When a braise goes bad

[Smithy]

My darling wanted to celebrate tonight.

My darling wanted pork back ribs....fall-off-the-bone, tender, meaty ribs like he loves. Ribs like I made a couple of weeks ago, using the braising techniques I learned through the eGCI's seminar, The Truth About Braising.

My darling wanted to simplify the recipe, since I wasn't there to do the "rocket science". His simplification went along these lines:

"Oh, what the heck. The pan isn't important." He put the ribs in a shallow lightweight baking pan, instead of one of my prized heavy braising vessels.

"Oh, what the heck. Liquid isn't important." He doused the ribs in his preferred barbecue sauce, but didn't add any other liquid.

"Oh, what the heck. A cover isn't important." He put the uncovered pan in the oven at 200F or thereabouts, and left it for a few hours. Low and slow, long cooking. That's the ticket. What else could possibly matter?

Sometime a few hours into it he reconsidered and added liquid. When I got home, he informed me that he'd wanted to see whether he could simplify the recipe and still get good results. I refrained from expressing surprise that braising is considered rocket science, and did not ask how difficult it is to put aluminum foil over a baking pan. I am a loving wife, and although I love to cook, I do not want to do all the cookery in the household.

Dinner tonight was...well, about as good as we get at a lot of rib joints, but hardly the falling-off-the-bone tender meat we could have expected at an excellent rib joint, or if he'd just covered the doggoned pan. The meat is flavorful. It's a bit chewy - not stringy, but a bit dry and not very fatty, either.

My question is, how can we save the remainder? Right now I have the remaining ribs covered, with a spot of water thrown into the pan, for another couple of hours of cooking at 200F. Will that work to tenderize the meat? Does anyone have any better ideas?

[Fat Guy]

It's really hard to know for sure, but it sounds like your number one problem is that the meat is dried out. So what I'd probably do in your situation is stop cooking for now and refrigerate everything overnight. Then, I'd reheat everything the next day completely submerged in liquid (be it stock, sauce, whatever). This tends to moisten the meat significantly. This technique has worked for me to salvage many a dry brisket and short rib.