Short rib technique

Tonight we had short ribs braised in coffee and mulled wine with dried chilies and horseradish cream (horseradish, yogurt, and heavy cream). The sides were roasted green beans and polenta with spinach, toasted hazelnuts, and cheese.

I've braised a lot of short ribs by now, and this is what I've decided:

-cook it in the oven, not on the stove. I did it on the stove this time, because Mark Bittman did it, but it's just not a good idea. It didn't cook evenly enough and the meat was less tender than it would have been if I put it in the oven.

(Sarah: "If Mark Bittman jumped off a bridge, would you?"

Becca: "Probably." )

-if it's in the oven (and it better be), cover the pot with tinfoil, then put the cover on. That will keep the braise from evaporating.

-Three hours minimum. Ideally, I like it 1 hour past the time it takes for the meat to fall off the bone.

My favorite part about short ribs is the fat. I got an extra fatty one that had a half-inch layer of fat wrapped around the meat and it was divine. I wouldn't eat fat by itself, but I like fat and meat together so much that I would have a hard time choosing between perfectly marbled meat and a million dollars.

Midnight snack

Food:
Like Becca mentioned in her blog post, I stress cook. The actual soup was pretty simple (I put a short rib with two leeks, an onion, three cloves of garlic, half a can of corn, half a cup of brown rice, a dollop of reserved beef fat from the last time I made short ribs, spices, salt and pepper, and a bunch of water. That part took 10 minutes. After three hours, I chopped the beef into small chunks and mixed it back in), but there's an art to stress-cooking. Briefly, these are the rules:

1. Make something delicious that you wouldn't feel guilty eating, because you're probably feeling guilty already about cooking instead of working.
2. Only use what you have in your house already, because leaving the house will cross the threshold between benevolent procrastination (much-needed break) and harmful procrastination (waste time and cause you more stress later).
3. The recipe should be low-maintenance (for example, risotto is not a good stress cooking project because it requires too much attention)
4. The recipe should be fool-proof. Soup is good because you can add anything you want to it and it will always be delicious (case-in-point: rock soup), so it's stress-free to make. That is not the case with souffles.

and The People Who Ate It: