Beef and Polenta Round 2 (I go down in the 3rd (day of cooking)

Tomato-Braised Short Ribs with Polenta and Escarole from the Washington Post

Well, on a second review of the ingredient list and processes for this dinner no wonder it was a bust.  I had high hopes since the success of the beef stew over polenta, and because short ribs are just delicious.   

I started this recipe off by not knowing how much poundage I had in meat.  I had 4 short ribs if that means anything, but ended up guessing on actual weight and decided to halve the recipe.  I ended up with TONS of sauce, not necessarily a bad thing but might have influenced the final flavor, not very meaty.  I easily had double the amount of sauce I needed. 

This recipe again called for lots of wine and no beef broth and again I used half the amount of wine and made up the difference in beef broth.  I’m eating beef, I want to taste it.

It also called for San Marzano tomatoes (rolls eyes at your name brand tomatoes) and arbol peppers, whatever they are.  After I made the recipe I finally looked up arbol peppers on the internet, they are small, long, skinny red peppers.  I replaced them with cherry peppers (hey, they were both red!) but if I did it again would replace with jalapenos for more bite. 

I also started this recipe off by not reading the instructions.  So, when I went to cook it the first thing I come across is marinate overnight.  Sunday afternoon and I am already behind.  I did that and massaged the meat as instructed.  Monday night, I get home from work and begin cooking.  I towel off the meat, season with salt and pepper, heat oil, brown on all sides, remove the meat from the pot, strain the marinade, add vegetables to the pot, sauté, add the meat back.  Add the marinade, cook for some time, add everything else, cook for 3-4 HOURS.  Remove short ribs, bay leaves and thyme and puree the sauce.  Add meat back to the pot.  Yea, 3-4 hours straight on to Tuesday night.  I arrive home, cook the polenta and heat up the short ribs in sauce.  By this point I said F the escarole.

It was tasty as beef, polenta and sauciness is, but the three day cooking was a giant negative.  It just wasn’t so great that I would attempt it again even though I could easily prep the meat on Sat and cook on Sunday for my dinner.

On the positive side, I had boatloads of leftover sauce.  Check back tomorrow for version two and three of this dinner.