Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002
From: Andrew H. Auld
Subject: Recipe - In Memoriam (was: BBQ query)

I don't often do this...and, if any of you see Mutt+ before me, don't tell him; and if you do, I'll deny it:

Beef?   BBQ...I hate doing this, but, just this once, for Mutt and for my snowbound Canukian friends. Outside of brisket, which can't be done in an oven unless youvre Irish, the only piece of beef fit for barbeque is short ribs, but they're one royal pain in the ass ... delicious, but a pain.

It would be easy to do spareribs, but it wouldn't be beef and it wouldn't be Texas, and it wouldn't be +Mutt of Humberside at the table saying the blessing:

I got this recipe from the NYTimes sometime around last summer,
it works pretty good; see the notes at the end:

Grilled Braised Short Ribs Adapted from 44 & X Hell's Kitchen
Printer version of this recipe

Time: 6 1/2 hours, plus 8 to 24 hours' marinating

12 cloves garlic, crushed
Coarse salt
1 slab short ribs with bones, about 3 pounds
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup diced carrots
1/2 cup diced onions
1/2 cup diced leeks
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
3 cups dry red wine

1/3 cup red wine vinegar 2 cups veal, mushroom or chicken stock
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened.

1. Place 2 cloves garlic and some coarse salt in a mortar, and pulverize to a paste. Rub meat with paste and sprinkle with pepper. Set aside 1 hour.

2. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a heavy saucepan. Add carrots, onions, leeks and remaining garlic. Sauté over low heat until soft but not brown. Stir in thyme and bay leaf. Add wine and vinegar, bring to simmer, transfer to bowl. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

3. Place ribs and wine mixture in a large heavy-duty plastic bag. Seal well, and refrigerate 8 to 24 hours.

4. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Remove ribs from marinade, scraping off vegetables. Pour marinade with vegetables into saucepan. Add stock and bring to simmer.

5. Pat ribs dry; season with salt and pepper. Heat remaining oil in large skillet, add ribs and quickly brown on all sides. Transfer to roasting pan. Pour heated marinade over ribs, cover with parchment paper and foil, and roast 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until fork-tender. Remove from oven, and let stand 10 minutes.

6. Remove ribs from liquid. Remove bones, and trim all gristle and surface fat, keeping meat in one large slab. (Meat can now be refrigerated up to 3 days before grilling.)

7. Strain liquid and skim off grease. (If ribs won't be grilled immediately, liquid can be refrigerated until fat solidifies to simplify removal.) Boil down strained liquid until reduced to barely 1 cup and slightly thickened. Remove from heat, and whisk in butter bit by bit. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and keep warm.

8. To serve, slice slab of meat in half horizontally with a large knife, and cut each piece into two or three portions. Place meat on grill or in grill pan over high heat, and sear briefly on both sides until heated through, lightly browned and traced with grill marks. Either use your own barbeque sauce the last several minutes while grilling or serve drizzled with the sauce described above.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

ALTERNATIVE: Put in crock pot for a day with BBQ sauce, remove, strain, drain and grill for 10 minutes.

NOTES:
This is one cut of beef that does not need a professional touch to transform it into something irresistible. Cook them slowly and gently and the meat turns soft and succulent, with intense flavor and luscious richness; you don't even need sauce. They take virtually no attention once they have been browned - the less you do to them the better. Served straight out of a braising dish they make a hearty home-style meal, with nothing needed besides a heap of mashed potatoes to soak up the cooking juices. Any leftovers can be converted into the world's best hash, a ragout for pasta or a topping for risotto, just the way the chefs do.

Unlike other restaurant staples, short ribs are inexpensive and easy to find at the market. They cost $6 or so a pound in most butcher shops and sometimes less in supermarkets for the same quality as chefs buy. It's true, short ribs haul around a lot of excess baggage, including heavy bone and fat. But because the meat is so rich, about three-quarters of a pound makes an ample serving, although I usually calculate at least a pound a person so there will be leftovers. Butchers often sell short ribs cut in blocky squares, about two inches in each dimension, with a small piece of bone attached. When they're sold in large slabs, two to three inches wide cut across several bones, they may be called flanken, which are typically used for Jewish-style boiled beef. These larger, longer pieces can be cooked like the smaller chunks. Short ribs can also be bought without the bone, but that's pointless - you don't get the same flavor, and ideally the bones fall out easily once they are cooked.

In technical terms, the section of the steer that yields short ribs is called the short plate and also provides skirt steak. Short ribs are the low-rent neighbors next door to the palatial standing rib roast. "The prime rib is tender, but the short ribs would be extremely chewy roasted rare like roast beef," said Mark Spangenthal, the chef at the Screening Room and the Dining Room, who gave a demonstration on short ribs at the French Culinary Institute earlier this year. The meat needs long cooking to break down the collagen. Ideally, cook short ribs a day in advance and refrigerate them overnight after removing the bones. This not only intensifies the flavor but also makes removing excess fat easier because it congeals. Red wine is an essential ingredient for short ribs. It bolsters the meat's beefy flavor, while the tannins and acidity help tenderize the gelatinous collagen that riddles the meat. The high proportion of collagen sets short ribs apart from ordinary stew meat and helps thicken the sauce, making it sleek and syrupy. I have made short ribs for as many as 24 people, but never for fewer than 6. And every time a far cry from an everyday pot of stew.