featured image courtesy of fromharvesttotable.com

Quick programming note: I will not being doing a recipe post next week since I’m heading out to Memphis, TN for the wedding of my niece (congrats Alex and Shawn). I promise a Memphis travelogue post when I return. If this is too traumatizing, watch the Food Network or some kinda shit.

Now the good news, I’m finally going to be able to do the braised short rib recipe that I mentioned last week. After a couple of months of ridiculous heat and humidity I can finally turn on the oven for a few hours without spontaneously combusting while it’s on. Fuck it’s been hot out here and I live on the goddamn beach! For the rest of the country your weather patterns follow the fairly consistent protocol of mild spring, hot as shit summer, mild autumn, cold as fuck winter. In Southern California you never know when summer is going to show up. I’m sure the rest of you across the country are annoyed when we say, “Sweet! It’s the 4th of July and it’s 72 degrees”. Yes, we should probably shut our goddamn gobs. The one thing we do know out here is we never fully escape summer. This year was glorious until the end of August and then the Earth’s rotation shifted and it put Southern California about a mile from the sun. Motherfucker it was hot. Last weekend it got to 95 on the beach and the humidity was close to 90. This is not supposed to happen. DO SOMETHING CONGRESS! Finally just a couple of days ago, the heat broke, leaving the humidity and now we are into fall. Just like that. Goddammit I’ve been waiting to do some slow cooked goodness and I’m doing it this weekend!

The sun is an asshole.

Short ribs have recently entered the realm of being a “trendy” food item. You’re probably familiar with this phenomenon since it happened to bacon a couple of years back. Currently every little dipshit gastro pub has some menu item with pork belly, sliders, banh mi’s etc. It’s fucking annoying. Who the hell decided that sliders needed to be a thing? I’ve had my share of drunken White Castle runs and I ain’t going to apologize for enjoying those little bastards but as far as I’m concerned that’s where sliders end. Everybody now has plates of sliders on some part of their menu.

“Oh I have a good idea, let’s serve little mini sandwiches that are too small to be satisfying and use twice as much bread!” Shitheads.

Back to the short rib. One of my local pubs has a burger bar type deal where you can custom build your burger with many different toppings, sauces, cheeses etc. and I had a cheeseburger that was topped with braised short ribs. It did not suck.

Short ribs have a really nice balance of fattiness combined with lots of bone marrow which equates to a thick, rich, gelatinous sauce when slow cooked for many hours in a 325 degree oven. I combine a little flour, salt and pepper and give these a quick sear before slow roasting which gives the ribs a nice brown color and adds flavor to the party. The flour will also help tighten up the sauce a little bit resulting in a delicious gravy that can be served over anything. Mashed potatoes? Fuck yes! Noodles? Fucking fuck yes! Rice? Fuck fuckity fuck yes!

I know I said there would be no “Sunday Gravy” until after football season and I had been doing some tailgate recipes but this dish has been calling me for weeks and when finished it is the epitome of Sunday Gravy.

Let’s slow cook some cow flesh!

Slow Cooked Short Ribs:

3-4-5 or so pounds of beef short ribs. You want these thick and you want a thick bone for the marrow it will extract.

3 carrots, rough chopped

1 large onion, rough chopped

4-5 stalks of celery, rough chopped

5 cloves of garlic, smashed

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

1 /2 cups of red wine. Today I’m using an Argentinian Malbec due to it’s rich color/flavor and the notes of black pepper.

1/2 cup of beef stock

1 teaspoon of paprika

3 bay leaves

1 teaspoon of dried thyme, crushed

3 tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon of kosher salt

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Egg noodles

Vegetable of choice

If you are familiar around the kitchen and enjoy cooking you may recognize 3 of the top 4 ingredients (onion, carrot, celery) and know that this is a mirepoix. Used as a base for pretty much all French roasting and braising techniques. Replace the carrot with green pepper and you have the “holy trinity” used in Cajun/Creole cooking. I have a cool Southwest technique where I replace the carrot with jalapeno to delicious results. You can basically use this recipe for cooking any type of beef roast. This makes an amazing pot roast. If you want to make a damn near perfect pork roast, replace the red wine with white and replace the beef stock with chicken stock (I would use opposite ratios with 1 1/2 cups of stock and 1/2 cup of white wine to reduce the sweetness). This is some culinary school shit that I’m dropping on your asses for free.

Alrighty then. Preheat your oven to 325 Put the flour in a bag and drop the ribs a couple at a time into the bag to coat with flour. Do this for all of the ribs. Heat up your dutch oven on the stove top and add the vegetable oil, when oil is hot start searing the ribs, you will need to do these in batches. While searing, season the ribs with the salt, pepper and paprika. Be sure to sear on all sides, you want these to be browned. After the ribs are seared pour a little red wine in the pan to deglaze it. After stirring the wine around and loosening up the little browned crispy bits, add in the onion, carrot and celery cook for about 10 minutes, then add in the crushed garlic, bay leaves, thyme, tomato paste and finally the wine and the beef stock, bring to a simmer. Cover this concoction up with a lid and put into the preheated oven.

Take a 3 hour break. Hell you could go 3 1/2 hours and it wouldn’t hurt. We want this shit broken down and falling off the bone.

Update: this is the current short rib situation after 2 1/2 hours.

Now, I’m going to resurrect a tip that I first mentioned in my earlier brisket post where we remove the lid after cooking, let everything come to room temperature, put the lid back on the dutch oven and refrigerate overnight. You don’t have to do this step at all. The short ribs should be pretty much ready to rock the balls but I find this extra step deepens and intensifies the flavors and who wouldn’t want that? If you don’t want this second step, heat you starch of choice, thicken the gravy if you want and serve. I’m going the two day route.

Next day reheat the oven to 350 degrees. Scrape off the top layer of fat off of the ribs if you are so inclined, note: this is not necessary if you are trying to preserve all of the fatty goodness but it might make you feel slightly less guilty. Honestly though, if you are going to feel guilty about this then this might not be the best recipe for you. Cover and throw the dutch oven back into the oven for what? An hour? Hour and a half? Sure what the hell.

After the second day of cooking, remove the dutch oven, ladle out a couple of ladles worth of sauce and put in a sauce pan. If you wanted to thicken this sauce into a gravy then this is your bright shining moment. You can make a quick roux and add to the simmering sauce, thicken until it reaches your desired consistency. Today I’m serving this over some cooked egg noodles with a nice crusty bread for gravy dredging.

Thank all of the gods that this fucking weather is cooling off. There are many wonderful things to be said about grilling season but when it’s football season and you have the chance to slow cook some goddamn magnificence there is glory to be had there as well.

The best part about these short ribs is once they are broken down you can do anything with them. There’s this cool little beach place over in Manhattan Beach that makes short rib tacos and well, shit. They are worth the drive. You can top a burger with this, you can make a really wet and sloppy burrito with this. Anything really.

But if you make sliders out of this????? After I die I will come back and haunt your ass forever.

Today’s post was written with the assistance of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Symmetry is a hell of  thing.

Oh shit! Quick Vikings Chiefs preview! Vikings win 31-17. I think I’m betting it and everything. Don’t start Jamaal Charles on your fantasy team. Happy football Sunday everyone.