Category — Main Course Recipes

It’s cold and rainy outside, and there is really only one thing I want to eat: this chili made with butternut squash, beef short ribs, and black beans. The flavors are complex, with a hint of cocoa powder and just the right amount of heat. Top it with fresh cilantro, some crumbled Mexican queso fresco, and some fresh slices of avocado, and the winter blues will melt away.

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Can we talk about David Chang for a minute? He kind of seems like a loose cannon, or maybe even a huge jerk, even, but the recipes he magnanimously shares with the public almost always turn out to be among my favorites. For example, his short ribs easily beat Thomas Keller’s. So when I saw his Bo Ssam recipe in the New York Times this week, I knew I had to try it immediately. I was dying to taste this sweet and salty, crackly, crispy, falling apart pork roast. Since I wanted to make it for lunch and it takes 6 hours in the oven, that meant setting an alarm for 5:30 AM to put it in the oven, then going back to bed. But I knew that David wouldn’t let me down–and he didn’t.

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If you read this blog often, you will know that I love putting things in the food processor and I also love Tastespotting. So when I saw this super fast and easy recipe on the Tastespotting blog for kale and walnut pesto, I had to try it.

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I’ve been seeing a lot of Thanksgiving recipes go around lately, but what about the leftovers? WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE LEFTOVERS?

I, for one, can barely register the actual Thanksgiving meal as I’m cooking and eating it, because I’m so focused on how much better everything will taste the next day. I made this chicken hash this weekend with (wait for it) leftover chicken- but I think it would be just as fabulous with leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

And if getting together with your relatives leans more Mommie Dearest than Leave it to Beaver, you could even prep all the vegetables for this dish while you’re making Thanksgiving dinner and put them in the fridge – so that even in a bleary-eyed morning-after state of tryptophan- and whiskey-induced torpor, you can throw this together with minimal effort.

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I’ve been having some serious pumpkin cravings lately, so I thought I would try to work some into my dinner. This is an excellent way to use up any canned pumpkin you may have left over from your fall dessert attempts (I’ve been trying to perfect pumpkin fudge so I have a lot of the stuff around!)

Not everyone is a big fan of marjoram, and it’s not always the easiest herb to find in a store. I think the slightly floral nature goes perfectly with the pumpkin, but you can certainly substitute thyme or sage and still get excellent results.

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Sloppy Joes + Korean BBQ – how could I possibly resist making this recipe? Answer: I couldn’t. For once, I actually followed a recipe to the letter. The marinade mixture reminded me of my favorite short rib recipe, so I decided it was worth a try as is. Result: perfection on a bun.

A few notes to make your life easier: since you are supposed to puree the Asian pear, you might as well take advantage of the food processor for other parts of the prep. So I used the shredding blade to julienne the onions, carrot, and garlic first, then dumped those out and switched to the normal blade to puree the pear. This cut down significantly on prep time. The brisket can be tough to slice but it’s easier if you stick it in the freezer for about 30 minutes and sharpen your butcher knife well. And do make sure you get really good-quality buns.

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After a week of glorious sun and 80+ degree weather, a spate of drizzly, gray, and decidedly autumnal days are upon us. The upside of this dreary weather is that warm, rich, comforting dishes like these short ribs are welcome on the table once again.

I absolutely love flavorful, slow-cooked, melting-off-the-bone short ribs, and have tried several recipes (including the Thomas Keller version, which paled in comparison to these.) This recipe has been adapted, over five years or so, from a recipe that David Chang supplied to the New York Times several years ago, pre-Momofuku fame and fortune. To my mind, they are the best short ribs I have ever eaten.

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Sure, where you live it’s probably hot and sunny. But here in San Francisco, it’s cold and foggy. Since it’s August, I can’t quite bring myself to cook a full-on stew, despite the doom and gloom outside my window, but I can split the difference with this chicken tagine. I previously shared a Moroccan lamb tagine recipe, and this one is about as easy and delicious as that one, but with completely different flavors. Of course, I don’t actually have a working tagine so I just cook it in a Le Creuset, but calling it a tagine makes it sound better, don’t you think? It also clues you in to the North African seasonings involved.

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There is great food to be had all over Syria, but the far northern Syrian city of Aleppo is the one that’s known throughout the Middle East for its refined cuisine and innovative use of flavors and spices. Kebab Karaz, an unusual and unexpectedly tasty combination of lamb meatballs with cherries, pomegranate, and pine nuts, is one of the signature dishes of the region. The flavor combination is unusual but wonderfully balances the richness of the lamb with the sweet and sour notes in the sauce.

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As I’ve previously mentioned, one of my favorite things about Hawaii is the opportunity to eat raw fish three meals a day. Today was an unseasonally hot Sunday (for San Francisco, at least) so I knew I wanted a cool and refreshing dinner to end the weekend. The result was a salmon poke, with cubes of ripe avocado and raw wild salmon seasoned with lime, mint leaves, coriander. Because we’re in that brief green garlic season, I chopped some finely and added it to the mix–but if your summer nights fall past the springtime, feel free to substitute green onions.

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