Beef Short Ribs & Duck Soup

Stole a bag of Ponni rice from the friends that day and cooked up a big batch for dinner and for the fridge. Decided that the best sort of meat and sauce to go with it would be Korean style beef short ribs- galbi-jjim.

Bought $80 worth of beef short ribs to feed four. These short ribs are fairly fatty; the lean parts are quite sizable still. This sort of meaty meal wouldn't be ideal for me, however, it was super satisfying for the man. The marinade wasn't difficult to blend, but I had to go out to buy a bottle of applesauce. That was required as part of the marinade. I wasn't going to also make applesauce. Marinated the short ribs overnight.

The man had just gotten back from a week of crap food in the US. Hahaha. It was a good work trip, but food wise, it was soooo sad. He wasn't in the right venues, and he had no time to rent a car to get out to look for food. He only had two good meals on the day that the friends drove down to take him out around town. So he was absolutely happy to have a one dish meal of sorts like this, and a bowl of soup.

The BFF and I had zipped off for an impromptu dinner of Peking duck one rainy evening two weeks go. Of course we couldn't finish the whole thing. Ate the nice breast meat, and packed the rest of the meat and bones home. The BFF made me take the bones and declared that she wanted a bowl of soup from the bones. Okaaaayy. These bones sat in my freezer till this meal. #ImpieCooks2018

I'm not quite into using duck as a soup base. One could do salted mustard greens and duck soup (鹹菜鴨湯, kiam chye duck soup), but I'm rarely in the mood to boil that. Hahaha. Duck can be very strong, so go easy with the bones and skin if you'd prefer a lighter tasting soup. Always add a few slices of old ginger to balance out flavors. Boiled up a pot of  winter melon, barley and duck soup. The portions of duck bones plus meat I brought back could be split into two pots of soup for eight. Saved a large bowl for the BFF who couldn't join us for dinner. Packed it with a bit of rice and beef, and sent it over to her kitchen. One big portion of 靓汤 for her (she's quite a soup monster) before she flew out on a hectic work trip.