Zinfandel Braised Short Ribs
I came across this recipe a couple of years ago, but it is hard to get perfect. Tonight I think I finally did it. Well, at least to my wife’s liking. She is partial to the place by where she works that they go out to for celebration. It is hard to compare to a place of professional cooks and a chef who make this dish often.
But you must be warned, this is a heavy dish. In fact, when my wife goes there for lunch, she rarely wants dinner when she gets home. It is heavy for sure, even if it does not look like it. It has a lot of rice, butter, parmesan cheese in the risotto (or mashed potatoes if you prefer), and of course, short ribs have a lot of fat. So proceed with caution.
A little bit of a backstory here. The meat was purchased just before Easter 2021 in about February. Of course the pandemic screwed everything up, and I put it in the freezer to use at a “later date”. Over the winter of 2021, about a week before Christmas when I was about to take it out to cook it for holiday dinner, the fridge died. It started to defrost, I took it to a friend’s house to put in her freezer, and then when my fridge was fixed, I retrieved it. January 15 I took it back out of the freezer, put in the fridge for a couple days and cooked it on MLK Day 2022. Why was I so confident about meat in the freezer after nearly a year? Well, I had a friend who worked at the meat department in the supermarket and I asked him how long it could last frozen in shrink wrap. He told me confidently “months, 9 or more, probably even a year.” Even though I known him for years and knew he was not giving telling me BS, I was doubtful. Until tonight.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 pound boneless short rib (2lbs if bone-in)
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 2 cups beef broth
- Salt & Pepper
- 1.5 cups zinfandel wine (OZV 2021)
METHOD:
- Salt the meat on all sides well. This includes the butt ends and the other 4 sides.
- In a hot Dutch oven pan with oil, sear on all sides.
- Remove, allow to rest.
- Add in vegetables (carrot, onion, garlic) and sautée for at least 5 minutes
- Deglaze with the wine, and once you scrape up all the brown spots of the pan with a wooden spoon, add in broth.
- Return the short rib to the pan, cover, and cook in a 325F oven for at least 3 hours.
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