Braised Short Ribs - Learning another new technique

When I went to Whole Foods the other day to go grocery shopping, I didn't enter with a plan for a change. Instead I simply looked around to see if I could see something that would be interesting to make.  As I was checking out the meat counter, I noticed beef short ribs.  Having never actually made short ribs myself, and never having attempted to braise anything, it seemed like something worth trying (especially since I could experiment on myself).  So, I had them wrap up a pound and a half of spare ribs (basically 4 ribs), and headed home to pull out the cookbooks.

Of the 5 cookbooks that I own, two had recipes for braised short ribs; Bobby Flay and Michael Symon.  Looking at the recipes I quickly realized that I really only had ingredients to try and pull of the Bobby Flay version, so that's the one I decided to do.  I actually got started last night by adding salt and pepper to the meat to allow it to be more receptive to the flavors that I would be trying to incorporate and infuse.

After a long day at the office, I headed home to begin cooking.  It was at this point that I wondered to myself why I thought it would be a good idea to try braising short ribs knowing that the earliest I would be getting home is 6, and at a minimum it would take 3 hours to get the ribs to a nice and tender state (unless I had a pressure cooker of course...).  But, since I had already proceeded to apply the salt and pepper, I needed to make sure I cooked them.  So, I just dove in and decided that I would simply find myself a snack at some point in the evening.  Besides, after eating out for the past few nights, I needed a change and a home-cooked meal, even if my Urbanspoon ranking might suffer a little.

I started by putting together a simple spice rub while the oil heated.  It called for chile powder, cinnamon and black pepper.  Then I applied the rub to the ribs prior to putting it in the oil to brown.  At this point, I ended up making a couple mistakes.  The first was that I didn't shake the excess rub off so it fell into the oil.  This leads to burning, and a flavor that is not that desirable.  The second was that I had not pre-chopped my veggies that I would need, so I was trying to do that, and ended up cooking the ribs a bit past golden brown.  But, I pulled them out, and forged on ahead, where actually the rest is quite simple.  I added some onion, garlic, carrot and celery to a little bit of oil remaining in the pot.  I also decided to throw in a jalepeno for a little flavor (kinda cooked this a little long too).  Then I added the red wine and went to add the chicken stock when much to my shock, I realized I had none in the house.  This is quite the rare occurrence lately, but it happened just when I needed about 4 cups.  So, I improvised.  I added an additional two cups of wine and two cups of water.  I brought this to a simmer, added the ribs and put it in the oven at 275 (the Michael Symon recipe called for 225, and Bobby Flay's was 325, so I compromised).

At this point, I just went about my evening; going for a run, getting some work done, picking up the house.  All told, I left the ribs in the braising liquid for almost 3 hours.  Finally, I had to pull them out and eat.  I decided to opt out of the part of the recipe that called for a sauce to be made out of the braising liquid, put them on my plate, and dug in.  The first thing I noticed was that they were incredibly tender, even though they probably could have used another half hour or so.  I didn't need a knife to get to some bite-sized pieces.  The flavor though was a little weak.  Part of that owes to the spice rub not really being applied liberally and worked into the meat, and part of it was just weak ingredients.  The chile powder was just the kind you get with a spice rack and the cinnamon was not freshly ground.  But, the meat was very tender, and very moist, so I was quite pleased with that.

In the end, I had a good dinner, albeit awful late at night.  And, I learned a few things, mistakes I can correct for the next time such as working the rub into the meat, and removing the excess to prevent burning.  I also came up with a few other things to try like using Coca-Cola as the primary braising liquid, or doing the whole thing is a sweeter red wine.  Maybe mixing up the rub to have some different, more defined flavors.  Or I could be really crazy and make sure that I have the ingredients that the recipe calls for and actually make it the way the chef intended.  All I know is that now that I have a general understanding of braising, I'm going to be experimenting with that cooking style more often; just maybe not during the week.