On Nov 15th, CTV posted an article about how local food carts near the Art Gallery were being affected by the Occupy Vancouver movement, stating sales drops of up to 70% and some even going so far as to say they may need to close up shop if there wasn’t a change soon (read the full article here):

Well, it wasn’t long after posting this article to my twitter feed that some of my fellow tweeps and I started discussing the idea of organizing a tweet up to support them, and the hashtag #supportYVRfoodcarts was born. A blog post by well-known Vancouver blogger @maryinvancity officially started the event and the response was overwhelming. By that night, the hashtag #supportYVRfoodcarts was trending on twitter first in Vancouver, then in Canada! The date was set for Friday, November 18th, and myself and some of the Drew Cooks! staff (along with many others) set out that afternoon with hunger in our bellies and fire in our eyes.

Our goal was to hit not just one food cart, but several (a goal that was met, BIG TIME; the food coma was epic) and we hoped others would do the same. We weren’t disappointed. Huge line ups of supporters were at every cart, people were on their phones taking pictures of food, tweeting like crazy inbetween huge bites of delicious street food, and vendors at the carts were all astounded at the outpouring of support. So where did we go first?

One of the most active twitter accounts of the food carts belongs to Re-up BBQ, serving delicious smoked pulled pork, brisket and sides.

Even though they had to move from their original spot due to Occupy Vancouver, there was a big line up when we got there, and the guys said they had been smokin’ busy all day. Great to hear. These guys really took advantage of the #supportYVRfoodcarts event and invited many of their visitors to an event they were planning on Nov 26th in New West.

A sucker for good beef brisket, I ordered their brisket sandwich ($9), while some of my colleagues tried their famous pulled pork sandwich ($7). They served it with their tangy coleslaw and a great BBQ sauce that wasn’t too sweet and had a nice kick of spice. What could be a better up-sell than a really attractive photo of us eating it? You tell me.

The guys at Re-Up BBQ were awesome, friendly, and had some great recommendations for other food carts to try. Their first pick was Mangal Kiss Mid-East BBQ, showcased here by my posing skills:

This was another cart featured in the CTV article that had been shifted from its original spot near the Art Gallery and was struggling to find the same volume at its new spot. Yet again we were greeted by a large line-up at Mangal Kiss, which specializes in shishlik wraps (Shishlik is quite simply the practice of grilling meat – sounds fine by me). Where the big difference is for me is the inventive and uber flavourful vegetables and other ingredients they place in their shishlik wraps. Each wrap (choice of beef or chicken) contains:

Hummus, tahini, purple cabbage, beets, pickled turnips, pickles, onions, tomatos, cucumbers, spiced Moroccan carrots, radish, Tabbouleh

It seems like a lot going on, but all I can really say is you need to go down there right now, order it, and take a bite. FLAVOUR. It all works, and it’s unlike anything I’ve tried on the streets of Vancouver to date. Here’s what it looks like:

The folks at Mangal Kiss are as nice as can be too, I can’t say enough good things about their food. It’s a must-try!

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If someone had told me that morning I would be eating a huge grilled cheese sandwich out of a paper cone later in the day, I would have called them crazy. Then I would have hugged them. But turns out that is exactly what I was doing at Mom’s Grilled Cheese Truck. And look at the line at this one too!

Now, the guys at Re-Up BBQ had recommended the “Jackson 3″ which is their triple decker grilled cheese sandwich, with 3 kinds of cheese. They also suggested we get it with bacon added, because they smoke and supply the bacon Mom’s grilled cheese truck uses! How cool is that? Despite the fact I’ve already eaten two large lunches, I threw caution to the wind and ordered it. One of the other guys ordered another of their sandwiches, a “meatloaf” sandwich with marinara and cheese.

Here is Mom herself, working the flat top like a champ while chatting with customers, she’s awesome.

Before long, we all had delicious cheesey sandwiches in our hot little hands.

Here’s our head bartender Carmond taking a break from photo duties to handle the “Jackson 3″ with bacon he ordered:

The rest of us looking confused as to how to handle the monstrosities of deliciousness in front of us.

Though they are known for Grilled Cheese (obviously) the Meatloaf sandwich is not to be missed. The beef is incredibly well seasoned and flavourful, the marinara is delicious and the melted provolone on top is perfect. Most of all, go say hi to Mom and let her fill you up right!

___________

Alright, at this point we had hit 3 food carts and eaten 3 large lunches within about an hour, and we were losing the ability to stand under our own power. Though it was wintery out, the meat sweats were imminent. We sat down briefly to compose ourselves and think of our next move, and no sooner did we take a short breather, we received a tweet from a friend of mine and amazing cake artist, Cake Tease saying she was heading downtown to give away some of her amazing cupcakes to people who came out for #supportYVRfoodcarts!

This was all the second wind we needed. We marched on, in search of the 4th stop on our tour de foodcart, Soho Road Tandoori Kebab.

I was totally impressed that this cart had an actual tandoor oven onboard! They were even kind of to let us come around and take some pictures of it in action as they made fresh naan bread to order for each of us.

Best of all, we were given some complimentary chai tea while we waited, which was delicious. (PS I have difficulty smiling normally for pictures, I’m working on it.)

No sooner did we get our wraps, but look who showed up

She immediately began tweeting that the next person to come and order from Soho Road and retweet got a free box of mini-cupcakes, and it took a grand total of about 45 seconds for someone to come and claim it!

After chowing down on this insanely delicious, flavourful butter chicken and naan wrap from Soho Road, I could eat no more, though luckily, many, many more supporters continued to chow down all day, with some of the vendors completely selling out due to overwhelming demand. We couldn’t be happier with how #supportYVRfoodcarts turned out, and we sincerely hope that those who tried these carts for the first time on Friday, will continue to return to these great vendors again. The quality of food on our streets is amazing, go eat it!

From Drew Cooks! and Cake Tease, stay classy Vancouver!

Photography by Carmond Ng

The air is chilly, the leaves are changing, and we want to cook some fall inspired cuisine! No better way to start getting ready for the Christmas season by giving away one of our popular in-home catered dinner parties…again!

The lucky winner will receive a customized 4-course fall menu for them and 5 friends catered in-home by our team. We will be drawing the winner at random 1 week from today on Nov 7th at 12pm.

HOW TO ENTER:

To enter the contest, you must do all 3 steps:

1. Follow us on twitter here (if you aren’t already)
2. Retweet our tweet about the giveaway dinner
3. Leave a comment on this blog post with your favorite fall/winter ingredient to cook with, and why!

That’s it!

As an example, here’s the menu from our last twitter contest winner – @LiivLee

1st Course:
Tenderloin of beef tataki with horseradish and roasted garlic cream, baby greens, crispy shallots, enoki mushrooms, sri racha foam

2nd Course:

Salt Spring Island Lamb loin with baby vegetables, cherry smoked cassoulet, yellow tomato consommé, crispy sage

3rd Course:

Braised Beef Short Rib with fig cabernet sauce, Roquefort gratin daupinois en croute, fall vegetables

4th Course:

Cabernet Poached Pear with white chocolate crème anglaise, fresh mint, vanilla bean ice cream

How do our dinner parties work? We bring all our own pots, pans, knives, plates and other equipment necessary to serve and plate your meal, and make use of your kitchen to do final cooking and plating of your customized menu. A server is included to re-create a restaurant experience in your own home!

Best of luck!

*Contest only eligible to residents of Vancouver, BC or the surrounding areas (Burnaby, New West, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, Delta).

While personally I’m not a huge fan of the term itself, “molecular gastronomy” is something people are asking about all the time these days, as techniques are finding their way onto more and more restaurant menus across the world. The reason I’m not a fan of the term itself is because it conjures up images of chefs in lab coats using strange chemicals to alter your food into some strange science experiment, when these chefs are simply using (mainly) food based ingredients and extracts to showcase ingredients in ways that haven’t been done before. At the end of the day, it’s still cooking!

The most popular technique over the last decade or so has been spherification, made famous by Ferran Adria’s now legendary “spherical olive”, where a liquid is transformed into a sphere with a liquid centrer, released when bitted into.

However, even this seemingly simply technique requires some difficult-to-find ingredients and can be a little frustrating to start out on for someone that wants to see some cool and simple results right away.

This video we shot at our kitchen below demonstrates a more basic more of spherification, making smaller spheres to resemble caviar, which can be used as a garnish or in any aspect of a plated dish. Here’s the recipe for the technique we’re demonstrating below:

Lemon Ginger “Caviar”

Ingredients:
75 gr lemon juice freshly squeezed
1 tsp grated ginger root
25 grams water
1.5 grams agar agar (an algae extract, can be purchased at Whole Foods or Choices)
1.5 tsp sugar
pinch salt

1.5 cups vegetable oil (cold from being in the freezer at least 1 hour)

Method:
Bring all the ingredients except the agar agar and oil to a boil and then strain hot liquid through a fine meshed sieve to remove any lemon pulp and the ginger. Place back in pan and whisk in the agar agar until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool slightly, about 5-6 minutes.

Place the cold oil in a shallow and deep container, and place the liquid into a pipette or dropper. Slowly squeeze droplets into the cold oil and let form into spheres, about 2 minutes. Strain the spheres out of the oil and rinse under cold water. These can be stored in a sealed container in cold water for up to a day before use.

Other suggestions for use:

Balsamic vinegar spheres
Black olive puree spheres
Mango and Cilantro Spheres to garnish Mexican dishes

Let us know what you think!

Duck is one of my favorite things to cook. With the breast, I love the crisp texture of perfectly seared duck skin with the juicy, flavourful meat. I love to braise the duck legs, turning them into a stuffing for pasta or as a topping for pizza.

A little while ago I received some beautiful medjool dates, sticky and sweet, from the Middle East as a gift. I immediately thought to pair them with duck breast, as duck is famously paired with sweeter flavours (most notably the French Classic, duck l’orange).

The dish I came up with is light, crisp, flavourful, gluten free and dairy free.

Pan-Seared Duck Breast with Quinoa, Swiss Chard, Fennel, Pinot and Medjool Date Reduction

Sounds like a mouthful, but it’s a snap to prepare. Here’s the final product:

Now let’s see how we get there!

First things first, let’s have a look at our duck breasts. Almost every one I’ve talked to who doesn’t like duck mentions that it’s “too fatty”. Well, no one’s arguing that duck has a fair amount of fat on it, but properly prepared a duck breast will not be fatty or greasy, but deliciously moist, succulent and crispy. Let me show you how to do it properly.

First, we need to score the fat on them. This helps it render out more quickly and evenly, which will crisp up our skin. Use a sharp knife and make a criss-cross pattern across each breast’s fat cap. Set the scored breasts aside.

Now let’s start prepping out veggies. Swiss chard is a beautiful vegetable that I like because it has two very different textures and colours within the same ingredient; the leafy green tops and the crisp, bright red stems.

Separate the leaf from the stalk, and slice the stalk thinly, keep the leaves whole and intact. Set aside.

Next, using a sharp knife or mandoline, thinly slice fennel and keep some fennel fronds for garnish. Also dice 1/2 a small onion, 1 carrot, and 2 cloves of garlic.

Next, in a medium sauce pot, add in the 2 cups of wine, 1/2 cup of chicken stock, the carrots, onions, garlic, 6 dates and sprigs of fresh thyme.

Place on medium heat and let simmer and reduce slowly for 15-20 minutes.

While sauce is simmering, pre-heat oven to 350F. Cook quinoa according to package instructions. Fluff with a fork and set aside.

Now, heat a dry saute pan (I like to use a non-stick pan for duck breasts) over medium heat. Season the duck with salt and place skin side down in the pan.

The most important thing when cooking a duck breast is to give the fat enough time to render out properly, over lower heat. Think of it like cooking bacon in a pan, crank the heat too high and the bacon will burn before crisping up nicely. Leave the duck skin side down over medium-low heat for 12-15 minutes. You’ll notice the fat rendering out in the pan as you go along:

After the duck has been cooking for about 12-14 minutes, you will see now almost all of the fat has rendered out, leaving behind a beautiful, golden, crispy skin:

As soon as that happens, take it out of the pan, and place it in a small baking dish. Set it aside until we are ready to finish it in the oven moments before plating our final dish.

After simmering for 15-20 minutes, your sauce should look like this:

Strain the liquid throw a fine-meshed sieve, and reserve the dates, discard the rest of the vegetables. Place the liquid back in the pan and place on low heat to keep warm and reduce further. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Roughly chop the soft dates, removing the pits.

Heat a very small pot with salted water, for blanching the chard leaves.

In a saute pan with a touch of oil, saute the fennel, dates and chard stalks for 3-4 minutes season with salt and pepper. Place duck breasts in the oven to finish cooking for 4-5 minutes.

Add in the cooked quinoa to the pan:

Blanch the chard leaves in the boiling water for 3 minutes, pull out and reserve.

Add in a handful of chopped parsley and pea shoots to the quinoa:

Pull the duck breasts out of the oven, it should be a nice medium-rare to medium doneness. Slice into medallions:

Now we’re ready to plate!

First, spoon some of the quinoa mixture onto a serving piece:

Next, roll up a couple of the chard leaves and arrange on top:

Arrange 3 medallions of duck breast on top:

And finally, spoon the Pinot and date reduction over top of the dish to finish!

This dish is a great balance between salty, sweet, and light flavours. Duck is one of those ingredients that, if prepared well, can take any dish to the next level. Try this one at your next summer dinner party for a light main course!

Ingredients: Serves 2

– 2 duck breasts
- 2 cups pinot noir
- 1/2 cup chicken stock
- 6 medjool dates (or similar high quality dried dates)
- 1/2 small onion, diced
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 small fennel bulb
- 5 stalks swiss chard
- 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley
- 1/4 cup pea shoots
- few sprigs fresh thyme
- salt and pepper

We’re proud to announce we’ve given our homepage and the rest of our website a facelift for 2011! We wanted to make our site even easier for our clients to navigate and instantly be able to find the service they are looking for, so we decided to make two big ol’ buttons on our homepage to take both our corporate clients as well as our clients looking to plan social gatherings right where they need to be.

We’ve also updated the site with brand new food photos as well as updated and expanded menus in most sections!

What do you think of our new website design? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Not going to lie, we’re a little jealous of all these restaurants who get to do dine-out Vancouver every year. Being caterers we’re a bit of a different beast as we do most of our work at venues around the city, or in people’s homes. Well, this year we have decided to give one lucky twitter follower and 5 of their closest friends their own in-home 4 course dine-out Vancouver experience, completely free!

We will be selecting the lucky winner at random at noon on Friday, January 14th. Here’s what you need to do to enter:

1. Follow us on twitter here.

2. Retweet our post about the Giveaway contest.

3. Comment on this blog post, answering the question “What is the one dine out Vancouver restaurant you want to try this year and why?”

We will be posting the winner on our twitter page at 12pm on Friday, January 14th!*

How do our dinner parties work? We bring all our own pots, pans, knives, plates and other equipment necessary to serve your gourmet meal, and make use of your kitchen to do final cooking and plating of your customized menu. A server is included to re-create a restaurant experience in your own home! View some of our sample menus here.

Best of luck!

*Contest only eligible to residents of Vancouver, BC or the surrounding areas (Burnaby, New West, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, Delta).

Cheese making is often thought of as one of those mythical processes we aren’t meant to understand. We go to the store when we need cheese, we buy it, we often spend quite a bit of money on it, and we love it. For the most part we don’t really care how it’s made or how it got to the supermarket, but something this delicious must require intricate machinery and a complex system of pulleys, levers and switches. The cheese factories surely have moats installed (with crocodiles!) to keep their secrets safe from the general public.

While certain types of cheeses DO require specialized equipment, there are several delicious and popular varieties you can make at home yourself using virtually no special equipment or ingredients you can’t find in your local supermarket.

This first type we’ll be showing is the simplest of homemade cheeses, a basic fresh white cheese, sometimes called a farmer’s cheese. I absolutely guarantee you will be astounded by how simple and delicious this cheese is.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Ingredients:
1 litre of whole milk (the quality of the cheese is entirely dependant on the quality of milk used, so this would be the time to try that local or organic milk from the farmers market for a few extra bucks)
1 cup of whole buttermilk
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp sea salt

Equipment:

- A spatula
- a saucepot
- cheesecloth (available at any supermarket)
- a large mixing bowl
- a colander
- a thermomter
- some string or butchers twine

Seriously. That’s it.

Now let’s see how it’s made, step by step.

Pour the whole milk into the sauce pot, and heat the milk up gently over medium heat, stirring with the spatula frequently to avoid scalding the milk.

Heat the milk until its around 170F, you should see small bubbles forming around the outside of the milk.

Now for the fun part. Turn off the heat completely, and add in the lemon juice and buttermilk. Stir lightly. It will begin to curdle the milk right away!

Now let it sit for 10 minutes or so, to let the curds develop and separate from the whey.

After 10-12 minutes, place a colander into a mixing bowl and line it with cheesecloth. Be sure to use extra cheese cloth, about 3-4 layers.

Next, you need to start ladling the fresh cheese curds into the cheesecloth to strain out the excess moisture, do this in batches with a strainer:

Eventually you’ll have what looks like this, fresh, beautiful cheese curds! We just need to drain off the excess moisture now to firm it up.

Use some string to tie the cheese cloth together into a tight bundle:

Next, tie the bundle to a wooden spoon or similar utensil and hang it over a deep pot, let it hang for 20-25 minutes to drain out the excess moisture. Also, twist it tight to force some of the excess moisture out of the cheese.

You’ll notice all the excess liquid has drained out of the cheese, and it’s time to snip that bad boy open and have a look.

Use scissors to snip off the top and look what’s there smiling back up at you:

Next, it needs seasoning. To do this old school, simply use good sea salt, however I like to add some fresh cracked black pepper and finely chopped fresh thyme. You can really get creative with flavourings as this is a very fresh, creamy and neutral cheese.

Use a spatula and mix the seasonings into the cheese evenly.

Next, place it into a a couple small ramekins or bowls. I find the lunch pack peaches containers work great

And that’s it! Your cheese is done. Place it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it. And when you are, unmold it simply and serve it with your favorite mini toasts, crackers, fruits, chutneys, anything your heart can imagine. This is also time to use your very best olive oil to give the cheese a light and fruity accompaniment. I’m partial to some brioche triangles and my childhood favorite, triscuits!

Making this type of cheese is not only ridiculously simple, it’s fun too. Make it for your next gathering and nonchalantly drop the old, “Oh that cheese? It IS good isn’t it? Yeah I made that, no biggie.” Watch your guests’ eyes widen with bewilderment as your cheese-making skills become the talk of the party.

Up next? Let’s make some mozzarella!

Pork chops have gotten a bit of a bad rap over the years. Most have come to accept the fact that when it’s pork chops for dinner, there had better be a a mega-value tub of apple sauce on the table to drown them in. Or gravy. Or wine. Much of this stems from scares about pork from 20+ years ago, when we were told we needed to cook the begeesus out of any pork for it to be safe to consume. I grew up eating pork chops that were less appetizing than some pairs of shoes I owned, so when I began cooking seriously, making a delicious, succulent, juicy pork chop was one of the very first challenges I tackled.

The two secrets for cooking mega-tasty pork chops:

1. It has to be a thick chop! None of those little “minute chops” you see at the supermarket.

2. It should be bone in for maximum flavour. This is not absolutely necessary, but source out a good butcher and get him (or her) to cut you a few of these bad boys:

Season both sides liberally with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Now how do we cook it? We want to crust the exterior of the meat, while keeping it from drying out. The answer is our trusty cast iron pan + oven combo. When cooking meats these two are BFFs, giving you both the high heat sear and the ambient heat from the oven to perfectly cook our chops. Preheat the oven to 325F.

If you have a gas range, flip the pan down on the burner and turn it on high. Let it get hot hot hot, let it go for at least 10 minutes.

Flip the pan over, add a thin layer of veg. oil to the pan, and add in your pork chops.

Now don’t freakin’ touch them! Let them sit right where they are and don’t move them around for 8-9 minutes. After this time, flip ‘em over and you should be greeted by this:

Now add a dollop of butter to the pan, and continue to cook for 2 minutes while basting the pork with the juices and butter. Oh yeah.

Now transfer that bad boy to the oven, and continue to cook for an additional 6-7 minutes.

Remove from the oven:

Now remove the chops from the pan, and drain off half the excess fat. Add in 2 diced apples, 1 clove of chopped garlic, salt and pepper, and saute for 3-4 minutes until softened.

Add in 1/2 cup of dry white wine, and the chopped sage, let reduce for 5 minutes and turn off heat. Add in 1 tsp of butter and 1 tbsp chopped parsley.

To plate! Serve with your favorite sides, here I used a quinoa, pea shoot and roasted beet salad with lemon dijon vinaigrette, but any salad or sides will do. Plate the pork chop across the sides, and finally spoon the sauce and apples over the pork chop. Garnish with more parsley and fresh sage.

As soon as you cut into the pork, all those awful shoe-leather references will be a thing of the past when this is on your fork:

Pork chops are an inexpensive and delicious cut for dinner. It’s a terrific vessel for strong flavours, so go nuts with your marinades and flavours. Spicy, sweet, curry, tangy, the many sly winking faces of pork will take everything your pantry’s got.

Don’t give up on pork chops just yet!

Enjoy

Most of the recipes we post seem to take some time to prepare. Okay, a lot of time. But not everything needs to braise for hours or be cut from an obscure part of an animal to be delicious. Sometimes your second cousin Richard shows up with his 3 kids and 2 yappy dogs and you want to throw together a few ingredients, feed them and get them on their way.

Watch us throw together a delicious and healthy meal, Cajun Dry Rubbed NY Steak with a chick pea, roasted pepper & artichoke salad with chipotle lime vinaigrette.

Recipe (Serves 4)

- 4 NY steaks (6-7 oz each)
- 2 cups chick peas, drained of liquid and rinsed under cold water
- 1 cup artichoke hearts, roughly chopped
- 2 limes
- 1 cup roasted red peppers, roughly diced
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- 2 tsp adobo sauce from a can of chipotle peppers
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- salt and pepper

Dry Rub (makes extra, save it for rice, chicken, or other dishes needing extra flavour)

- 1/4 cup smoked paprika
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- 1 tbsp ancho chili powder
- 1 tbsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper

Method:
Preheat BBQ to high.
In a large mixing bowl, juice both the limes. Add in the adobo sauce, salt and pepper and veg oil. Whisk to combine. Add in the artichoke hearts, roasted peppers, chick peas and cilantro. Toss to coat evenly. Set aside in fridge.

Rub steaks liberally with dry rub, and grill to preferred doneness. Let rest for 5 minutes, and slice thinly on an angle. On a large plate, ladle the chick pea salad, and build height. Arrange the sliced steak around the salad and garnish with more cilantro leaves.

Doesn’t get much easier than that does it?

Enjoy!

One of the most common questions I get asked is, “What’s your favorite thing to eat?” And I can’t answer it, man! How could I? The truth is, for me I really enjoy the process of cooking more than I enjoy eating itself. Don’t get me wrong; I like eating. A lot. But there’s something about the virtue of cooking something beautiful yourself, filling the house with smells, crying as you chop onions (I don’t care how hard core of a chef you are, they still get you), and having a glass of wine or two while you do it. For me that’s what this dish is all about, and it’s one of my favorite things to prepare:

Recipe: (Serves 4-5)

- 3 lbs boneless beef short ribs, trimmed of excess fat
- 1 large onion, diced
- 2 carrots, diced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, diced
- 6 small dried figs (use fresh if available)
- 2 cups Cabernet Sauv. (or another full bodied red)
- 2 cups beef stock
- 4 large celery roots, peeled and cubed
- 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
- 1/4 cup cream or milk
- 2 tbsp butter
- 3 large portobello mushrooms, sliced
- fresh parlsey for garnish
- salt and pepper
- flour

Method:

Season the pieces of short ribs liberally with salt and pepper, and dust the pieces with flour to help them brown. In a large, heavy bottomed pot, heat a thin layer of oil and add in a tsp of butter. Add in the pieces of short ribs and brown over med-high heat for 5-7 minutes until caramelized. Flip and do the same on the other side. Once they are evenly browned, remove short ribs from the pots and add in the garlic, onion, celery, and carrots and saute for 2-3 minutes until soft. Add in the dried figs, wine and beef stock and bring to a boil. Add the short ribs back into the pot and cover with a parchment paper lid, which will allow for some evaporation and reduction of the sauce while still protecting the top of the short ribs from becoming burnt. Cook at 325 for approx 3 hours or until the short ribs are very tender.

While short ribs are in the oven, heat a large pot with boiling salted water. Add in the cubed celery root and the sprigs of rosemary. Boil for approx. 20-25 mins until fork tender. Remove rosemary sprigs from pot and mash or whip with cream butter, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

In a medium sauté pan, cook the mushrooms over med-high heat in 1 tbsp of veg oil and butter. Add in 1/2 cup of red wine and let it reduce. When mushrooms are dark and most of the liquid has evaporated, turn heat to low and set aside.

When short ribs are out of the oven, remove them from the pot, and using a hand blender or a standard blender purée the vegetables and figs into the sauce. Place back on the heat for 2-3 more minutes to reduce.

TO PLATE!

Plate a couple spoonfuls of the rosemary celery root purée in the center of the plate and top with a couple pieces of the braised beef short ribs. Add a tbsp or so of the sliced red wine mushrooms on top, and finish with the cabernet fig sauce on top. Garnish with fresh parsley and DIG IN!