Food Goes In Mouth

Alright ladies, listen up. This post is for you.

Some of you out there just flat out do not cook because, well, times have changed. But they, whoever the hell “they” are, say everybody should have at least one dish they can fire off just in case. Also, you may occasionally want to play the part of good girlfriend/wife and produce a tasty meal for some boy…

Ok, so Janel does cook. More importantly she bakes, which I admittedly do not. What she does not do is eat animals so her beef cooking skills have atrophied.

Her boy, Jared, spent a good stretch of his college years as a short order cook for a local burger joint/sports bar. He’s a red-blooded, beef consuming, beer-drinking American male. If this sounds like your guy start taking notes…now:

Stella Braised Short Ribs With Leeks & Potatoes

What You’ll Need

• Two Beef Short Ribs
• One Leek
• Two Small Red Potatoes
• Stella Artois (or another Belgian Lager of your choice)

What You’ll Do

1. Cut off and discard the leek’s tough dark green portions of the stalk and the white tip of the bulb. Cut the remainder in half lengthwise, then into half inch pieces.
2. 
   Put the chopped leek in a strainer and rinse thoroughly under cold water while separating the layers. This is cruicial since these crevices are dirty.
3. Liberally salt the short ribs. Coat the bottom of an oven-safe pot with a tiny amount of flavor neutral oil with a high smoke point (peanut or canola oil would be perfect) and get this hot over a medium-high burner.
4. 
   Sear the short ribs for four minutes on each of the three sides that are not bone. There will be a lot of hissing and smoke, so cue the fan. Do not touch the meat between changing sides. Don’t worry. The meat is fine. When done, remove them from the pot and set aside. It should look something like above.
5. 
   Some of the fat from the short ribs will have rendered out into the pot. Add the leek and another liberal dose of salt. Keep the leeks moving and cook them for five minutes, knocking the pan drippings lose. Adding a small amount of beer at this point will help losen those little good bits.
6. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Reintroduce the short ribs to the pot, meat side down, and add a couple bottles of Stella Artois. Add enough to where the beer is just below the rib bones. Bring it back to a simmer over low heat, then move it to the oven.
7. 
   Chop the potatoes into bite size chunks like this.
8. After 1.5 hours in the oven, remove the pot and add the potatoes. Return to oven and cook an additional 20 minutes.
9. You will notice now that the top layer of the liquid in the pot is fat. Use a ladle or large spoon of some kind to remove as much of this as possible.
10. Put the food on a plate and give the plate to your man.

That’s it ladies. Those instructions may take up a lot of space on the page but it’s really quite simple. Chop two things, sear one, add beer, and a lot of waiting.

Good luck Janel, I hope he enjoys.