- 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--