My friend Asa introduced me to rib flap meat, which has a bunch of contractive tissues but is very richly flavorful. She made it for me with some miracle of pan frying and it was amazing.
But when I found some intercostal beef fingers, I knew I would play it safe with braising.
I had also recently bought a seasoning mix for beef soups and some mushroom seasoning granules, so I used both of them with some beef broth to because the meat for a few hours (with a diced onion).
The end result was incredibly tender pieces of meat, which I pulled out of the liquid and refrigerated it separately. The next day, I popped the fat that had separated and solidified of the top and froze it separately.
For the first meal, I was very tired and hungry, so I made instant mashed potatoes, reheated some of the meat to go on top.
Then I made gravy from the reserved fat, pre-toasted flour, and some of the braising liquid. I then seasoning it with salt, soy sauce (at the end), black pepper, and some thyme.
Second dish – I had some wide and thick rice noodles, and I used them to make some soup.
I diluted a little more than half of the remaining braising liquid with water. To make sure the small potatoes were cooked through, I parboiled them in the noodle water while it was coming up to a boil. Then I sliced the potatoes in half and put them in the soup. I also cut up a carrot and a radish and cooked them in the soup.
When the noodles were ready, I filled the bottom of a bowl with them and laid out all of my soup components on top of the noodles so I could take a pretty picture (also so that I wouldn’t splash everywhere when filling the bowl).
Then I poured in as much of the liquid as would fit and had a delicious meal. (And saved the amount that didn’t fit)
A few days later, I tried the same soup with a few modifications. I melted a little of the reserved fat and started by cooking some ginger slices. Then I added a generous spoonful of tomato paste and melted that into a little bit of the reserved liquid. Once the tomato paste was smooth, I added in the remaining braising liquid and topped up with water. Then I did the same parboiling with the potatoes, but sliced them a little thinner. I had put the rest of the carrot and radish up in my refrigerator with some vinegar for a quick pickle so I used the vinegary vegetables in the soup.
I assembled everything with the wheat noodles and poured the soup over.
So now I have left about half of the fat and about a pint of mixed leftover gravy from the first meal and leftover broth from the third meal. Everything was tasty. Would make again.