This takes literally 15 minutes to make from start to finish and is one of my favorite quick-fix meals.

In its simplest form, you’ll just need pasta and some sausages of your choice. I like angel hair and spicy Italian (more on this below).

Put a pot of water on the boil and salt it heavily.
Take your sausage and make a slit right down the length of it, pull out the meat and roughly chop it up. Discard skins.
When water is boiling, cook your pasta. If you’re using dried angel hair, it takes no more than 3.5 minutes.
Put a pan on the stove and heat with a little olive oil.
Fry the sausage meat until cooked. I like mine with edges a little burnt.
By this time, the pasta should be slightly under-cooked. Test it and if you’re happy, drain while reserving a bit of the cooking water then put your pasta straight into the pan with the sausage.
Give it a quick toss and if it looks good, turn off the heat and serve. If it looks a little dry, introduce a bit of the pasta water to loosen them up.
Eat.

This dish works because angel hair takes half the time to cook compared to other types of pasta. And the spicy Italian sausages contain all the flavor you need. There’s no real need to add anything else.

I left this as “naked” because it’s a great canvas to build on, should you need to impress someone. You could always throw in some garlic and red chili flakes, and you can top it with a dash of balsamic vinegar or a squeeze of lemon juice. You could also top it with some fried bread crumbs with herbs or add some toasted pine nuts into the mix or do a butter+white wine (or vodka!) combo to give it a bit of a sauce. Still, it wouldn’t take much longer to complete.

Enjoy.

First, a quick anatomy lesson. There are two types of different cuts of short ribs, the first taken from near the chuck or shoulder of the bovine. The second is near the short plate, just at the underside of the chest. Whichever you see in the supermarket, it should have generally similar characteristics: a good mix of meat and fat, and a fair bit of connective tissue.

My previous tips for choosing steak doesn’t really apply as we’re now concerned about short ribs. There’s no rocket science when it comes to choosing short ribs, but its important that you know how you want to cook it. If you’re going for a braise, then you can afford to pick short ribs that are fairly thick and chunky, as you’ll need the slow cooking to break down the connective tissue. If you’re going for a quick grill, then try and pick short ribs that are uniformly thinner. Uniform is important because given the quick grilling, you’d much prefer if they all cook in around the same time.

For today’s post, I’ll talk more about my favorite way of cooking short ribs – grilling.

When you purchase the short ribs, it should be in a slabs with 4 to 5 bones. Start by cutting them into individual one bone pieces. Then you have two options. For a quick and no-frills method, just lightly oil and season them with salt and pepper, then off to a smoking hot griddle for a few minutes on each side. You should get something like this:

This method is simple and fast, and you will be able to savour all the yummy beefy goodness that the short ribs can deliver. But I have another recipe for those who might not be too hot about the strong taste of beef.

This next recipe is highly inspired by Korean barbeque and it involves a marinade. Start by combining the following ingredients:

6 tsp soya sauce
3 tbs white sugar
2 tbs sesame oil
1 tbs all-purpose flour
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 pinch of salt and black pepper

You should end up with a sticky mess which at that point, you might wonder why you’re insane enough to follow this. Trust me. Dump your short ribs into the marinate, mix well and leave it in the fridge, covered. Marinate for a couple of hours or overnight.

Remove the short ribs from the fridge about half an hour before cooking, to bring the meat closer to room temperature. Heat your griddle pan smoking hot, shake as much of the marinate off as possible then slap them on the grill. Remember that there’s sugar in the marinate, so it will caramelize fast and might burn if you don’t watch them closely. Cooking time is the same as the above, just a couple of minutes on each side. If you got it right, it should look like this:

Notice the deeper color thanks to the soya sauce, and the black bits are due to the caramelization from the sugars.

Remember it’s important to use thin pieces for grilling, cook them fast and most importantly, let them rest before eating and you’ll be fine. Unlike steak, you can afford to turn them a few times while cooking, especially with the latter recipe that contains sugar.

Let me know if you like it, and I could also post a followup on using thicker short rib pieces in a red wine braise.

Enjoy.

Though it may sound elementary by now, when did someone put a piece of meat inside of a bun and make food history?

Some food anthropologists have traced the hamburger back to Hamburg. In Germany, local traditional snacks are often named after the city where it originated, like the Frankfurter (Frankfurt), Berliner (Berlin) and the Thüringer (Thüringia). Back to Hamburg, one theory of origin was that locals will serve meat scraps in a round bun-shaped bread called the Brötchen, and it made a quick takeaway meal that was cheap and tasty. And since then, little has changed about the burger. It’s still well… a piece of meat inside a bun.

But what you put INSIDE the meat makes most of the difference. Here are some basic guidelines when it comes to making your own burger.

First, about the bun.

Bun Rule #1 – ALWAYS toast the buns. Why? Warm toasted bun just tastes better!

Bun Rule #2 – ALWAYS lightly butter the insides of the bun. Why? It forms a liquid-proof layer that will prevent the bun from totally disintegrating when the juices from the patty run. Remember how irritating it is when you’re halfway through the burger and the bottom half other bun turns to mush?

Next, guidlelines of the patty.

Patty Rule #1 – NEVER mix raw onions into the patty mix. Raw onions add too much pungency to the mix, and never gets nicely sweetened when you cook it with the meat. Just saute the onions in olive oil for a few minutes then add it in.

Patty Rule #2 – TRY to make your own mince. Yes, you heard me. I don’t trust the mince I buy from supermarkets as I have no idea which part of the bovine goes into it. Not to mention the “Weight-watcher’s mince”. Buy a few slabs of good looking chuck steak, then pulse it in your food processor until you have a nice blend of fine mince and chunks. Better texture for your patty too!

Lastly, guidelines of dressing your burger.

Dressing Rule #1 – Top your burger with anything you want, or nothing at all. A good burger needs nothing but it’s also very adaptable and can take most savory flavors. Be creative, and most importantly, be indulgent.

Dressing Rule #2 – Go topless if need be. A burger that’s too tall is difficult to eat, so leave the top off and show your guests all the goodness you’re feeding them.

So then, what goes inside a burger then?

Here’s my basic recipe. And since I usually never measure when I cook, I have no real metrics for you, all proportions are guessimates.

About 500gms of chuck steak, pulsed in food processor (see above)
dash of salt
dash of black pepper
ground cumin
ground coriander seeds
half teaspoon of mustard
half an onion – saute with olive oil
Handful of grated parmesan
1 egg
about half cup of breadcrumbs

Mix everything together with half of the breadcrumbs, adding more if mixture is too wet. The egg binds the mixture, and the breadcrumbs absorbs some liquid if it’s too wet. Fashion thick patties then dust it with breadcrumbs then fridge it for at least 20 minutes. This allows the flavors to get to know each other and for the patty to hold it’s shape. To cook, fry in pan with olive oil. And depending on how thick the patty is, you might have to finish it in the oven to make sure it cooks through. But don’t overcook, it’s not sexy.

Here’s two badly taken pics of what the burger I made a few months back, topped with some mushrooms saute in butter and topped with truffle oil. It looks ugly, but its darn good.

*burp*

1. Take your meat out of fridge, covered and bring to room temperature. Then dab both sides dry with kitchen towels.

2. Brush with oil on both sides, then sprinkle evenly with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

3. Heat pan until hot. And I mean hot. The fire should be on high for the entire campaign.

4. Place steak on pan. You should hear a screeching sizzle and smell the aroma of the beef in seconds.

5. Don’t touch it for 3 mins. Don’t even press it or poke it or turn to look under. Just leave it for 3 mins.

6. After 3 mins, turn over swiftly for another 3 mins on the other side.

7. After another 3 mins, remove it from the pan and let it rest. DO NOT CUT OR ATTEMPT TO EAT IT YET. Leave it to rest for 5 mins before serving.

Some tips….

- Room temperature steak cooks better because frozen or chilled steak takes longer to get to cooking point. And condensation might form on the surface, and might cause painful spatters especially if you’re cooking topless at home (which I tend to when no guests are coming).

- The hot pan will immediately sear and the seal in the juices of the meat.

- Oiling the meat rather than the pan will result in a less smoky cooking experience.

- 3 mins is for medium rare and if you ask me, no one should eat steak any more cooked than that.

- Don’t cut it to see the cookedness of the meat as you will run the lovely juices out.

- Resting the meat for 5 mins allows the juices to redistribute within the steak, this of course makes for a better eat.

You can eat this as it is, or serve it with some nice sauce. I made simple red wine sauce to go with it.

Red wine sauce:

1. After removing meat, lower the flame then splash about 2-3 tablespoons of red wine into pan, then scrape furiously to free up the bits of juices and meat stuck to the pan. The French call this deglazing.

2. Add 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar and keep stirring.

3. Add a whole bunch of freshly ground black pepper.

4. Add about half to 3/4 cup of beef stock and reduced until thickened. Remove and keep warm, drizzle over meat to serve.

There, simple as pie. We spent about $12 for 2 NZ striploin, so that’s a darn good and cheap eat. Sure beats eating outside where it costs $20-30 bucks per piece. So the next time you’re thinking of having steak, try this at home rather than paying double the price of what it costs for something to simple to make, yet yummy like hell.

So, if you ever step into a restaurant that serves steak in those cow-shaped-hot-plate thingeys, think again about how juicy the steak is when the chef stabs it to death while cooking and not rest the meat before serving it to you.

Try this, and I guarantee that you’ll think twice about eating steak out again.

Oh, I made this grilled aubergine and baby spinach salad to go along with it…

Make sure to eat your greens!!