Braised Short Ribs with Parmesan Polenta
If you could only smell my kitchen as this dish was slow cooking. I swear, you would have ran out to the store and purchased the ingredients on the spot. Also, for real, this is the best creamy polenta I have made yet! It is pretty much the same as how I have made it before, but for some magical reason it had a perfect balance of flavors. Because yeah, all in all, this is some bomb-diggity (sp?!?!) company worthy food. So, without further hesitation or oration, grab a pen and a paper and start drafting your grocery list for this tender, juicy, flavorful, fall off the bone satisfying meal. (Should I have lead with that?) :)
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
12 Short Ribs
1 Small Bag of Carrots
1 Container grape or cherry tomatoes
1 Yellow Onion
10-14 Garlic Cloves, divided
Rosemary (a few sprigs 5 or so)
2 32 oz Cartons of Beef Broth
1 Bottle (dry) Red Wine
1 tbsp butter
2 Cups Polenta (dry)
.5 oz Parmesan, grated
250 mL Cup Half and Half
Flour for coating
salt and pepper to taste
Small Kitchen Utensil Needed:
Instructions:
1. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.
2. Generously coat your short ribs with salt and pepper. Once you have done that, sprinkle them with a thin layer of white flour and set them aside.
3. Add a few tbsp of olive oil into the Dutch oven and allow it to get hot. Brown your short ribs for roughly 2 min on each side and then remove from the pan.
4. In the (almost) empty Dutch oven, add the cut up onion and the minced garlic (reserve 4-5 cloves for the polenta) and cook/stir till browned and fragrant.
5. Deglaze the pan with the red wine, make sure you really scrape the dried on bits off of the bottom. After adding the wine, add few springs of rosemary, one container of beef broth and stir. Return the short ribs to the pan and add some extra salt/pepper if you would like.
6. Add the carrots and the tomatoes, mixing the ingredients once again. (You do not have to use these vegetables, although I feel that they are pretty good choices.)
7. Put the lid on and cook in the oven for 2 hours.
8. Change the temperature of your oven to 350 degrees. (There is no need to remove the Dutch oven while waiting for the temperature to adjust.)
9. Cook for another hour and a half at this temperature. If your meat is not fall-off-the-bone-tender at this point, feel free to cook it a little longer. (My short ribs weighed 4 lbs this time, so I had to add an extra 30 minutes of so to my typical cook time.)
10. When it is all cooked, try to skim some of the fat off of the top. You will want to reserve the rest of the liquid (not that you will need all of it) to spoon over the polenta; which, we will be getting to in a minute.
For the Creamy Parmesan Polenta:
1. Mince your remaining garlic cloves.
2. Add 1 tbsp of putter to a pan and allow it to melt before adding the garlic.
3. Cook/stir until the garlic has browned and is fragrant.
4. Add the other container of beef broth and bring it to a boil.
5. Slowly stir in 2 cups dry polenta, whisking along the way.
6. Sprinkle in your grated Parmesan and stir.
7. Add roughly half of your heavy whipping cream and mix it in.
8. Add in roughly 1 tsp of salt and pepper. Stir until mixed evenly.
9. I like to reserve the other half of the heavy whipping cream to kinda re-cream-ify (totally a thing) it right before serving. As the polenta sits, it continues to absorb the liquid. So if your is waiting on the short ribs for a bit, it will become a little more dense and a little less creamy. Roughly 3-4 minutes before you plan on serving, turn the burner back on to a medium low temp and stir in the rest of your heavy whipping cream to make it super delicious and creamy again!
Put the polenta in the bowl and place 2-3 short ribs and some carrots/tomatoes on top. Spoon the braising liquid over the short ribs and polenta. If you really want to be an over achiever, you can even remove some of the braising liquid about 30 minutes before serve and reduce it down to thicken it up. :)
Enjoy, seriously, you will. I'm not kidding. I know I say everything I cook is yummy and delicious. But this is an exceptional meal.
