Culinary Disasters

If you have hours to wait this is a great dish to prepare and uses an inexpensive piece of meat that is readily available.  

We are going to braise the ribs which is a very low and slow cooking process with liquid in order to break down the tough and nasty beef rib into something that can be cut with a fork and takes on amazing flavor from the cooking liquid.

First off you are going to need to gather up all your ingredients.

• Couple pound of beef short ribs.   
• 1 Onion chopped fine
• 1 Carrot chopped fine
• 1 Celery chopped fine
• 1 Green pepper chopped fine
• 3/4 of a package of mushrooms quartered (I used baby bellas)
• 4 cloves of garlic chopped fine
• TB of tomato paste
• Veal demi-glace (optional but you can easily make your own or there are some really good pre-made you can find online or in a speciality grocery store)
• Cup of red wine
• 2 cups of beef broth
• TB of fresh chopped rosemary
• TB of fresh thyme
• 3 bay leaves
• Salt and pepper
• TB of unsalted butter
• TB of cornstarch
• High smoke point oil like canola or a light olive oil

As usual put everything that goes in together into seperate bowls.  Your bowls should look like:

• onion, carrot, celery, green pepper
• mushrooms
• garlic

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. 

Take the beef ribs and apply salt and pepper to them. 

Over high heat and using a dutch oven or a large sautee pan add a tb of oil and brown the ribs on all side.  Work in batches or else you will lower the pan’s heat to much and won’t get good color on the meat.  As one batch finishes up place it on a plate. 

 

After all the meat has been browned and put on the plate you will be left with a good amount of fat in the bottom of the pan.  Drain all out but about 1 tb and add the bowl containing the celery, carrot, onion, and green pepper.  Cook till soft (about 4-6 minutes).  Add the garlic and stir for another 45-60 seconds. 

Lower the heat to medium and add the bowl containing the mushrooms.  You want to cook the mushrooms until they have given up most of their moisture (about 10 minutes).

Once the mushrooms have reduced down stir in the tb of tomato paste.  Stir to coat and then for about 45-60 seconds. 

Add the red wine and scrape to remove any stuck bits on the bottom of the pan.  Increase the heat to a boil and reduce the wine by 1/2.

Once the wine has reduced add the beef broth, thyme, bay leaves, rosemary, and veal demi.  Bring to a boil add the ribs back to the pan, remove from heat, cover, and put in the oven. 

 

Now comes the easy part for the next 2 to 2.5 hours we do nothing.  After about an hour I like to flip the beef ribs.  After 2-2.5 hours go ahead and remove the pan from the oven and remove the beef ribs from the pan.  Place the beef ribs on a plate and cover with foil.

Now strain everything else into a bowl.  All the veggies place in another bowl and cover with foil.  We are going to go ahead and strain the liquid again but this time if you have it available line the strainer with a double sheet of cheesecloth and also strain into a sauce pan.

We want to quickly cool the pan so that the fat rises to the top and solidifies.  To accomplish this prepare and ice bath (find a container bigger than the pan that you strained into and put a layer of ice cubes on the bottom).  Place the pan in the ice bath and surround it with ice cubes.

Let this sit for a good 20-30 minutes.  When you come back to it you will notice a thick layer of fat at the top of the pan.  We want to get this off so use a spoon and remove it.

After the fat has been removed return the pan to the stove top and turn the heat to hot.  While it is coming up to a boil dissolve a tb of cornstarch into a couple tb of water and stir.  This is what is called a slurry and the reason we do this is to prevent clumping when we would add the cornstarch to thicken the sauce. 

Once the mixture has reached a boil slowly add in the slurry mixture and return to a boil.  If after reaching a boil the sauce is not thick enough go ahead and make another slurry and add that in.  If you would like to also add a tb of butter and also make sure to check the sauce to see if anymore salt and pepper is necessary.

Plate by placing the meat (make sure to trim up any fatty pieces that may exist nothing ruins the dish more than a huge hunk of fat), then the veggies, drizzle some sauce over, and then top with some freshly grated parmesan reggiano cheese and chopped parsley.  I also served mine on a bed of polenta.

Tags: beef, All //