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 hour or so.

Then I rinsed the baking soda off the ribs, dried them with paper towels, seasoned with salt and pepper and a shake of flour…. And then seared the ever-loving-fuck out of them.

Special emphasis:

• Adding fresh fennel to the mirepoix

• The pinch of anise (fennel) seeds and turmeric… genius.

• Deglazed the meat with vermouth, but what else is new?

The first oven-braising part, with the lid on: I turned it down to 300 degrees, for 3 hours. —Lower temperature, but longer.

I carried out the second no-lid phase, exactly as they suggested. In that second phase, I removed the veggies that infused the broth during the initial three hours.

(Yes, do it, really).

Next, you put next round of fresh veggies into the broth, plus the meat and the “coco-milk” and the ginger. I picked delicata squash and sweet potato.

I noticed for the 2nd oven routine: my beef wasn’t quite covered by the liquid of the coconut milk/broth. I topped it off with my leftover Gumbo Z’herbes, which you may remember I was blabbing about last week. You could add in any other broth or soup leftover, I bet. Just keep the liquid level up over your meat and veggies.

The pot goes back in a 375 degree oven an hour, and it’s just tender, not overdone.

I added chopped fresh baby chard at the end, when it was out of the oven. The heat of the broth cooked it.

It’s PERFECT. I can velvet anything now.

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