- We are here at Metta, in Brooklyn, where the chef grew up, in Argentina, cooking everything over fire. And now, he's doing that
in his own restaurant, cooking the whole menu over an open flame. That's how he does short ribs, too. Everyone braises short
ribs, but we're here to find out you can
cook them a better way. - Yeah. (traditional guitar) - Negro (Chef's nickname), so good to see you. - Welcome, guys. We're going to learn
how to cook short ribs. Short ribs is a cut that
doesn't have too much use, or when you talk with
somebody, he says one option. Braise the short rib.
- Yeah. But in Argentina, it's all
basically main cut of meat, when you're talking
about asado with friends. First thing you do is just
go buy pounds of short ribs. So we're going to be playing
around with a different style of cooking of short
ribs, using open fire. Then, we're going to be doing some kind of Argentinian-style, more
traditional short ribs. And then, we're going to
use kind of Metta-style. We have some short ribs
then have been marinate with a special treatment.... (laughing)
- That sounds ominous. - The American thought
is that food barbecue; rib-eye is the best cut
because it has the most fat from the loin, you can grill
it fast, eat it medium-rare, and you get to still eat some of that fat. Short ribs, if you braise
them, you never really get that grilled flavor. So this is a long grill,
it's like very similar, but completely different. - What's the process
for building the fire? - It definitely depends
on what is your schedule for the day and what
proteins you need to cook. Definitely if you hanging big proteins, you gonna need the fire earlier. You can see here now, two
ways to use the cooking, The fire one is radiant
heat from the coals. The short ribs, they need to be in radiant heat from the flames. This a kind of classic
set-up in South America. You go to any house and
you would find one of this in the garden, or some people,
we have like a whole room in the house that is just
for the barbecue, you know? - Yeah.
- Let's cook. - Let's cook.
- Cool. - We're kind of trying to flip the short rib as a kind of, like a small dish, so I tried it for the first
time on Friday, this dish, and we're gonna try today again. If you guys like it, we
gonna put it in the menu. (laughing)
- Fantastic. - No pressure. (laughing) - So, what have you done to these so far? - These one, we do like
a quick dry-age technique that we have over here. But in the back area,
we have coals surrounded by the hole in the middle. So basically you just create like
a convection of heat. It's never going to burn, it's just going to get crispy slowly. - I think Americans are
starting to get this now. - Yeah.
- It's like, don't just get it (bleep) raging hot. - In Argentina, basically,
if you have any fire touching the meat, you
are pretty bad (at) cooking. - So the whole thing is
kinda just like, relax, man. (traditional guitar) - Now, we going to go to one
of the most popular way to eat a short ribs in Argentina. Mayonnaise and chimichurri are
in every asado that you do. That's like a medium-well, well-done cut. - So, normally, you're
dipping the bread in the mayo, bread, meat, bread, meat--
- You just do-- - Wine, wine, wine. Holy (bleep), Negro. This is incredible. There's a little bit of
texture, but it's not chewy. - So juicy because there's so much fat. - I don't think I'm ever going
to braise a short rib again. (laughing) I think this is just
what I do from now on. - So these are ready. - And you can hear a
crunching, yeah, that's great. - Let's chop some of our dandelion greens. Going to dump it with
the dandelion greens. Here we have some scallions and mint. I don't think somebody from
Argentina will be happy about putting mint with
short ribs, but, who cares? - They'll get over it. - Actually, we're huge--
- Calabria Cheese. - In Argentina. - So here, we have a dressing that is made with roasted garlic
puree, red wine vinegar, the most leaves with marjoram stem. - So a lot of this dressing is byproduct. I don't even know how to describe that. It's sweet, obviously
acidic, not fishy at all. When was the last time you
saw, 'Back to the Future'? - Long time ago. - There's the scene at the
very beginning, where he stands in front of the wall of amplifiers-- - Yeah. (chuckles)
- He plays one guitar note and it blows him
- And blows everything. - into the wall. That's kinda what this is reminding me of. - Before onions go bad, we
just turn it into a powder. - So this is the onion powder you made. - Yes. - Let's hit it guys. - Here is Taylor with us,
Chef de Cuisine at Metta, who has been working since the beginning. This a crispy short rib
salad, we're looking to put in the menu, so please guys, let's try it and see, if we can put
in in the menu or not. (laughing)
- Right on, I'm ready. - No pressure, there at
all, no pressure at all. - Yeah, it can go on the menu. - Despite the amount of
acid, garlic, chiles, it is really mellow. - I have a quick question for you: Can something still be a salad, when half of the salad is meat? - Yeah, a meat salad.
- Uh huh. - Meat salad. (lively guitar) - Our first run, for the
first year, was short ribs, grilled traditionally,
asado-style, Argentinian style. And now, we're start to work
short ribs into other dishes, and started like, alright, well, yeah, you can have a meat salad. - We have the same kind of
conversation all the time in the butcher shop, about
like, different steaks. Nothing is going to be exactly the same. You want a Denver steak, it's
gonna need to be like medium, you don't want it rare,
it's not gonna be good rare. - That is a good example,
because it's something that we have here with the short ribs, people ordering medium-rare
or rare short ribs, like you cannot, no.
- No, don't do that. - You not gonna eat it. - And that's just something,
you would, people would just take away, like
different cuts require different methods and
different times in cooking. - Right.
- And some cuts are... better, well-done.
- Yup. - Okay guys, we gonna take
down this short rib blade and it's been hanging here,
it's almost four hours. Should be, medium, medium-well. You ready for us? (whistles) - You still see all the marbling inside and because it was cooked slow, it's just that fat is keeping inside. - You get that nice, even
heat, that fat's not going to render down as quickly. That's what patience gets you.
- Yeah. - Best one yet. (chuckles) - About all of that fat
from the slow cooking, but completely dry, it's not
masked with anything else. - This is one of those, hey
America, we've been (bleep) this cut up for a couple hundred years. - Yeah.
- You gotta, gotta start doing it like this. Braising it, you kinda lose
the integrity of the muscle and how it's structured, and
you kinda just break it down. - The fat actually renders
out, rather than staying inside the meat, so it's
a completely different way of thinking about it. - And it's always nice to
know that, an example of how just taking your time,
like don't worry about, you don't want the fire touching it, like what it's creating around
it, is what's important. - Yeah. - You can serve this on the menu. (stiffing a laugh)
- Good to know. - You could do that.
- We're ready now. (boisterous laughing) - We gonna be working
this beef heart carpaccio. - Whoa.
- That's it. So basically, you just wanna
give a quick sear, smoking it. - So why beef heart? - We don't like to waste
in Metta, and as example of short ribs, we need a cut,
that nobody uses or for us, is important to incorporate
this kind of off-cut. - Let's eat it. That is (bleep) fantastic. - Funky, spicy. - Sauce is so good.
- Yeah. - Love the iron, just the slightest bit, but it still tastes like a steak. - We don't try to
cover the flavor with it, just trying to pair it with all
that spiciness together to a level, then
it's a kind of balances, so it doesn't come to your mouth, straight like that iron-taste. - This is amazing, man. Thank you so much.
- Thank you. - My pleasure.
- This has been completely eye-opening. - Thank you guys for coming to us. - For more episodes, like
this, just click here. (gentle traditional guitar) (music slides into jazzy riff) - It's (bleep) good. - Holy (bleep), that's
not what I was expecting. - Most sweet and sour things,
you're used to being like, super sweet and--
