long red chili, sliced in half, with seeds
2 big shallots
6 dates
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground clove
1 teaspoon smoky hot chili powder
2 teaspoons garam masala
salt
Ingredients for the balado sauce
2 serrano chilies
4 big shallots
2-inch long hunk of ginger
1 mandarin orange
5 curry leaves
a handful of cilantro
Juice of two limes
Directions
Heat the oven to 300 degrees F. Salt the short ribs.
In blender or food processor, put in all of the ingredients for the spice paste with a few tablespoons of water, a few pinches of salt, and mix until as smooth as possible.
In a bowl or large liquid measuring cup, mix up a braising liquid with all of the braise ingredients, except the short ribs, and set side.
In a dutch oven, add a splash of oil to the pan, heat it up til the oil shimmers, and brown the short ribs on all sides, then set aside.
In the same dutch oven, add the spice paste and cook it until it’s fragrant and starts to get a little browned too.
Add your browned short ribs and mix then around so they’re covered by the spice mix. Then add the braising liquid, and add water if you need to, in order to submerge the ribs.
Put the lid of the dutch oven on, and put it on the middle rack in the oven for 3-3.5 hours, until the ribs are tender.
For the balado sauce, fry the curry leaves until they’re fragrant. Finely chop the shallots, ginger, and chilies (leave the seeds in for heat), and give a rough chop to the peeled mandarin orange and cilantro. Juice the limes, and then mix everything together in a bowl, and add salt to taste. If it’s too hot/sour for you, add a touch of honey.
When the ribs are falling off the bone, pull them out of the oven! Remove the meat from the bone, cut it into chunks, and reduce the sauce that’s left in the pan, until it thickens. Then put the beef back in and serve over rice!
Massaman Curry with Beef Short Rib
In the 90s, I remember my dad taking a Thai cooking class with one of his friends, and the dish he made that blew me away was Massaman curry. It’s a thick, slightly sweet, nutty curry, where dry spices meet Thai-style curry paste, and it sounded extra luxurious with short rib so I wanted to make it on Valentine’s Day. Sarah gave this dish her highest rating — “fucked up” — and was blown away by the taste and tenderness of the beef.
We followed this well-explained recipe on Serious Eats, and then made a few minor adjustments and took the easy route: we used bone-in short rib, Sarah wanted to add in fresh aromatics to store-bought massaman and panang curry pastes that we mixed together and crushed roasted peanuts into, and we used jaggery instead of palm sugar. I’ve never just straight-up boiled short-ribs before, but the method worked out great and, as mentioned in the recipe, you end up with a really nice beef broth, plus you can control the amount of that delicious, beef fat that goes into the curry. Because you cook the curry paste/sauce on its own, you can add any vegetables or protein you like at the end.
Ingredients
2 pounds bone-in short rib
3 shallots
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
1 tablespoon of minced ginger
2 cups of beef stock + fat from cooking down short ribs
1 can Aroy D coconut milk
4 oz of Massaman curry paste
2 oz of Panang curry paste
6 small honey gold potatoes
2 large chubby carrots
3 tablespoons tamarind paste
3 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons jaggery, palm sugar, or brown sugar
1/2 cup roasted peanuts, smashed or ground into a fine crumble
Directions
Salt the short ribs, heat a little oil in a dutch oven, then brown the ribs on all sides. When you’re done, set the ribs aside, and fill the dutch oven with water and bring it to a boil.
When the water is ready, add the ribs to the pot, reduce heat so it’s at an active simmer, partially cover the pot, and let it go for 2 hours, or until the meat is falling off the bone.
We waited until the beef was done, before we got started on the curry, so we could put some of the beef broth and beef fat into the curry at the start. So when the beef was ready, I took it off the bone, sliced it against the grain, and reserved the cooking liquid in a large jar.
Finely chop the shallots, and if you’re not like Sarah, who conveniently has ginger and garlic pastes on-hand, chop your garlic and ginger. Also peel and roughly chop the carrots and potatoes.
In a sauce pan or high-sided pan, fry the aromatics in a neutral oil, and then heat the coconut milk on medium until it begins to thicken.
Add in the curry pastes and peanuts, and combine them with the coconut milk until they’re smooth.
Add in the tamarind, fish sauce, sugar, and 2 cups of beef stock. Stir to combine, and then add carrots, potatoes, and sliced beef.
Bring to a simmer, partially cover, and let it cook for 30 min. When potatoes are tender, serve over rice with a squeeze of lime, roasted peanuts, and cilantro.