Dexter's Ribs (2 Posts in 1 Day! Unheard Of!!)

My knight in shining armour came to the rescue today.  Yesterday, in a fit of foolishness, I did a bit of RAG* engineering with some bricks, an umbrella and an old table.  Needless to say when I went to put it all away a teetering brick fell on my bare foot… The brick broke in 2 and I spent the next 4 hours in A&E checking to see if I broke anything.  Happily no, but crippled I am.

So for 2 nights in a row I’ve been cooked for (unheard of and awesome).  Tonight was a slow cooked Dexter Beef Ribs ragu and papperdelle triumph by himself… And a triumphant triumph it was!

I found the recipe in this month’s Delicious magazine. It was actually meant for pork ribs but I thought it would be fine with beef (fine!? It was awesome!).  I showed himself, he was unsure at first (we’d had veal ribs the week before) so I suggested he go through the magazine and see if anything else tickled his fancy.  His fancy remained un-tickled so he went with the ribs.  Even though the recipe said to cook the ribs for 2 hours I knew better ;-) I suggested to himself that he get started earlier rather than later, then if the ribs needed longer he’d have time up his sleeve.

The recipe was a classic, lots of red wine, garlic, eschalots, herbs and cinnamon.  There was some minor panic about how best to quarter eschalots but once that hurdle was overcome it all moved along quite smoothly.  He reduced the wine in a saucepan and browned the ribs in a large pot.  Then removed ribs and browned the eschalots, garlic, cinnamon quills, oregano and bay.  He added lots of chicken stock, a bottle of passata and the reduced wine.  Then he put the ribs back in to simmer, simmer, simmer.  As suspected, sleeve time was required.  The ribs actually needed about 5 ½ hours to really get to the stage where they were falling apart.

The rib bones were removed, meat shredded and excess fat removed.  Papperdelle was then cooked up to serve with the sauce.

The sauce was super rich so I suggested finely chopped parsley and lemon zest to lift it a bit.  He then served with lots of shaved parmesan.  IT WAS SENSATIONAL.  What a fantastic job, it was delicious.  I could not have done a better job myself.  I can’t wait for lunch tomorrow.

*Rough As Guts