swpeterson

I have had excellent results with short ribs in my Sousvide appliance that I purchased last May. I have found Douglas Baldwin's excellent book "Sous Vide for the Home Cook" to be an invaluable resource during this journey. My recipe has been much varied but is basically as follows: 4 shortribs for a two person dinner. They are about 3 X 3 inches square generally with the bone still on. Season them with kosher or sea salt, fresh ground pepper, red pepper flakes, onion powder, garlic powder, a teaspoon to a tablespoon of rendered bacon fat, a sprig of fresh thyme, oregano, majoram. Everything goes in the Food Saver vacumn bag. I use one bag per two ribs. The seasoning is per bag as well. My goal with the ribs is to eat them rare. So I follow Douglas's water bath for 130 degrees F. I have had the best results for me using the 36 hours. I have done them for 24, 36 and 48. But for the rare goal, the 36 hours yielded the best results for me. The results were a succulent prime rib quality taste and texture for the price of short ribs. After the ribs were done, I cut open the bags and poured off the liquid into a sauce pan. I have done a variety of add-ons to the sauce including cherries, stone fruit and last time cranberries. The fruit are always fresh (so far) and the sauce is reduced to about 1/2 cup and finished with unsalted butter before serving. The ribs in the meantime are place on a cake roll pan that has a rack on it or I can also use one of my stainless steel all-clad saute pans with a small rack inside the pan and broil the outside (fattest side up) about 2 inches from the broiled element. The time is generally not longer than 3 minutes assuming that the broiler is at its hottest temperature. I have tried my Weber Q200 grill with a cast iron skillet heated to the Q's highest temp for browning. I have tried a hand held flame torch that one would use for creme brulee. I have tried high heat searing of the meat on the stove using a high smoke point oil. For me, the best results have been using the broiler after the sous vide rather than before. When I want the short ribs to be more on a braised flavor, I cook them until they are falling off the bone tender using the higher 160 degrees for 48 hours. I broil them the same way and I use a gastric to 'sauce' the meat. The gastrics have been made with apricot jam and apple cider vinegar, plum duck sauce with a red wine vinegar, another was with an onion-garlic jam with the apple cider vinegar. The results for these short ribs are much more of a stick to your ribs hearty dinner than the short ribs cooked to mimic prime rib. The gastric is added after the meat has been colored up under the broiler. The time for the coloring is the same as it is for the rare ribs. The gastric is then painted onto the ribs and the ribs are placed back in the turned off oven for 5 minutes to rest. Hope this has been helpful to you.

I have been buying country style bone-in ribs instead of bone-in pork chops. I season them with a rub very similar to Emeril's Rustic Rub spice rub and use a heaping tablespoon a rendered Nueskie's Applewood smoked bacon fat in the Food Saver vacumn bag. We have been using 2 ribs in the bag but have made the decision to switch to one to split. The meat is so rich and flavorful that we can easily split one and enjoy the meal even more. For a sauce, I cobbled together a sauce made with the juice of half a valencia orange, the pulp from 1 passion fruit, 1 cup pitted cherries (I used rainiers and bings in this one), 1 tsp Dijon mustard, 1/2 cup white wine, juice from 1 lime, 2 tsp honey, garlic cloves crushed (I used roasted garlic that I keep in the fridge and 'crushed' them in my 'special' coffee grinder(2)) and 1 medium sized shallot. I used the same bacon fat to soften the shallots, then added the rest of the ingredients and let it reduce by about a third and then let it rest and reheated it when the pork ribs were done. I kept them in the sous vide at 141 from 10:00 AM until I got home from work at 7:00. It took another half hour +/- to change clothes, pour a glass of wine, reheat the sauce, make a salad, and heat up the garlic bread that I keep prepped in the freezer. After the bread was heated for about 8 minutes, I switched the oven to broil and took the bread out of the oven. I have started to experiment with using the broiler element to put color on the proteins that I have cooked in the sous vide. I have placed the oven rack on the third rack from the top, leave the door ajar while I bring the broiler element up to heat. I use my 10" stainless steel saute pan with a stainless steel rack in the pan for the protein. I open the sous vide package and pour the liquid that has accumulated in the bag into the bottom of the pan. I put the ribs, fattest side up on the rack and place the pan in the oven. I leave the door ajar and let them stay in there for 8 mnutes. That timing has worked extremely well for both the ribs and the chicken that I have done. I don't flip them yet and that hasn't been necessary for those 2 proteins. (I was much less successful with this formula for the flank steak which I think needs to be closer the heat source for less time). At any rate, the broiler is working well for color and the meat and sauce are great. The sauce also works very well with chicken. Haven't tried it yet with the salmon. Just wanted to share as I really love this sous vide thing and wanted to share. Sorry no photos yet. I haven't figured that part out yet but my husband promises to teach me.