3-Course Short Ribs Dinner
- Avocado & Crab Salad with Champagne-Chive Vinaigrette and Oranges
- Sourdough Toast with Honey Butter
- Moist Kalbi Beef Shortribs with Scallions and Garlic
- Baby Bok Choy in Miso-Honey Glaze
- Rum-Raisin Aborio White Chocolate Pudding
Salad
The dinner started out with a recipe I found from my Williams-Sonoma Entertaining cookbook, then I augmented it to my own tastes. The key to the whole thing is a creamy dressing made from chive oil, blended in the blender, where champagne vinegar makes a nice dressing, with the addition of EVOO and fresh-cracked pepper.
The salad is a mixture of greens, thin-sliced avocado, orange supremes, and lump jumbo crab meat. It’s creamy. The lettuces are salty, and the rest, sweet.
Bread
I chose a sourdough, and toasted it. I made a special butter from combining salt, unsalted butter, cream, and honey. No one could resist the sweeter honey; the sweetness here balanced well with the crab in the salad.
Ribs
Another variation on beef short ribs, this time, with a Korean twist. The main flavors are soy, garlic, and green onion. I braised them in a spicier version that was a marinade with mushroom broth. At the end, the sauce was thickened and fortified with Xerses vinegar and poured-over the ribs with extra scallions.
Bok Choy
The baby variety was steamed/braised in a mixture of vegetable broth, fresh-grated ginger, and miso paste with honey.
Dessert
We took an old favorite recipe from Ina Garten, and added fresh vanilla bean, rum-soaked raisins, and mounted it all with white chocolate for an extra richness. Italian risotto-style short-grain rice was used, aborio. A warm, delicious dessert.