Thursday, February 24, 2011

Braising a mystery cut of beef

I went looking for beef short ribs at the Riverview Farms meat stand but I was told it wasn't going to be exactly short ribs. In fact, what he said was "Oh, there'll be ribs in there all right. Just don't expect them to be short."Inside was...mystery cut! I shall call them beef long ribs. But you can braise anything and it will come out tender and delicious, so I just treated them like short ribs.Sauteed 1 chopped onion in olive oil and butter over medium heat until soft.Turned the heat up to medium high, cleared a space in the center of the soft onion, and nestled the beef cuts in there to brown--it took about 3-5 minutes per side.Meanwhile I peeled up a ton of garlic. My mom gave me a huge sackful of whole heads of garlic so I'm using it in everything. This is about 1 head--peel each clove but leave them whole.After the beef was nicely browned on each side, I poured in about 3/4 a bottle of dry red wine into the dutch oven, covered and popped it in the oven at 300 degrees.For 4 hours.After about 2 1/2 hours had passed, I added in all the garlic cloves.After the full 4 hours had elapsed, I pulled it out and stirred in a tablespoon of dijon mustard.Everything was just falling apart into saucy bits... and the house smelled so good.Delicious over angel hair egg pasta--the kind that you buy in nests and it just unspools in boiling water. Together with this braise, it reminds you of stroganoff, but different.

3 comments:

Melanie said...

I'm glad that you are writing about cooking again!

carla said...

ha! me too :)

Unknown said...

beautiful shots of the kitchen in the background - bonus!