September 7, 2012

Braised Short Ribs

I own a lot of cookbooks. Most of them are Spanish and French-inspired, a few vegetarian-themed, and that does it. The thing is, I need to start reading these books for inspiration and ideas. So, with that in mind, I recently set a goal of trying something new out of one of my cookbooks each week.


This week....braised short ribs.

Even though I am originally from Texas, I have never actually made my own ribs. I was inspired the other night at Whole Foods and decided to purchase a rack of pork short ribs from St. Louis. They were sitting in my refrigerator for a few days as I wondered what I was going to do with them. I thought about freezing them for another cooking experiment, but I told myself that I had to stick to my new goal.

This afternoon, instead of completing the reading assigned for my Master's program, I decided to tackle the ribs. After browsing through a few cookbooks, some online resources, and food magazines, I came up with this easy-peasy recipe for Thai-styled short ribs:

Ingredients:

6 tablespoons of soy sauce
3 tablespoons of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of ginger
10 green onions
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup shallots
1/2 cup honey
1 1/2 lbs short ribs
2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
Cilantro to garnish

Steps:

  1. Combine all ingredients (except for the ribs, of course) into a food processor or Vitamix and blend until smooth. Now, the color of this sauce is not going to be pretty, but it will taste good after it is cooked.
  2. In a large bowl, add the sauce to the ribs and make sure that all parts of the ribs are covered with the sauce. Set aside to marinate for 2-6 hours.
  3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
  4. Line two sheets of parchment paper on a baking sheet and place ribs on top.
  5. Bake for 1 1/2  to 2 hours, until the meat begins to fall off the bone. Rotate the ribs after 45 minutes.
Serve as an appetizer, finger food, or over risotto as I did.



I always thought that cooking ribs was messy, time-consuming, and difficult. But, this wasn't so bad! In fact, it was pretty darn easy.

Happy Dining.



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