For those of you who have never eaten or prepared short ribs, they are a cut of meat that are perfect for braising or slow cooking in a crockpot. If you're unfamiliar with this cut of beef, Wikipedia defines short ribs as follows:
Short ribs (UK cut: Thin Rib) (Commonly known in UK as 'Jacob's Ladder' ) are a popular cut of beef. Beef short ribs are larger and usually more tender and meatier than their pork counterpart, pork spare ribs. Short ribs are cut from the rib and plate primals and a small corner of the square-cut chuck...The ribs can be separated and cut into short lengths (typically about 2 inches long), called an "English cut", "flanken cut" across the bones (typically about 1/2 inch thick), or cut into boneless steaks (a style recently introduced in the U.S.A. as a cheaper alternative to rib steak).
I love short ribs and order them whenever they're on the menu at several of our favorite local restaurants. Living in the Hudson Valley, many of our local chefs are graduates of the CIA (Culinary Institute of America), so I searched for a CIA-inspired recipe. What I found on the FoodTV site were several recipes by favorite chefs that used a puree of vegetables as the base of the braising liquid. I "ultimately" chose Tyler's recipe (sorry, former English teachers love a good pun), which is here.
My local Shoprite had no short ribs the day I shopped, but the butcher offered me some of the boneless variety mentioned in the Wikipedia definition. Since these were totally lean, I happily accepted.
I would normally dredge the beef in flower before browning them, but I chose to follow Tyler's recipe exactly as written, so I braised them "naked." I used my monster LeCreuset, though I could have done them in a crockpot, adjusting the time, of course.
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TASTE NOTES
The pureed veggies created a flavorful sauce for these short ribs which I thickened with a slurry. While they were very tasty, they were not as tender as those that fall off the bone. I'll wait until the butcher has bone-in beef short ribs next time. They were also not the CIA-inspired version I was seeking. I think I'll send an email to that website and ask if they'd feature that recipe on their web page soon.
In the meantime, consider this a CALL FOR SHORT RIB RECIPES. I'd love to do a round up of your favorite short rib recipe, so please consider leaving a comment with a link to your recipe.
Hi Arlene welcome back! Hope things are getting easier now, last I heard from you I beleive a family member was ill and you were going to care for them!! Glad your back and thanks for the visit... this sounds like a great meal here and love the picture, so nice to hear from you :)
ReplyDeleteThe short ribs that you got from the butcher do look really lean and I would really like that. I have a hard time finding them when they look that good. Mine are almost always about 40-50% fatty looking. I think I tried a Tyler recipe for short ribs and enjoyed it, but probably wouldn't make it again. I think you would definitely like Symon's version. The flavoring and sauce was really something to write home about:) I don't think you'd have to use the anchovies if you didn't want to. Here is my link:
ReplyDeletehttp://mykentuckyhome-kim.blogspot.com/2010/11/symons-braised-short-ribs-with-orange.html
I'll add a note to the bottom of my post to let people know that you're looking for short ribs recipes. Krista at Krista's Kitchen, http://cookingwithkrista.blogspot.com/, has done a lot of different recipes with variations although I'm having trouble finding them on her archives. She's lucky enough to get them for free from her parents farm.
I recently posted our now very favorite, Mario Batali, Braised Short Ribs recipe. I got the butcher to cut them in 3" chunks on the bone. Here is the link:
ReplyDeletehttp://honeyfromrock.blogspot.com/2010/11/heat-by-bill-buford.html