At San Francisco’s Mourad one of the most popular dishes, short ribs, takes a whopping three days to make. The process is so lengthy not only because of the meat, but the time it takes to make the butter in which the short rib is cooked.
Chef de cuisine Rasika Venkatesa starts making the ras el hanout butter by adding roughly chopped garlic and Fresno chiles to a pot of melted clarified butter. She then adds tarragon, chives, and the ras el hanout into a separate container. Once the butter mixture with the garlic and chiles has come up, it gets poured into the container with the seasoning.
When the hot butter is poured in, steam starts to rise from the water in the herbs. “It’s such a beautiful layering process of the aromatics,” says Nyesha Arrington, host of Plateworthy.
“We don’t want to fry the herbs,” says Venkatesa. “We want it to basically steep in the butter [...] That’s why we pour it on top of the herbs, because if we infuse it initially it’s gonna burn,” says Venkatesa.
When the process is finished, the butter gets chilled to be used later.
“It’s a time-consuming process, but it’s a labor of love,” says Venkatesa.
Watch the full video to see how Venkatesa takes three days to make the short ribs.