Braised Short Ribs in Beer

Man, this was a good recipe. High off the braised short ribs at Chestnut, we had our home version yesterday (and leftovers will be dinner tonight, pushing all the other planned dinners back one day). Since we loved the pureed rutabega at Chestnut, we decided to have pureed turnips instead of rutabega or mashed potatoes.

While our recipe didn't use the same flavors the Chestnut dish had, it still used the same technique. Braising is so easy, I'm not sure why we don't do it more at home during the winter.

We picked up about two and a half pounds of short ribs at the local butcher. I asked him to cut those into three-inch pieces, give or take. As I prepped the veggies - carrots, onion, garlic, turnips - Steve browned the ribs. After everything was together the way it was supposed to be, we decided it needed more beer. Beer is the only liquid added to this braise. There is some liquid from the crushed tomatoes and veggies, but not much. When in doubt, add more beer. The reason why we added more was because the liquid level should come up about half-way on the meat.

The only sort of snag we ran into was determining what pot was big enough to hold everything and oven safe. A piece I'm missing is a cast iron dutch oven, or something similar that has a lid and can go in the oven. We decided to use the All-Clad stock pot. Not ideal, but it certainly did the job just fine.

After three hours, we had fall-off-the-bone, melt-in-your-mouth meat with tons of flavor. We removed the turnips around the half-way point, and I set those aside to puree with melted butter, salt, pepper, and a touch of half-and-half later.

Dinner was delicious last night and I expect the flavors to be even more developed tonight. I really must remember to take a picture of the finished dish for these blog entries. Usually, by the time the food is ready, we are ready to dig in and I completely forget about grabbing the camera. I'll try to remember to get a pic of our leftovers tonight.