Paper Palate

Red Wine Marinated Braised Short Ribs

(allegedly serves 4–6)

Ingredients:

2 large cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
2 large sprigs thyme
2 strips orange zest (1” wide x 3-4” long)
2 bay leaves
¼ tsp allspice berries, crushed in mortar or with side of knife
¼ tsp black peppercorns
4 whole cloves
1 bottle (750 ml) hearty dry red wine (they suggest Zinfandel, I used Cabernet)
4-5 lbs meaty bone in short ribs, sliced English style (one bone per rib, thick meat)
1 ½ teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium to large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 medium celery stalk, coarsely chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
ground black pepper
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups beef or chicken broth
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Marinating:
Prepare a sachet of garlic, thyme, orange zest, bay leaves, allspice berries, peppercorns and cloves in a tied square of cheesecloth. Pour wine in a medium saucepan, add the sachet, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool. Trim excess fat from the exterior of the short ribs, avoiding silverskin and any fat that holds the ribs onto the bone. Basically, just cut off the big lumps of fat on the outside – don’t go crazy trimming off every little bit of white. Put the ribs in a container where they can cuddle snugly in a single layer, season with salt, pour in marinade and sachet, cover with plastic and refrigerate 12–24 hours, turning once or twice.

The marinating was quite easy. None of the quantities are really very important. Regarding the wine, if you watch the Food Network, any chef will tell you that you shouldn’t cook with wine you don’t drink at home. This advice is all well and good, but there is no way I’m pouring a $15 bottle of wine into a saucepan, boiling it, and pouring it over meat as a marinade. My rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t cook with wine you wouldn’t drink, even if there were a wine shortage and it were the last wine on earth. If you are financially situated such that you can cook with the Chateau Fantastique de Magnifique, live it up. I used a $10 magnum of Walnut Crest Cabernet and it worked just fine.

Cooking:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Remove the ribs from the marinade (reserve the marinade and sachet as you’ll need it later) and pat them dry. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a 5-6 quart Dutch oven over medium heat. Brown ribs a few at a time, so that they aren’t touching each other in the pot. Turn them with tongs until nicely browned, 3–4 minutes per side. Don’t be impatient, this takes a while but adds great flavor. Once all the ribs are browned, pour off and discard the majority of the fat (but not any of the little crispy bits) and add the remaining tablespoon of oil, over medium heat. Add the onions, celery and carrot, season with salt and pepper, and cook for about 8 minutes, until browned in spots (give them a stir every once in a while). Add the tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add half of the reserved marinade, increase the heat to high, and boil for 2-4 minutes until reduced by half. Add the remaining marinade and reduce again by half. Add broth and vinegar and boil for 3 minutes. Return the ribs to the pot, along with any accumulated juices and the sachet. Crumple a piece of parchment paper, smooth it out again, and lay it over the top of the put with the edges of the paper hanging off the sides. Put the lid on the pot and transfer to the oven.

At this point I need to diverge from the recipe and disclose some things. I doubled this recipe, which caused all kinds of excitement. Everything went fairly smoothly (although the browning took forever) until I prepared to put the ribs in the oven. I do not have, nor could I lift, a 10–12 pound Dutch oven. I stuffed the ribs in my 5 quart Dutch oven, with a few extras, in a low lidded casserole pan on the side. As a result, my ribs were piled high in the pot and nowhere near the single layer recommended in the recipe. After about a half hour, I noticed all sorts of hissing and smoking noises coming from the oven. The sauce was bubbling up over the sides of the pots and burning on the oven floor. I quickly lined a sheet pan with foil and placed it under the pots, which seemed to solve the burning and smoking, if not the hissing and dripping.

The recipe instructs to braise the ribs until fork tender and the meat is pulling off the bone, about 2.5 hours, and to turn the short ribs every 45 minutes. I disagree entirely. If you go in there and harass your short ribs every 45 minutes, the meat will fall off the bone in protest and you’ll have a big pile of bare bones sitting in a meaty stew. Just leave them alone or, if a few are poking out of the sauce, just give them a little shove back in. My second concern is the cooking time; I cooked my ribs for 3½ hours, turning the heat down from 300 to 275 for the last 45 minutes. The best way to know if they’re done is by sight and feel. The meat should be soft and just about ready to jump off the bone, and all the fat should be melted away. Once they’re finished, transfer them to a serving dish and cover them with foil to keep warm.

Making the Sauce:
Strain the braising liquid through a fine sieve and let it rest until the fat rises to the top. Scoop off as much fat as possible; you should be left with about 1 cup of sauce. I found the sauce to be far too thin for my liking, so I simmered it in a small saucepan to reduce. Even after that, it was still a bit thin. Next time I might try a little flour or cornstarch roux to thicken it further.

I served the short ribs piled over Israeli couscous (just a little bigger than the couscous I normally use). The couscous took about 10 minutes to make, and soaked up the flavors and sauce from the meat. Mashed potatoes would also be a terrific side dish.

One caution though – the six of us consumed the entire doubled batch of short ribs. I thought we had a few left over, but after dessert I spied one of the dinner guests in the kitchen hunched over a platter licking the last few bones clean. You may want to make more than you think you’ll need.