Beef - Short Ribs

Dinner went into the slow cooker a little bit ago. I thought I'd share it with you.

I had picked up some frozen short ribs at the Asian grocery nearby the other day. I tossed them into the slow cooker along with some homemade black bean sauce.

When it comes out, I'll serve it alongside some rice. If I'm feeling it, I might quickly stir-fry some onions and parsnips as well.

The black bean sauce, though, is the kicker, and it is incredibly easy to make. The key ingredient here is fermented black beans- sometimes sold as dried or salted black beans. You can find these in Asian grocery stores for about $2 for a bag that will last you a good, long while. They look a bit like raisins (and have a similar consistency) so if you keep them in a jar (their shelf life is long), please label them.

Dried black beans aren't actually black turtle beans. They are, rather, a sort of fermented soy bean known as douchi.

To make the black bean sauce, I diverge from tradition. My usual go-to book for Chinese recipes - Potsticker Chronicles- describes a process of taking the dried beans and mashing them with a mortar and pestle and then rehydrating them with some boiling water and... well, it was a bit involved. It was also a technique for making a black bean sauce to cook in a stir-fry while ensuring that the flavor of the beans were prominent. I wasn't worried about that. I was using the slow cooker. Flavor would emerge.

Instead, I turned to my blender. I tossed in about a cup and a half of beef stock that I had in the refridgerator, a quarter cup or so of the beans, half an onion, some garlic and parsley, and about a half cup of wine. I blended that until I got a liquid. Then I tossed in a wee bit of rice vinegar, sesame oil, and some spices (sichuan peppercorns and some mustard seeds) and blended it a bit more. That got poured over the short ribs in the slow cooker. I added a couple pieces of broken cinnamon stick as an afterthought.

Easy. I'll let you know how it turned out later.

Later:
Verdict: Nummy. The sauce turned out a bit thinner than I like, but I wasn't really paying attention to consistency when I made it so that was totally my fault. I ought to have put a bit more in there to thicken it - probably some corn starch or some pureed carrots or something.

Braised Short Ribs: Still not a great photo...I went through the chest freezer last night and found some beef short ribs, so I took them out to thaw. Originally, I'd planned to braise them in coffee, but I did a quick recipe search and saw a recipe for bourbon-pomegranate molasses beef short ribs. I had a bottle of pomegranate molasses in the cupboard, and I was anxious to try it. I also had a wee bit of bourbon left over...

It was decided.

I stopped at home for lunch today, and tossed things in the slow cooker. The ribs were still mostly frozen, but that was OK by me. I sauteed an onion. Half of it got pureed with some garlic, pomegranate molasses (about 1/3 cup), bourbon (about 1/4 cup), a couple tablespoons of some concentrated tomato puree, kosher salt, some pink peppercorns, and maybe a wee bit of water. That went in with the ribs and onions. I also tossed a couple of frozen chicken stock cubes and a cinnamon stick in there.

I set the thing for four hours. When I got home, it was lovely. I took the ribs out and let them rest. The braising liquid got some additional pomegranate molasses and some lime zest. There was some taste testing involved - I ended up adding a bit more salt and some sugar, too. Then I thickened it with corn starch.

On the side, I made some mustardy sweet potatoes and spinach.

This was a heavenly dinner. It was nothing fancy, but it was incredible comfort food. The meat was tender and flavorful. The pomegranate taste was subtle, but was spiked in the sauce by the lime zest. The flavors all came together as I'd hoped they would. I wanted to share it with all of you.