Short Ribs and Velvet

I cracked the code for melt in the mouth tenderness

I did it! I did it!

I figured out how to make falling-off-the-bone short ribs. It was a real white-knuckler.

Want to hear every scintillating detail?

It’s all about velveting the beef.

First a little background: I’ve tried twice making short ribs, and they were taffy-tough-tough. No one else in the kitchen seemed to have a clue.

Then I noticed a recipe shows in the NYTimes for “Eintopf”¹ — a German short rib stew with ingredients I love: shallots, garlic, fennel, sweet potato, butternut squash, onion, garlic, ginger, tomato, coconut milk, green chard— I got hungry reading it.

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to go to all the trouble of such a labor-intensive recipe if the meat wouldn’t be tender.

I read advice about tenderizing beef. The method that caught my eye is at traditional Chinese way of making “tender beef” by rubbing the ribs with baking soda and letting them sit a little bit.

That’s what I did. I washed the ribs, rubbed baking soda on them, and let them “sit” like that for a half …