Sous Vide Smoked Beer Braised Short Ribs-way too much salt

bocaboy
Sun, 05 Apr 2015 12:57:07 +0000
Anova Precision® Cooker

I'm a new owner of a Anova Sous Vide Precision Cooker. My first adventure was to make the Sous Vide Smoked Beer-Braised Short Rib recipe from the Anova site and use the meat and resulting gravy for a ragu over pappardelle. I normally do this with a chuck steak and cook it as pot roast, but as a newbie to Sous Vide, I decided to try this method and keep to the recipe.

It cooked for 24 hours in a zip lock bag using the immersion method at 180º and the meat was falling off the bone tender. What I really liked was that all the fat didn't render off the meat so that it was very juicy and tender. What I didn't like was that 1 tablespoon of salt is way too much for this recipe. The salt becomes even more pronounced as the gravy is reduced. At most this should be 1 teaspoon, maybe even less. In my experience, it's always better to add salt at the end of a cook rather than at the beginning. In any case, 1 tablespoon is excessive.

I also think that next time I make this I'm going to add more complexity to the veggies, which is what I'd do if I was making this stovetop in an enamaled cast iron pot. In addition to the onion, I'll add finely chopped carrot, parsnip and celery and substitute a mix of red wine and reduced sodium beef stock for the "smoked beer."

At the end of the cook time, take the meat out of the bag and set it aside to cool. Degrease the stock, then put it into a blender and liquify it. You'll end up with a wonderfully thick gravy, flavored with the meat juices, that serves as a fantastic sauce for the pasta and meat. If it's too thick, add a bit more beef broth before you return it to the stove. If it's too thin, return it to the stove and add some butter and flour, bit by bit, until you get the consistency that will coat the pasta with this delicious gravy.

3 posts - 3 participants