Sunday, August 16, 2009

Braised Short Ribs Part 2

So Monday, early afternoon I begin the second half of this recipe. (which btw, came from last year's Food & Wine best new chef's edition.)
The first step is to pull it out of the fridge, remove the ribs and strain the liquid.

I toss these veggies, into the compost pile they go. I place the ribs into an enameled cast iron pot. If you are lucky to have some Le Cruset then yay for you. I have the ghetto Rachel Ray version. :) Then I prep my next batch of ingredients...
Chicken stock (I get this brand by the case at Costco. It's actually pretty good as far as boxed Chicken stock goes) a few more carrots and some onion. These onions are fresh from our garden. They are on the small side (we had to pick them early, it's along story) so I used 4 of them. If you had regular sized onions 1 would do just fine.
Peel the carrots and cut them into chunks
You want to keep the carrots somewhat big because they will braise along with the beef and if they are too small they will get mushy quick. Nothing worse than mushy carrots.

Toss the carrots and onions on top of the beef in your pot

Like my ghetto Le Cruset? LOL I shouldn't joke. My kids got it for me for mother's day.
Then combine the wine liquid you strained from the veggies with the chicken stock (entire box) and pour over the beef and veggies. Cover and place in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 2 hours. then remove the lid and let it cook un-covered for another 45 minutes. Mmmmm. The house smells WONDERFUL

Remove the pot from the oven, pull out the ribs and place them on a baking sheet, pull the bones apart, and pull the meat apart with your hands. (let it cook a bit before you do this). And this is where the the type of short ribs come in. These ribs I got are what you find most often in the stores. The origional recipe called for "Flanken Style" short ribs, which have a fair amount of fat on them (you want that) but lots of meat. These ones I got had more fat than meat on them so there wasn't a whole lot of meat to work with. Spread the meat out in the baking sheet and toss the carrots on them. Strain the onions from the liquid and put the remaining liquid into a fat seperator. Just to seperate the fat from the good stuff. Pour a little liquid over the meat and carrots.

Place this under the broiler in your oven for a few minutes. The meat and carrot will sizzle and get nice little brown bits. YUM. When I have made this in the past I serve it over buttered egg noodles. Tonight the husband and kids want rice so I oblige.

The beef is tender, flavorful, just plain yummy. And while the beef is the star here, I LOVE the carrots. You really can't beat veggies braised in wine with beef. This is one of Alec's favorite meals. He scarfs the beef down and asks for more.

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