Spiced and Braised Short Ribs with Creamy Potatoes by Alison Roman

It’s officially snowing here in Chicago, which means it’s officially braised short rib season! Tender beef, falling apart in its own juices, with soft, vinegary golden potatoes nestled on the sides. Now that’s what I call snowy weather food! I thoroughly enjoyed cooking and eating this meal. Despite the number of steps involved, anyone can make this if they’re willing to read instructions. Oh, and you’ll need a lot of time. This one takes at least 4 hours to make (though just over 3 of those hours are inactive). 

The first 45 minutes are dedicated to the following: Searing the meat until “deeply golden on all sides.” There’s a lot of leftover fat at the end of this process (short ribs just have a lot of fat!) so be ready with an old pickle jar or something to drain the excess fat, reserving some for the potatoes. The potatoes, cut in half, spend time in the fat to get a crispy edge to them while the meat stands to the side. Once the potatoes are done, they join the meat so the onion and garlic can take their turns. The onions get a toasty brown color before an onslaught of seeds rain down on the pot: coriander, fennel, cumin, red pepper flakes, and some cinnamon. Bring on those seeds and let ‘em toast! Next, tomato paste (I’d include one more tablespoon than what’s called for next time) plop in to caramelize, followed by vinegar (this makes the potatoes taste as great as they do!), broth, and lemon. Once the liquid is back at a simmer, the meat and potatoes get tightly nestled in the pot before hopping into the oven. 

The next 2 hours and 45 minutes are spent smelling the increasingly strong and delicious scents of dinner wafting through your apartment. That’s a long time to smell a good smell! 

For the final 30 minutes, the oven temperature gets a big boost and the lid to the pot is removed so the contents can thicken up. Alison says it’ll become a “rich sauce” but mine was more like a “rich liquid.” I just didn’t have the patience to wait for it to thicken, I guess. The meat was falling off the bone, and the potatoes were impossibly soft, which is all I truly cared about. 

This dish was delicious. My only tweaks would be to add more tomato paste, and possibly more lemon (maybe squeezing out a bit of its juice) to give it a stronger acidic quality. And of course, flaky sea salt is a MUST. 

167 recipes cooked, 58 to go.

Seared Short Ribs with Quick Kimchi and Sesame Salt by Alison Roman

“Short rib” is a misnomer. Imagine a rack of beef ribs. A string of bones connected by sinews with a thin layer of chewy meat on top. Now think of short ribs. Tender meat stands tall atop a long line of bones, with layers of fat interrupting the surface. In other words, short ribs are not shorter at all! Hence my confusion whilst shopping for short ribs. Do not be fooled, dear friends, by the height of the meat. A butcher’s vocabulary will always remain a partial mystery. 

Near our new apartment is a meat shop called Wild Fork. I’ve never lived so close to a meat shop before, and let me tell you, it’s a real treat! Wild Fork only sells frozen meat, so I had to let my short rib thaw in the fridge for two days before it was ready. On the day of cooking, Jordan took the meat out an hour or so beforehand to let it come closer to room temperature, then covered it with salt and brown sugar. By the time they were ready to sear, the brown sugar had turned liquidy and showed the color of molasses over the surface of the ribs. 

I’ll admit, I was nervous about attempting to sear a new cut of meat. Short ribs just look intimidating, there’s no way around it. With mild trepidation, I nestled the ribs meat-side down in my skillet and let the sugar form a dark crust while the meat cooked. Alison recommends 6-8 minutes per side, not counting the bone side. However, after the instructed amount of searing, my thermometer read 99 degrees in both ribs, which is far more rare than I’m comfortable with. If the cookbook picture of this recipe tells us anything, it’s that Alison doesn’t mind a bloody piece of beef. But sadly, I cannot wrap my head around that one. So I ended up turning the temperature to medium-low, covering the skillet with a lid, and cooking it until 125 degrees. While it was edible, I can’t say I loved the fattiness or the rareness. Our dinner guests said they enjoyed it, but I wasn’t thrilled. 

As per usual, Alison nails the condiments here. Quick kimchi, cucumbers, cilantro, flaky salt, and sesame oil are the perfect accompaniments. I made Melissa Clark’s Coconut Rice from Dinner, which paired well, but I missed having meat juices or a type of sauce to drizzle on the rice. 

Given the price of short rib, and my preference for less fattier meat, I don’t plan to invest in short rib again. I want more meat for my money. Next time I’ll try the sides in this recipe with a flavorful, less fatty beef or pork. 

143 recipes cooked, 82 to go.