With the proliferation of fast food restaurants throughout the country, there is a growing movement of chefs and foodies called the Slow Food Movement, with a very simple premise: slow food is generally better food and it’s better for you.
As someone who cooks for a living, I’m an automatic adherent. As someone who needed (and still needs) to lose weight, I gave up patronizing fast food joints 14 months ago, only the second time in my life that I’ve been able to keep a New Year’s resolution. (The other was quitting smoking and I’m 20 years good on that one.)
So on the occasion of the visit of Julie Powell, the woman behind the “Julie & Julia” blog, book and movie, I participated as a demonstrating chef, along with three others, in food preparation technique. My colleagues were head chefs in restaurants; I, as you know, am a TV cook and personal chef. No matter, we’re all slow food advocates.
I decided to demo the most popular item on my personal chef menu. It’s the dish that clients want over and over again and it’s probably one of the simpler ones I make, proving another point I often make when I’m speaking to groups: Simple is best.
In fact, there are two versions of the dish – one beef and one pork. The technique is the same, as is the end result: succulent fall-off-the-bone meat in a flavorful braise liquid that doubles as the sauce. It’s boneless pork (or beef) ribs in sweet and sour “barbecue” sauce.
These faux ribs are sold in supermarket meat departments. They are generally tougher cuts of meat that require long, slow cooking in order to break down the proteins and create that luscious texture. It’s meat near the rib of the hog or the cow, so it passes for ribs. For such flavorful meat, the price is generally pretty good because it’s often more difficult for meat departments to sell these cuts. But like flank steak, chuck roast, pot roast, and other meats that need long and slow cooking times, this makes for a hearty and satisfying dinner.
As I told my live audience, I’m a believer in layering flavors and that, of course, adds to the tastiness of this dish. I start out with the two most important spices in my kitchen: salt and pepper. The second layer is searing the meat to get a nice crust on the outside, which also helps to begin breaking down the toughness of the cut.
An additional attribute of this dish is that it can be cooked three ways: In the oven for a couple of hours; in a tightly covered pot on the stove top for a couple of hours; or in a pressure cooker in under 45 minutes. The result is always the same.
I use only two aromatics: diced white onions and diced celery. But I sauté them briefly in the same pan that I seared the meat, for another layer of flavor.
My “dear friend,” Henry John Heinz of Pittsburgh, Penn., gives me my main ingredient for the sauce: ketchup. As it already has a variety of spices and herbs, it’s a shortcut I use to great advantage. I also use Worcestershire sauce, apple cider vinegar, spicy brown mustard and brown sugar. That’s it. If you want to add a smoky flavor, you can also add a few dashes of liquid smoke at the end, before thickening the sauce.
After about two to two-and-a-half hours in the oven, covered, all of those flavors come together, including melted fat from the meat, some of which has to be skimmed.
I remove the meat from the cooking vessel and then thicken the sauce. You have the option of straining the liquid, to exclude the cooked onions and celery, or going “undiluted.” Here’s the full recipe:
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
3 lbs. boneless beef of pork “ribs”
1 medium onion, diced
1 cup celery, diced
2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 cup ketchup
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsp. coarse salt
3 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. spicy brown mustard
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Salt and pepper meat on all sides. Heat oil in Dutch oven or deep heavy skillet and sear meat on all sides. Remove the meat and sauté the onions and celery in the pan until soft. Place the meat back in the pan, and add the ketchup, vinegar, Worcestershire, sugar, mustard and additional salt and pepper. Cover tightly and bake in the oven for 1-1/2 to 2 hours. The meat should be very tender. Skim off excess fat and remove the meat, covering to keep warm. Bring the remaining sauce to a boil and thicken with a cornstarch slurry, then pour the thickened sauce over the meat.