Greek Inspired Shortribs
Short ribs have recently popped onto my radar. People rave about them, flavor them uniquely, and they simply look interesting. Finally, a few months ago, they showed up in my local grocery store. I bought 5 pounds of them.
I cooked the first package and after dinner when my husband simply said it best: “Never make those again.”
It didn’t hurt my feelings because he was right.
I had washed my hands at least 3 times. The kitchen sink was covered in a fatty, slimy, film. Every bite we took seemed to be laced with the same gelatinous feeling. The flavor was good but the fat was….bad. BAD.
And when he said ‘never make those again’ I knew I was in trouble – I had another 2.75 pounds of short ribs sitting in my freezer.
I’m one of those unlucky ladies whose husband travels for work. Back in the day, I was okay with it. I was working a low maintenance job that I could leave at the office, had two well behaved dogs, and a maid. Now I have a high maintenance job, three dogs, one cat, and two horses and I don’t think any maids live in the same county as I do. So when he’s gone, my needles are pinned. But I knew I could only rid ourselves of these short ribs if I cooked them while he was gone and recovered from the fatty mess on my own.
I put on my thinking cap to develop a cooking method that significantly decreased the amount of fat left in the final product. The recipe was so good, in fact, that I saved just a little bit to serve him when he came back from his trip. He, of course, with his super fast metabolism, ate his over pasta. As you can see above, I ate mine over shredded yellow squash ‘noodles.’
The truth about this cooking method is that it takes more time than the other. This isn’t a “a feel like short ribs for dinner!” recipe. It requires planning. If you’ve ever wanted to love short ribs like I have, however, but couldn’t get past the fat then this is the method for you. I’ll include the recipe I used as well but I think this method can be used for a variety of recipes.
Greek Style Short Ribs (inspired by Elly Says Opa)
Ingredients
2.75 lb beef short ribs
1 medium yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cinnamon stick
1 pinch ground allspice
1 pinch ground cloves
1 can diced tomatoes, juice included
1 tablespoon dried parsley or a few tablespoons fresh
1 bay leaf
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste
Instructions
- Trim shortribs of an easy-to-get-to fat chunks and place in a slow cooker.
- Add to the cooker all remaining ingredients and stir to distribute.
- Cook on low 10-12 hours. (I did this step overnight so when it was time for step two, the ribs would cool while I was working and be ready to handle after work in the afternoon.)
- Place crockpot in the refrigerator and allow to cool completely. Fat will come to the top and solidify.
- Scrape fat from top of crockpot and discard.
- Remove short ribs from crockpot. Remove bones from ribs and shred meat, place into a large saucepan.
- Pour remaining liquid from crockpot (it will have suspended chunks of fat floating around!) through a strainer over the saucepan containing the shortrib meat. This will give you about 1/2 cup liquid, minus the bay leaf, cinnamon stick, and fat chunks.
- Bring meat and liquid to a low simmer and shred completely. At this point you can serve the shortribs as desired.
- To further remove fat from the sauce, chill shredded meat completely. Remove fat that rises to the top. Return defatted meat to a sauce pan and add 1/4 cup of water. Bring to a low simmer and serve as desired.
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