Ingredients

for the dough

• 2 tbsp active dry yeast
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 C warm water
• 6 C flour
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 2/3 C canola oil (plus more to coat the bowl)

for the filling

• 8 C fresh spinach or other greens (I like using a mix of sturdy leafy greens, it’s more interesting that way)
• 1 lb ground meat (lamb or beef)
• 3 C finely diced yellow onion
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper
• 1 C freshly squeezed lemon juice (and ZEST from those lemons)
• 1 tsp cinnamon or allspice
• 1 C pine nuts or chopped walnuts, toasted

Directions

1. Dump all the dough ingredients in your stand mixer and knead with dough hook until very soft, smooth, and tacky (but not sticky enough to leave dough on your hands).

2. In a clean large bowl, lightly coat the dough and the sides of the bowl with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm spot until doubled, about 90 minutes.

3. Now we’re onto the flling! Sprinkle half the salt on the spinach in another large bowl. Set aside for 10 minutes

4. Squeeze as much juice out of the spinach as possible. Discard the liquid - we want nice dry spinach for our filling.

5. Chop up the spinach. I think we tend to go sorta coarse not really big chunks.

6. Combine the spinach with the rest of the filling ingredients (don’t forget the remaining tsp salt!).

7. Preheat the oven to 375 F and line a few baking sheets with parchment or silpat.

8. Work with about 1/4 the dough at a time. Roll out to 1/8” thick, into 4” squares. (They’re supposed to be rounds and ultimately triangles, but I don’t care about the shape, so I prefer squares so I don’t have to deal with re-rolling scraps.)

9. Place a heaping tablespoon of filling in the center of each 4” dough piece. Try to keep it in the center without touching the edges. The dough is pretty forgiving, though.

10. Bring the sides of the dough together in the center over the filling and pinch firmly together.

11. Place on baking sheets and brush with a bit of olive oil. They don’t spread much, so maybe an inch or so apart.

12. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown. (We actually use convection mode by default nowadays and this seems fine.)

Notes

Mostly from here, but we mix meat and random greens and use a lot more lemon and simplified some of the steps based out of sheer laziness. (And doubled the quantities. Probably should make even more. These freeze well and are great with hot sauce.)

Ingredients

• 2 lbs chicken wings (split into wingettes/drumettes)
• 1 tbsp baking POWDER
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• oil
• hot sauce / butter

Directions

1. Preheat convection oven or air fryer to 450 F.

2. Set up a baking sheet covered in foil with a cooling rack on top of it.

3. Oil the cooling rack, just to grease it up a bit.

4. Pat the chicken wings dry, then toss with baking powder and salt.

5. Put the wings on the cooling rack, with at least a bit of space between them.

6. Lower the oven to 425 F (convection).

7. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until golden and crispy and done.

8. Eat with hot sauce mixed with melted butter, and perhaps a nice crunchy salad.

Ingredients

• 10 lbs mixed red meat on the bone, ideally including: beef shank (sliced like osso bucco), lamb shoulder arm chops, ox tail, veal shank or tail, and if you feel like it, maybe some lamb neck bones or beef short ribs – whatever you can find!)
• Safflower or other neutral oil
• 3 heads garlic (yes, HEADS, not cloves)
• 3/8-1/2 C coarsely ground black pepper (no, that’s not a typo)
• 2-3 bottles red wine (ideally a young Chianti, supposedly, though we’ve used all sorts of inexpensive reds to good result)
• Salt to taste

Directions

1. Salt the meat a bit. Possibly the day before. You can always add more salt later, of course, but it’s nice to start early.

2. Get a big pan (or two at once, is what I do) nice and hot, grease it up a bit with safflower or some other neutral oil, and brown your meat nice and good, tossing each piece into a big bowl once it’s good and dark on all sides.

3. For this much meat, I use three heavy-bottomed pots to cook a batch of peposo – a nice big cazuela (a Spanish clay pot), the bottom of my tagine (a Moroccan clay pot), and a big cast iron pan. Use whatever you’ve got, this is just what happens to be in my kitchen. Relax, it’ll all work out in the end.

4. Lay out your meat in a single layer, tightly packed into the pots or pans you’re using to cook it. (Note: If you use short ribs, I find that they come out better when packed on their side, rather than bone up or bone down.)

5. Take the garlic heads apart, discarding the outer skin but not peeling the individual cloves. Tuck the garlic cloves in the various crevices between the meats.

6. Sprinkle the black pepper over everything, then pour in enough wine to mostly (but not completely!) cover the meat. This usually turns out to be the first 2 bottles, for me.

7. Cover the pots with tin foil (I don’t actually have lids that fit the pots I tend to use for this dish – your mileage may vary, just make sure they’re covered!) and put them on your stove at its lowest possible setting. If your stove is super intense, you may want to use a diffuser.

8. Now you just have to be patient. Some cuts start feeling tender and wonderful and done after about 3 hours, while others take closer to 4 or 5. After about two hours, if you got that 3rd bottle of wine, you can check in and pour some more in to make up for whatever may have cooked off. If not, don’t worry, it’ll still be delicious.

9. Start checking the meat after about 3 hours. Poke every piece with a fork, and take out whichever ones feel done. I like to shred the meat off the bone and connective tissue while the rest of the meat cooks further, then do another check, and so on.

10. As the meat comes off the bone, make sure to push the marrow out of the bones and into a small bowl you’ve set aside for that purpose. As each pot finishes up, take out the garlic cloves and squish them from their skins into that same little bowl. Discard the garlic skins, emptied bones, and [if you’re picky like me] bits of connective tissue. Stir the marrow and garlic together with a fork until it’s a nice squishy tasty mess.

11. Once everything is out of the remaining braising wine, stir the garlic/marrow into the wine to create the sauce. Turn the heat back on and reduce the sauce until it’s nice and thick – it doesn’t have to be super dense, but you want it thick enough to really coat every bite and stick to it.

12. That’s it. Stir the meat back into the sauce, and salt to taste. Eat approximately forever, with enough bread to sop up the sauce and something green and vivid and crunchy on the side to contrast with the deep rich ultimate winy meatiness of the peposo.

Notes

Adapted from Piano, Piano, Pieno by Susan McKenna Grant.

Yes, this recipe makes tons. Feel free to scale it down. We like making a lot and freezing some, though.

Ingredients

• 4 lbs beef spare ribs or 6 lbs beef short ribs (if they’re very fatty, get even more)
• 3/8 C date molasses
• 3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2 tbsp ground ginger
• 3/8 tsp mesquite smoke powder (this is silly but really tasty)
• Lots of freshly ground black pepper
• Salt to taste
• Beef stock to taste (optional)

Directions

1. Mix together everything except the ribs and stock in a bowl – this will be used as both marinade and sauce later on.

2. Remove 1/3 of the marinade to another bowl, and thin it with beef stock to taste, then set it aside. This will be the sauce.

3. Rub the rest of the marinade all over the ribs. If you are patient, let them sit in it in the fridge overnight. If not, just go ahead and roast them right away.

4. Preheat your oven to 350 F.

5. Set up a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil. Wrap the marinade-covered ribs with more aluminum foil in a nice tight package, then roast them until tender and done. Spare ribs take about 2 hours, while short ribs take closer to 2-3 hours.

Notes

This is particularly nice if you pull the meat off the bone and mix into the sauce (like pulled pork) before serving.

Ingredients

• 3 slices lamb neck (about 1 lb)
• 4 big cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• An equal amount ginger, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 tbsp pomegranate molasses
• 1 tsp cardamom
• 1 big pinch saffron threads
• 1 C beef stock (or enough to come up halfway up the meat)
• 2 dried birdseye chilis
• 1 tsp honey
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Salt and pepper the meat, then sear. Set aside.

2. Put the ginger and garlic into the pan and stir-fry them until fragrant.

3. Deglaze with the stock.

4. Mix all ingredients together in some sort of thick-bottomed pot. Cover and braise over low heat for a few hours, or until tender and done.

5. Optional, but what we often do: chill and skim off the fat before gently reheating. If you’ve made brisket, you especially oughta slice against the grain and leave the slices to soak up the sauce.

Notes

This recipe pretends to be for lamb neck, but in fact we usually scale it for short ribs or brisket instead.

If you do scale this recipe up, be sure not to increase the quantity of liquid in proportion to the rest of the ingredients. If you do, the meat will boil instead of braising, and the texture will, strangely, end up being too dry.