I suddenly craved short rib stew. Never made it before, but hey, I’m great at jumping into things without a plan. So, I set off to buy some meat. 😋
With a shopping bag in hand, I first hit up Nijiya Market nearby. This place sells everything from ingredients to ready meals and is always buzzing with people. Sure, other grocery stores like Walgreens have sushi and bento, but honestly, they taste meh. Most rolls are half-cooked and cold. But Nijiya Market? Their kimbap and tonkatsu are always fresh and delicious. Just before lunch, their freshly-made stuff beats most restaurants. Yet, despite searching high and low, no short rib meat to be found. Not a single bone-in product in sight. 😩
Now I’m craving short rib stew even more! 🤤
I scoured the internet, thinking of hitting bigger stores like Whole Foods, Safeway, or Trader Joe’s. These places are huge, so they might have what I need. Thankfully, there’s a Trader Joe’s nearby—well, ten blocks away, but who’s counting? I couldn’t quit now; I was determined to satisfy this craving. 🌟
The meat section at Trader Joe’s was overwhelming. Seriously, it was a meat overload! But among all that meat, there was just one with bones. It lay there, sad and lonely, like a forlorn guitar in the bottom corner. 🎸
‘I choose you, the only bone-in one around.’
A whole cow’s worth of ribs for 11 bucks? Crazy! For 30 bucks, maybe I could buy a cow. Grabbing it, I hurried home. Starving, I might have ripped open the vacuum pack and devoured it raw if I waited any longer. 🏃♂️
Once home, I searched online for ‘easy short rib stew recipe’. Turns out, there’s no such thing. This dish isn’t simple at all. Every recipe had royal-level effort involved, like they were cooking for a king! Just soaking the meat to remove blood took at least three hours. Some even did it for ten hours, like preparing an offering. Why remove the blood anyway? Not like it’s bad for you. Otherwise, blood sausages wouldn’t exist. So, I decided to skip that step. 🤔
Remembering a food show tip that scissors are easier than knives, I attempted to cut the meat with scissors. But the chunks were too big. After a few tries, my fingers hurt, and I gave up. Switching to a knife, the meat was diced in seconds. With my trusty $10 IKEA knife, I could probably take down a bear! 🐻
After rinsing the diced meat, I threw it into boiling water. Soon, the smell of short rib soup wafted through the air. 🍲
‘If you get tired of making stew, congrats, you’ve got soup!’
Cooking is all connected. Next up was the sauce. I picked the simplest recipe I could find, but even that needed a ton of ingredients. I only had soy sauce and sugar, so I mixed those. Can I even call this a sauce? Doesn’t matter. It was time to score the cooked meat. The recipe said to cut against the grain, but why? It all gets chewed up anyway. Maybe it’s for ease. Yet, my knife was so sharp, scoring with the grain was a breeze. Speeding up, I felt like a chef. Finished, I poured over what looked like sauce. It said to marinate for 15 minutes, but I couldn’t wait. I tossed the sauced meat and some radish into a pan, adding a little soup broth. I simmered it all until it thickened. 😋
The simmering smell was surprisingly good. Tasting it, I found it less sweet than usual, so I dumped in more sugar. After a quick stir, it was done. Despite using hardly anything, it was delicious. Honestly, at that moment, anything would’ve tasted great! 😅
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