Short ribs long on flavor

Short ribs long on flavor

New darling of the comfort-food set

By Kathleen Purvis

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Move over, mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. Be it ever so humble, the short rib is the new darling of the comfort-food set. foodp New darling of the comfort-food set

By Kathleen Purvis

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Move over, mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese. Be it ever so humble, the short rib is the new darling of the comfort-food set.

How darling? In January, Bon Appetit proclaimed braised short ribs with mashed potatoes "The Dish of the Year."

In New York, people line up at Ouest on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for chef Tom Valenti's braised short ribs with creamy polenta, and at DB Bistro for Daniel Boulud's $27 sirloin burger filled with short ribs and foie gras.

Not bad for a tough hunk of beef and bone that sells for as little as $1.99 a pound and looks like Fred Flintstone's lollipop.

Once you've had them, it's easy to understand the appeal. Cooked long and slow in a flavorful liquid -- in other words, a classic braise -- short ribs can be fork-tender with a taste like very rich pot roast.

The flavor of beef short ribs -- and their natural toughness -- are part of where they come from on the cow, says Merle Ellis, author of numerous books and columns on meat.

Meat cuts fall into two general categories. There are muscles that don't do much work, which are tender and can be cooked by dry heat. And there are muscles that do a lot of work, which are tough and need moist cooking to break down their fibers and soften up their fat. The rib section of the cow has both.

"The prime rib sits on top of the cow and rides along," Ellis says. "It does very little work." The short ribs, found toward the bottom of the ribcage and just forward in the chuck, move as the animal walks and breathes. "It's literally carrying a prime rib on its shoulders."

Cooking tough cuts is a long process, but it involves very little work. That's why short ribs make a good dish for entertaining -- and why chefs like Valenti like them.

"From a restaurant perspective, they can be prepared in advance and simply reheated so the consistency and quality control is better," Valenti says.

Valenti has a book coming out in February, "Welcome to My Kitchen," that focuses on low-fuss, practical cooking. He's made his reputation as a chef with humble cuts like short ribs and lamb shanks, an interest that goes back to his childhood.

"We didn't have a ton of money. My Italian grandmother, she would lean toward those cuts. More often than not, it was something slow-cooked, something braised. I found the flavor to be unparalleled."

If you've had braised short ribs in a restaurant, don't rush home and think any short ribs you cook will taste the same. In supermarkets, short ribs are usually sold packed into a meat tray like an accordion. Look closely to find the meatiest ribs or you might end up with short ribs that are all bone and cartilage and precious little meat.

"You just have to look," Ellis says. "Look for very lean short ribs with lots of red meat."

Valenti takes extra steps to get as much flavor into the ribs as possible. He rubs them the night before with salt, pepper and garlic powder, then wraps them in plastic wrap and refrigerates them.

"Then, when we braise, we start the ribs bone up, so the meat is really immersed. And then in the last half-hour or 45 minutes, we flip them, so the meat side gets caramelization. It really intensifies the flavor."

Cooking the ribs on the bone gives the most flavor, but serving them that way can make them tricky to eat. The cartilage that binds the meat to the bone doesn't tenderize. At Ouest, they take the meat off the bone and cut away the cartilage before reheating.

All that cosseting, of course, is a long way from what Grandmother Valenti would do. "My grandma would cut them in big pieces and brown them off and throw them in tomato sauce."

It's called short rib ragout -- and it's probably coming soon to a white-tablecloth restaurant near you.