Braised Shortribs, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, and Cream of Blueberry Soup

So while in the process of cooking this meal, I came to the unfortunate realization that I had no decent plates or bowls to display it with.  Now, I know some people might say that with food, taste is most important thing.  But think about this- when presented with food, the first sense to examine it is sight.  Ok, well maybe smell might come before that, but you get the picture.  Since food can involve all of the senses (yes, including sound...try to think about what eating potato chips would be like if they didn't crunch), it can be beneficial to try to embrace all five senses in the presentation.  So what does that mean for me?  It's time to go get some good plates and bowls.  Hopefully the next meal I post will be on some nice white plates so the color and presentation of the food can stand out more.

So on to the food.  I had been planning on making the Cream of Blueberry Soup with Yogurt Charlottes from The French Laundry for a while now, but ran into a few setbacks along the way.  After searching around time for several items needed for the dish, I realized I would have to order them online, and it took a while for me to receive them.  Also, with the busy holidays, I barely had time to think about making a dish that would take several days to prepare, as this soup did.

Fortunately I was able to take off work last week, and on Friday, I was able to begin preparation.  The  soup contains five different parts which are made separately.  On that Friday I began by making the Yogurt Charlottes and the Tellicherry Pepper Syrup.  The following Sunday, I made the Creme Anglaise, Dacquoise, and the Blueberry Soup.  I wanted to serve it as dessert for a full meal, so I was able to put together a simple meal of braised short ribs and garlic mashed potatoes.  Nothing too elaborate, but it served as a nice precursor to the soup.

Now let me tell you about the soup.  When I first tasted it, the only thing I could say was "Wow!".  And I wasn't the only one that had few words to describe it.  It truly was amazing.  Like, stupidly good.  I think I actually started laughing at how good it was.  And then, when I plated the soup with the charlottes and dacquoise, the result was incredible, with very interesting flavors and textures.  This is one recipe that I will definitely be repeating, however, it will probably have to be in the summer when the berries are actually in season, and therefore cheaper.  This time of year, this soup is quite expensive to make.

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Braised Short Ribs

This recipe is an amalgamation of two different braised short rib recipes, one from Keller's Ad Hoc and the other from Andrew Carmellini's Urban Italian.

8-12 short ribs with bone (2 per person)
2 large carrots
1 medium onion
1 shallot
4 cloves garlic
2 1/2 cups dry red wine
2 cups beef broth
4 springs thyme
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.


Cut up the carrots.  I simply sliced them into rounds.

Next, dice your onions and shallots, and mince the garlic.

Prepare your short ribs by sprinkling them with salt and pepper on all sides.

Next, heat canola oil in a deep dutch oven on medium high heat and brown the meat on all sides.  You want to do this pretty quickly, only browning the outside.  You will need to work in batches.  After you brown each batch, remove them from the dutch oven and place on a plate.

After all of the short ribs are browned on the outside, toss in your carrots, onions, shallots, and garlic.

Cook them for several minutes, and then add the wine.

Cook the vegetables and wine for a few minutes, then add the beef broth, the short ribs, and finally, the thyme.

My dutch oven was a little on the small side, but I was able to arrange everything to make it all fit.

Cover, and place it in the oven.  Cook the meat for 2 1/2 hours, or until the meat is so tender a fork will pierce the meat all the way through.  Be sure to check it every 15-20 minutes to make sure the liquid isn't boiling too hard.  If it is, reduce the heat to 350 degrees F.

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Garlic Mashed Potatoes

3 lbs Russet potatoes
6 garlic cloves, peeled
4 Tbs butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper

Peel the potatoes and place in a large pot with enough water to cover them.  Add the garlic cloves and around a tablespoon of salt.  Bring the water to a boil, and boil the potatoes until they are soft and tender.  Drain the potatoes in a colander, and return to the pot.  Add the butter and cream, and using a large fork, potato masher, or similar, mash the potatoes with the butter and cream until they become soft and smooth.  Salt and pepper to taste.

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Cream of Blueberry Soup with Yogurt Charlottes

As with the prior recipes from The French Laundry and Bouchon, I will not be giving out the exact recipe, however, I will be showing the steps I took in order to prepare it.  If you want the recipe, you are going to have to buy the books, or if you just want to preview them, Google Books has them for you to view.

I began with the yogurt charlottes.  Cream was combined with sugar in a saucepan.

Also, take note of my new All Clad Copper Core saucepan.  I was able to get one of these last week, as well as a Copper Core saute pan.  I must say...they are pretty incredible.

In the mean time, I soaked a gelatin sheet in cold water to soften it.

After the sugar dissolved in the cream, the mixture is poured into a bowl, and the soften yogurt sheet is stirred in.

The yogurt is added to the bowl, and the mixture is then cooled.  More cream is whipped in a separate bowl, and then stirred into the mixture.

The mixture is then poured into the hemisphere molds, covered, and placed into the refrigerator.  it is suggested to use an egg carton to keep the molds from tipping over.

The next step was to make the Tellicherry pepper syrup.  The book calls for only 6 tellicherry peppercorns, of which I had to buy a whole bottle of.  I ground up the peppercorns, and added them to a saucepan with water, sugar, raspberries, strawberries, and a spring of mint.

The saucepan is brought to just under simmer, and cooked for around 45 minutes until the syrup begins to form.

After about 45 minutes, the mixture is strained, and the fruit is discarded.

Both of those steps were completed two days prior to serving the soup.  The following steps were completed on the day it was served.

For the creme anglaise, seeds from a vanilla pod were scraped into a sauce pan, the pod was added, along with cream, milk and sugar.

Meanwhile, several egg yolks were whisked with sugar until they thickened.  Part of the previous mixture was added to the egg mixture to temper them, and the egg mixture was then added to the saucepan.  The mixture is then stirred until it thickens into a custard, placed in an ice-bath to cool, and then to the refrigerator to chill.

The dacquoise are round, cookie-like wafers that are used in the presentation of the soup, and also provide an interesting texture.    First, almonds are finely ground in a coffee mill.

Then, egg whites and sugar are whipped in a mixer until they form a meringue.  Then, the ground almonds, sugar, and cornstarch are combined with the meringue.

The mixture is then spread on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and baked.  

About halfway through the baking process, the batter is cut into rounds, and then returned to the oven.  After they are through, they end up looking like this:

I had some breakage, as you can tell, and my cuts weren't as clean as shown in the book, but they tasted awesome.

Finally, I was on to the blueberry soup itself.  First, white wine, lemon zest, and lemon juice were combined in a saucepan and reduced until the wine was a quarter of the original amount.

Then, the lemon zest is strained out, and the blueberries are added to the saucepan with the wine.  

After a while, the berries begin to burst, and end up looking like this:

The tellicherry syrup and sugar is then added to the saucepan and simmered for several minutes.  The mixture is then poured into a blender and blended with care since the contents were still hot.  After blending, the mixture is strained into a large measuring cup, a little water is added, and the mixture is then cooled in an ice bath.

After it cools, the creme anglaise is stirred in, and the soup is ready to serve with the yogurt charlottes and the dacquoise, in my best approximation of picture in the cookbook.

It was also at this point when I had the realization about my plates and bowls.  I really need to get some good white ones.

So, I already told you this soup was amazing, but what exactly did it taste like?  Well, it was a mixture of flavors.  Obviously you have the pretty intense blueberry flavor, but there is also hints of vanilla, raspberry, and then the flavor of the yogurt charlottes.  The soup is very rich and flavorful, and you probably don't want to eat too much at a time.

Honestly, if I do it over again, I will probably omit the charlottes and dacquoise, as I think the soup by itself is awesome and doesn't need them.  They were interesting though, and provided different textures in the soup.

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So there it is.  While this has been a long post,  I hope that it inspires you to try any of these recipes.  They are all worth it.