March 1, 2011

Short Ribs (or Food Surgery, and Too Many Carbs)

Hello! I'm happy to say I finally completed that short ribs recipe! Better late than never. I ended up making about 3 lbs, which was plenty, and I got to use my brand new dutch oven, which was very exciting :)

The photo on the left is my first night of eating them, with pizza di patate and asparagus. My gremolata had the zest of one orange, parsley, and some grated garlic. I learned that I LOVE the flavor combination of orange and (browned) beef.



I have to say that although I kind of knew it beforehand, I was still shocked at how much fat was in the short ribs. It might be weird, but I have always loved spooning off congealed cold fat from the top of soups and sauces. I think it goes back to my dream of being a surgeon. It's kind of like operating on the food, trying to remove all the fat without any of the good stuff. This next picture shows just how much fat was there after a night in the fridge. Yikes!

Finally, tonight I decided to make mashed potatoes to go along with my short ribs leftovers.

I boiled 2 Russet potatoes, then mashed them (by hand!) with warm milk and a splash of half and half and some butter. For flavor, I sprinkled in some truffle salt, which turned out to be just the right amount. That stuff is strong, and can kind of ruin your dish if you have a heavy hand. I reheated the ribs with their sauce, sprinkled more of the delicious orange gremolata, and cut myself a piece (or 2) of the cheese herb bread. There's no such thing as too many carbs!

3 comments:

Waverly said...

Your photos look great. We enjoyed our ribs too. I agree with you re. the fat - much easier to remove it after it has hardened in the fridge and what an eye opener - better to remove it than to have it clogging your arteries!

Angela said...

So glad you posted because I'm of the "better late than never" approach. Cooking, eating, writing, photographing, and posting is sometimes just too much for me ;-) Removing the fat is kind of fun, isn't it? I was really amazed to see that there was still fat on day 3 after my careful removal of all the fat on day 2. Oh well, it sure was a delicious dish.

Francesca said...

@ Waverly - thanks!!!

@Angela - it's the kind of dish where you just look the other way until it's reheated and you can't actually see the fat anymore :)