One of the nice things about these Precipes is they give you an idea of what all my recipes would look like if I weren't actually blogging about them.

Case in point, these short ribs. Costco had boneless beef short ribs today, and it's another one of those cuts of meat that I done seen on the teevee, but had never cooked with. They were reasonably priced and looked good, so they came home with me.  I knew they were often braised, and I have a pretty successful Generic European Stew/Braise thing worked out, so I had my plan.

Ribs - take three of them (ended up being a pouind and a half), and salt and pepper the living shit out of them. Seriously. All the salt for the entire dish went on these short ribs, and it was almost too much.

Onion - Most of (the salvageable parts) of my last old yellow onion.

Garlic - About 8 cloves, smashed and rough chopped.

Celery - Two ribs sliced.

Fennel - About a third or a bulb, sliced thin then rough chopped.

Mushrooms - Pull mushrooms out of the giant paper bag full of criminis until it looks like enough, then cut them thick.

Red wine - About a cup? Enough glugs for a braise.

Cooking - Super hot cast iron dutch oven, only it's not really a dutch oven, it's a chicken fryer that I never fry chicken in. Vegetable oil. Brown the short ribs on both sides until, um, brown. Yank 'em.

Add the onions, celery, fennel, and mushrooms, stir them around in the oil, and let them cook down while playing some Ratchet & Clank, maybe five to ten minutes? I was looking for a nice bed of mostly softened vegetables, and that's what I got.

Push the beef down into the vegetables, add enough wine so that you can just barely see it, add a third of a capful of herbs de provence, slap the lid on, and throw it into a 250 oven for two hours while you go play more Ratchet and Clank.

After two hours, take the cover off, pull the meat out, bring the wine and veg to a boil and reduce for a few minutes while you break the meat up into half-inch chunks. If the meat's not tender enough to do this with the side of a fork, then you messed up, 'cause mine sure was.

Add the meat back in and simmer for another 3-4 minutes. Serve with some roasted potatoes. Marvel at the lovely squooshiness of the braised short ribs. It looked like this:

Expect this to be refined in the future with actual measurements and shit, because it tasted too good to not make again.