These lamb shanks look delicious! Unfortunately, they are not my shanks . . . (photo by Jennifer via Wikimedia Commons)
So, the stressful, senseless holiday season had finally given way to calm, cool, January. OK, maybe calm, cool, overabundant in its snow production January — but a good month nonetheless to tackle a braise. The day of the Pats – Jets play-off game seemed a perfect day to let something sit in the oven for hours — I could have the braise braise while I watched the late-afternoon Sunday game and then enjoy a leisurely if somewhat late dinner since neither Gary nor I had to work the following day (Martin Luther King Jr. Day).
A perfect plan, but what should I braise? Meat? Fish? Chicken? Or did I want to make a stew? Beef, lamb, or pork made the most sense at the time if I wanted to stretch the cooking time to at least three hours — the usual length of a pro football game. Short ribs were an option — the short ribs in cherry sauce we made in our Moist Heat Cooking class were great, especially the sauce. Hm. Pork was out because I made a pork roast just two weeks before and I wanted to attempt something totally different.
I wanted to give The Art of Simple Food another try, and wavered between Alice Waters’s Long-Cooked Lamb Shoulder and her Braised Lamb Shanks. The headnote of the shoulder recipe mentioned that “You might have to ask your butcher for a whole, bone-in roast,” which led me to believe the correct cut was not all that easy to come by, so I opted for the shank recipe. After all, as this headnote declared, “The shank is the best part of the lamb to braise.” Well, there you go! I would braise me some lamb shanks.
Saturday morning I eagerly walked up to the Whole Foods meat counter, hoping to find a pile of lamb shanks from which I or the meat counter guy could choose the best four. Panic quickly set in when I noticed that the lamb section was rather small and did not have any signs that said “lamb shanks.” Meat Counter Guy approached me.
“What can I get for you?”
“I’m looking for lamb shanks.”
Meat Counter Guy shook his head. “Sorry, we’re all out.”
“Hm. What would you recommend as a substitute?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. I’m not familiar with lamb.”
I gave him a cheerful “OK, thank you,” but I was starting to get upset. Not only could Meat Counter Guy not help me choose a lamb-shank substitute (given the price of Whole Foods’s meats I had expected knowledgeable meat counter guys), I could not remember the cut of lamb required by the other Waters recipe. What really irked me was that I myself was as useless as Meat Counter Guy in selecting an alternative meat or cut.
My mood quickly became grim and cranky, not knowing what to do next. “Don’t worry about it,” Gary said, “you don’t need it until tomorrow — we can try someplace else this afternoon.”
Later that day we visited The Meat House. A place called The Meat House must have a great selection of meat, right? I was excited about my new lamb-shank prospects. I went straight the the counter and asked Meat Counter Guy 2 for four lamb shanks.
“Sorry, we’re all out of those. You really need to call ahead for those. And even then they’re going to be frozen or previously frozen, which may or may not be what you’re expecting. You didn’t need those this weekend, did you?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow. Thanks, anyway.”
I regrouped with Gary and we decided to can the lamb and go with short ribs. I went back to the meat counter and asked Meat Counter Gal for short ribs.
“Sorry. We’re all out.”
“OK, thanks.” I said, making a mental note to never come to The Meat House again.
As a last resort, Gary and I tried Johnnie’s Foodmaster. It’s our last resort for anything because though it’s a bare-bones kind of supermarket, it sometimes surprises us by having items we cannot find at our local Stop & Shop, such as tomato juice and frozen okra. (Believe it or not, tomato juice was nonexistent at Stop & Shop save for some V8; Johnnie’s offered at least three brands of it.)
Needless to say, we found barely any fresh lamb at Johnnie’s. Of short ribs, they had just shy of two pounds—I was seeking three pounds—and one of the packages had a slit that exposed the meat. (I might have taken the risk with the slit package if they had the three pounds I needed.)
Not lamb shanks. Not short ribs. Pot roast.
OK. So. No lamb. No short ribs. Let’s go with a big hunk o’ beef. Neither of us had committed to memory which cuts of beef are best for each mode of cooking (braise, grill, roast, etc.), so we were at the mercy of the labels slapped on each package of meat. I zeroed in on a package of pot roast because the cooking instructions on the price label were “Simmer in a covered pan in a small amount of liquid for 2–3 hours.” Sounded like a braise to me!
Somewhat disturbing, however, was a second label on the package, a quaint blue circle also offering cooking instructions:
POT ROAST (Cooking in liquid)
1. Brown meat on all sides in heavy kettle.
2. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Cover with liquid, cover kettle, cook below boiling point until tender.
4. Add vegetables just long enough before serving to be cooked.
The price label specifies a “small amount of liquid,” the round label tells me to cover the meat with liquid. As I did with my query on whether or not to make my own pumpkin purée (see earlier post), I’d let Alice Waters break the tie.
In the meantime, I had to quickly decide what I’d need for the pot roast without a “real” recipe to reference. I grabbed a bag of baby potatoes and headed toward the check-out lines.
Fortunately, there was a Beef Pot Roast recipe in The Art of Simple Food. And to break the suspense, I’ll note that Waters tells me to add to my meat and aromatics (carrots, onion, celery, garlic) “enough water to come almost to the top of the meat.” A semi-tie breaker.
Though Waters’s pot roast recipe would have me cooking carrots and potatoes separately to be added to the pot roast towards the end of cooking, after the aromatics have been strained out, I decided to just roast the cute li’l baby potatoes and serve them as a side, and forgo the carrots. Why? I had already opted to serve sautéed chard with the meal when I thought I’d be serving shanks, so I already had chard in the fridge. In fact, I had planned on trying yet another Simple Food recipe, Wilted Chard with Onions.
Green chard: Big, bold, and beautiful
Finally, I had a menu:
- Pot roast with salsa verde (the salsa verde also a Simple Food recipe)
- Wilted chard with onion
- Roasted baby potatoes
Despite a planned serving time of 7:30 p.m., I found myself in the kitchen by 10 a.m. to start prepping dinner (and, granted, the day’s lunch as well), in theory so that I could somehow enjoy the game AND have dinner ready to serve shortly thereafter.
But I had no idea I’d be in the kitchen most of the day. Dinner-related tasks included, in semi-chronological order:
- Salt and season roast, return to fridge and remove one hour before cooking
- Prepare aromatics for roast (onion, carrots, celery, garlic, bouquet garni)
- Sear all sides of roast, which had six sides, two of which were relatively small, requiring me to stand and hold the roast while searing each side 7–10 minutes
- Cook roast
- Prepare salsa verde (chop parsley, garlic, and capers and mix with grated zest of lemon, salt, pepper and olive oil)
- Dice 1 onion
- Pull leaves from two bunches of chard, cut into wide ribbons
- Trim ends from chard ribs and cut into thin slices
- Rinse and drain chard parts, put all chard dish ingredients in fridge until needed
- Cook up chards with onions
- Prepare potatoes (scrub, then halve or quarter depending on size), toss in olive oil and seasonings
- Roast potatoes
Thank goodness I hadn’t planned to make a dessert!
I should have known better than to assume anything about the day would be leisurely, though it was fun to work with a “new” cut of beef and the gorgeous chard leaves.
Chard leaves are royalty compared to, say, lowly iceberg lettuce. I stopped for a moment to admire — then photograph — an enormous, hardy, forest-green chard leaf before ripping it apart.
The braise that never was: pot roast with salsa verde, wilted chard with onions, roasted potatoes
Many hours and an extremely disappointing football game later, an evening meal emerged. Here’s a summary of my thoughts and observations:
- The meat was a little dry but tasty. Should I have cooked it longer? Taken it off the heat sooner? Admittedly, I had repressed the knowledge that the meat may not be done exactly when Alice Waters says it should be. But I rushed to serve it nonetheless, since the potatoes and chard were done and waiting to be served. I could have attempted to keep the side dishes warm, but it was getting late and I was getting lazy.
- Was the cut of meat (bottom round roast) the same what is is used for corned beef? The texture was exactly the same as corned beef, which was distracting because all I could think of was how I’d love some corned beef ‘n cabbage real soon. It was also odd to have the texture of corned beef without the pink color and excess marbling.
- The salsa verde seemed oilier than necessary, even though I had already used more chopped parsley and less olive oil than the recipe prescribed. Still, it was a fresh, colorful accompaniment for the long-cooked grayish meat.
- The chard was yummy but I wished there were a lot more of it. As do most cooked greens, it wilted away into near-nothingness. I had doubled the recipe that was to yield four servings, yet the what-should-be-eight-servings-of-chard, when finished, looked like it would barely serve three. I also think much less oil would have been just fine; the greens and onions seemed over-lubricated.
- The roasted potatoes were good, if slightly undercooked.
The next morning (MLK day), Gary and I went to Roche Bros. to gather up the week’s provisions. Gary beckoned me to the refrigerated meats section and pointed at an ample pile of lamb shanks. My first reaction was to grab four for later use, but I soon came to my senses and just made a mental note of their abundance. (Shanks, but no shanks!)
Lesson learned. Next time, I’ll go to the supermarket or meat mart with a list of braiseable cuts, choose the most attractive option from what’s available, THEN build an entrée and meal around it.