How Do You Do It?: Braised Short Ribs Beef Stew

I love Alton Brown's program Good Eats. Recently I watched an episode and he made some beef stew and it looked so good I had to try it myself. I mean, just look at this? Doesn't it make your mouth water?

So let's get down to business.

You can find the original recipe here

Ingredients:

1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons dried herbs, any combination of thyme, oregano and rosemary
3 pounds English-cut short ribs
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 pound red potatoes, unpeeled and diced small
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves

Gather the first 5 items. I was out of tomato paste so I used some diced tomatoes in their juices.

Mix everything together in a bowl and set aside.

Pat dry your short ribs and salt them well.

Sear the short ribs on a hot griddle and brown each side.

Make sure you get a nice deep brown - this is the only browning the meat will get during it's cooking time.

Add the meat to the marinade and then place everything onto a sheet of tin foil and seal up the edges.

Place in a cold oven with a pan underneath to catch any spill over. Now preheat the oven to 250 and set the timer for 4 hours.

Tick...Tock...Tick...Tock...

Ding!

Look how the meat turns out! Tender, shreds easily with a fork and melts in your mouth.

As an aside, the meat turns out like this because the original piece had a lot of connective tissue called collagen. Cooking low and slow causes the collagen to break down into gelatin, turning a relatively tough piece of meat into the sumptuous morsel you see in front of you.

Pour the juices into a glass and refrigerate to separate the fat.

Fast forward to day two.

Put one tablespoon of the separated beef fat into a pan to roast the vegetables in. You can keep the rest of the fat in the fridge to use in cooking later in the week.