David Chang

Presented in 2010

Braised short rib with soy apple marinade, apples and pears

Serves 8

Short ribs

2²/₃ cups water

½ cup usukuchi (light soy sauce), plus 2 tablespoons

3 tablespoons pear juice, plus 1 teaspoon

3 tablespoons apple juice, plus 1 teaspoon

2½ tablespoons mirin

1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil

1¼ cups sugar

10 grinds black pepper

½ small onion

1 small carrot

3 spring onions (scallions), white part only

2 garlic cloves

8 pieces bone-in short ribs (140–170 g/5–6 oz each), trimmed of any silverskin and cut into individual ribs

3 apples, peeled, cored and quartered

3 pears, peeled, cored and quartered

Garnish

8 spring onions (scallions)

grapeseed or other neutral oil or rendered pork or duck fat, for deep-frying

dashi-braised daikon (see recipe below)

¼ cup pickled mustard seeds (see recipe below)

sea salt

Dashi-braised daikon

2 medium daikon (white radish), each a little more than 2.5 cm (1 inch) in diameter

4 cups dashi (homemade or instant)

Pickled mustard seeds

1 cup yellow mustard seeds

1½ cups water

1½ cups rice wine vinegar

½ cup sugar

1 tablespoon sea salt

To make the marinade for the short ribs, combine the water, usukuchi, pear and apple juices, mirin, sesame oil, sugar, pepper, onion, carrot, spring onion and garlic in a large saucepan and bring to the boil over high heat. Reduce the heat so the liquid simmers gently and cook for 10 minutes. Strain the solids out of the marinade and cool it in the refrigerator. It can be stored, covered, for up to a few days.

Combine each short rib with ½ cup marinade and some apples and pears in a vacuum-sealable bag and seal it, then seal in a second bag. (If one of those bags pops, your rib is toast, and it’ll make a mess of everything, so better safe than sorry.) Put the bagged ribs in a water bath and set your immersion circulator to 60°C (140°F). Cook the ribs at that temperature for 48 hours.

When the ribs are cooked, remove them from the warm water bath and plunge them — still in their bags — into a large bowl of icy cold water. After they’ve been cooled, they can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a few days or frozen for a few weeks (defrost them overnight in the refrigerator).

Cut the ribs and fruit out of their bags over a mixing bowl to catch the braising liquid; set the ribs and fruit aside.

Strain the braising liquid through a fine-mesh sieve into a small saucepan. Bring it to the boil over high heat and reduce it until you have about 2 cups, no more than 10 minutes. Reserve, covered (in the pan is fine), until you’re ready to plate the dish.

Meanwhile, slide the bones out of the short ribs. Trim off any large obvious pieces of fat, and trim the ribs into neat cubes (or rectangles) that weigh about 85 g (3 oz) each.

To make the garnish, bring a small saucepan of salted water to the boil. Add the spring onion and blanch for 10 seconds, then drain and cool in an ice bath or under cold running water. Drain well and reserve.

Heat a litre or two of oil to 180°C (350°F) in a high-sided pan over medium–high heat. Line a plate with a double thickness of paper towel on which to drain the beef. Fry the short rib chunks in batches as necessary, so as not to crowd the pan, for 3–4 minutes; they should be mahogany brown outside and warmed all the way through. Remove the fried rib chunks from the oil and drain on the paper towel for a couple of minutes.

To make the dashi-braised daikon, scrub the daikon, peel it and cut it into 2.5 cm (1 inch) thick discs. Bring the dashi to a steady simmer in a small saucepan on the stove. Add the daikon and simmer for 30 minutes or until it is tender but not falling apart. At this point, you can cool the daikon in the dashi and store it in the refrigerator for up to 1 day, until ready to use. When you’re ready to serve, bring the dashi back up to a simmer and hold it there until the daikon is warmed through, about 5 minutes. Scoop the daikon out of the dashi to serve. (The dashi can be reserved for another use or discarded.)

To make the pickled mustard seeds, combine the mustard seeds, water, vinegar, sugar and salt in a small saucepan and bring to the gentlest of simmers over low heat. Cook the mustard seeds, stirring often, until they’re plump and tender, about 45 minutes. If the seeds look to be drying out, add water as needed to keep them barely submerged. Cool and store in a covered container in the refrigerator. Pickled mustard seeds will keep for months. Makes 1 cup.

To serve, put a couple of tablespoons of the reduced braising liquid in the centre of each of 8 large white plates. Lay a piece of apple and a piece of pear across the pool of liquid (cut the fruit lengthways in half if they’re thick) and nestle a braised daikon disc up against it. Lay the green part of the blanched spring onion across the fruit (the white should be sticking out like the minute hand on a clock). Slice the chunks of short ribs into 4 cm (1½ inch) thick slices each, and shingle them over the spring onion green. Fold/wrap the spring onion back around over the meat, carefully perch the mustard seeds atop the daikon, and sprinkle the meat with sea salt. Serve at once.

From Momofuku, David Chang and Peter Meehan, Clarkson Potter (a division of Random House Inc) (2009).