First things first, here's a link to the recipe. I keep my commitments, no matter how dumb.
A lot of my recipes come about from eating out. Either I’ll have a really good meal and want to make it for myself, tweaking it a bit or I will have a really shitty meal that disappoints me so badly that I must go home and make my own take on it, accentuating what I really thought was missing in the restaurant version. The latter one of those times.
As mentioned, I was trapped in Waco, the Cancun of Central Texas, last week and had to go out to eat. Being with a group, I didn’t get to pick the restaurants. Ever. We went to this one place where I got the ill-fated boiled meat tacos and deep fried Brussels sprouts, neither of which satisfying what “braised beef tacos” and “roasted Brussels sprouts” mean inside my head. What to do? There’s really only so much satisfaction you can get while dieting.
So I got to thinking about it, what it is I love about braised beef, and without a doubt it’s the texture. What can I say, I’m a texture whore. A lot of times, particularly when dieting, the best I can do is go with texture. That means crappy meat with a fair amount of connective tissue, just beginning to dissolve into that sticky, gelatinous goo in between the muscle groups. I mean, that’s why we braise. To cook covered, in a small amount of liquid, breaking down connective tissue and causing the meat to become soft and fork-tender, without being stringy.
Were I a man of means, I would go for beef short ribs, which are as out of my budget as they are delightful. Instead, I’ll hit the chuck roast or, if I can find them, beef shanks. Adult bovine shanks, not veal shanks because osso buco = more desirable = $$$. That and I have this fundamental belief that if I’m a decent enough cook and understand my ingredients well enough, I should be able to take a cheap ass piece of meat and turn it into something wonderful. It’s why you’ll never see words like “Wagyu” used without derision here. I can be a bit of an anti-snob snob. There is a place for fine dining and this ain’t it. So, yeah, beef shanks.
Beef shanks cover everything I need for diet meat. They are high in protein, the texture is amazing and, if you don’t eat the marrow (save it for after the diet), have a relatively low calorie count (on average, 35 calories per ounce, raw). For those of you playing at home the marrow is 222.8 calories per ounce of delicious, slithery goodness.
There were three things missing from the tacos of desolation: Moisture, texture, and beefy honesty.
You know how it is when you have your heart set on something and so you take action to make that happen but it just doesn’t come together and you can’t get your dissatisfaction out of your head? It’s like that.
The Brussels sprouts, which I enjoyed more or less, still didn’t give me what I want from Brussels sprouts and that’s fair because I have two standards for from the tiny mutant cabbages. One is from a visit to a speakeasy with my dear friend Kory. The sprouts we had that nice were amazing. Pan roasted with honey and balsamic. They were amazing and honestly elevated the veg very well in my estimation.
The other standard are the ones my mother-in-law made one time. I still can’t bring myself to make them because they are so wrong and yet so good. She takes them and basically slow cooks them submerged in butter and olive oil until they basically become brussels sprout confit. Somehow, through all the cooking, they manage to hold their shape but only enough to resist a harsh look turning them into grey-green mush. But the way they explode in your mouth. Like sprout flavored caviar, accentuating the sweetness of the sprout in a sublime, velvety texture. Again. Texture.
I came home from Waco wanting, needing to fill that void I didn’t know I had until I ate those terrible tacos. And from that, two recipes were born.
Other than purchasing the beef shanks, I had to “Iron Chef” this meal from whatever was on hand. I was coming down with Covid, so I’m going to use that as an excuse for not planning properly or taking adequate pictures during prep, even though it’s not remotely true. Really was not prepared for how powerful this recipe add-in is.
I had no idea I could do so much with it.
