Roasted Pork Short Ribs, Borlotti Bean Ragú, Honey-glazed Cipollini Onions

and *special* Asparagus Salad Amuse-Bouche

My friend Daniel came up the Bay Area for the weekend and wanted to try some Ad Hoc - what better way to bring some of my friends together than a nice dinner. Here was the dinner for 4 for Daniel, Esther, Basile, and me!

Roasted Pork Short Ribs

Okay, these aren't really short ribs. The butcher in the Ferry Building apparently didn't have any :\ These are baby-back ribs, which are pretty much the same thing just longer in cut. They were still amazing so :)

Just generously season the meat with salt and pepper, and sear.

Stick in the oven to slowly cook for about 2 hours and have it sit for about 30 minutes before cutting into pieces.

So simple, but oh so good. It had a nice crust and was super moist in the inside. Mmm.

Borlotti Bean Ragu

Pretty mise en place!

Borlotti beans are no where to be found in markets! But, they were sold at the Farmer's Market. After soaking your dry beans overnight (which I didn't do), boil it down with chicken stock, carrot, leek, onion, and sachet.

Once the beans are cooked, add it to a pot of bacon slabs that were seared with butter, shallots, and thyme.

Mix and cook through!

Because the beans weren't soaked for long enough, they were obviously a little tough - sad.

Honey-glazed Cipollini Onions

After cutting the top and bottom of the onions to make flat surfaces, cook the onions in a pan with canola oil, honey, thyme, and garlic.

The honey creates a nice glaze for the onions.

The onions were soft, sweet, and deliciousss.

Amuse-Bouche

Amuse-Bouche is literally translated to "amusing the mouth" and is a single, bite-sized hors d'œuvre that's given before a meal. This was given to them before all the other parts of the meal shown above.

One of my favorite dishes in Ad Hoc, so far, was the Asparagus Salad and a had a good idea to condense it down into one bite.

Making croutons by cooking ripped pieces of country loaf in garlic oil.

Grilling smaller pieces of asparagus.

Instead of poaching a regular egg, a quail egg was used to make sure it would fit in the bite.

So cute!

Tied prosciutto into little knots and assembled all the other ingredients onto a spoon. Drizzled balsamic and olive oil. Wahlah!

The one biters were amazing just like the original dish. Definitely a great way to start of the meal because we all wanted more! Love the amuse-bouche ideas and might do them more often.