Simplicity is your friend – Taste Scene

Food doesn’t have to be complicated to be fantastic. In fact, sometimes, I think the simpler, the better.

Take a sliced of toasted wheaten bread, buttered, with a shard of sharp cheddar. The bread loves the butter, the butter loves the bread and everyone loves the cheese – it’s a match made in the celestial halls of the Prime Mover.

Or, as another example, take a really fresh tomato, cut it in half and anoint each demi-sphere with a pinch of really good salt. It’s fresh, of the earth and if anything the seasoning accentuates the delicacy of the tomato’s flavour – it’s another duet with echoes of the divine.

Last week I was alerted to the fact that new potatoes would be arriving at my local shop – Wexford Queens and, not to put too fine a point on things, I remained on high alert until they arrived.

The pile of spuds in the picture was my dinner on Friday evening. I didn’t eat the whole pile, mind you; I’m not a complete gulpin. However, these Wexford Queens, scrubbed and then steamed and then lathered with butter and seasoned liberally with salt and pepper – whilst as simple a supper as is possible to have – were such a joy as to make your eyes shine.

Existing somewhere in-between waxy and floury and not really coming down in either camp, the ‘Queens were astoundingly good. Like really good olive oil or an egg just laid that morning, it was their freshness of flavour which made them so moreish and because of that, they didn’t need anything else other than the butter and the seasoning. As the first Irish potatoes of the year, they were elating. I’ll tell you this for nothing, I almost had to be rolled away from the table that evening. In fact, they were so good, I had them two nights later anointed with yet more butter and with a few chives for good measure.

You may have noticed another picture on the page here and yes, as you might suspect, that’s beef or in this case, beef short ribs. They were actually a present from my sister (she knows the craic) and with time on my hands on Sunday, I decided they would be cherished in that most uncomplicated of ways: The slow cooker.

To be perfectly honest, I’d never cooked beef short ribs before although from Sunday’s experience, it won’t be the last time. They were beefier almost, than I had anticipated them to be and even before I added heat to the equation, they smelled quite strong (like a good steak, these bad boys had been aged). I considered my options. However, after a bit of a dig around online I realised Korean shorts ribs were a non-starter (there were too many ingredients I didn’t have – some I didn’t even recognise), as were barbecued short ribs (it was raining) as were French braised short ribs (I only had one bottle of red wine and none could be sacrificed for the recipe).

That left Mexican short ribs which I briefly considered but ultimately decided against. Long-story-short, seeing as this was my first time with beef short ribs, I didn’t want the spices to overpower the meat.

In the end, I liberally seasoned each short rib and then fried them up as you can see in the picture, hard and fast with a drizzle of oil and then they went into the slow cooker with a sliced onion (for sweetness), two halved tomatoes (for freshness), two garlic cloves (I love garlic), 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (for depth) and half a pint of beef stock (for lubrication).

Seven hours later they bone slipped out of the meat with zero resistance. Put it like this: You wouldn’t have needed teeth to chew them. And the flavour! Let’s just say I stopped counting calories after the second one.

Food doesn’t have to be complicated to be fantastic. Anyone tells you otherwise, tell them to wise up.