Food Blogging: Election Day

You’d think I would be blogging about the “horse race” today. You know, half the remaining delegates are at stake, “game changer” and all that sort of thing. Yeccch. Today almost certainly changes nothing. They will split and the disgusting mess will drag on indefinitely to some sort of ugly and ultimately unsatisfying conclusion. No winners here.

I’d rather think about what we had for dinner last night. The store had some nice meaty short ribs and I couldn’t find a recipe I liked, so I invented this one. It turned out so good that my wife complained that I didn’t make enough (“Well you could have bought another package.”), and I had pretty much the same feeling. Quantities are sort of guessing, as I did not measure when I put it together, and I doubt they are critical.

Braised Beef Short Ribs

2 lbs beef short ribs
1 large juice orange
½ cup white wine (Sauterne, Pinot Grigio)
¼ cup dark brown sugar
4-5 whole cloves
2 cups water (or as needed)
bacon drippings for browning (I’ll forgive you if you use olive or canola oil)

4-5 carrots (optional, but they turn out really good)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Put the brown sugar, wine, water and cloves in a bowl. Cut the orange in half and squeeze the juice into the bowl, then cut it up so that you can scrape as much of the pulp as possible in there without getting any of the rind in. Stir well and set aside.

Brown the ribs on all sides. You are not cooking them, just brown them all around. No flouring needed you notice. Put them into your covered roasting pan or dutch oven and pour the liquid in. Add more water if need to at least nearly cover the meat. Let this cook at 325, covered and undisturbed, for two hours.

Peel the carrots and cut them into about 1” pieces. Add them to the pot, let cook for another hour and serve.