Wednesday, August 27, 2014

72-Hour Braised Beef Short Ribs

Yes, you read it right. Seventy-two hours. That's three full days of cooking.

I found the recipe on the Modernist Cuisine site and figured I'd give it a try. I bought two small packages of beef short ribs, vacuum-sealed them in a bag, and put them into a very large pot with the sous vide set to cook for 72 hours at 144 degrees.

... toe tapping ... waiting ... waiting ... checking ... waiting ...

I was a little worried about how much water would evaporate, particularly overnight, so I used a big pot and filled it to the max line on the Anova sous vide device. Then I used aluminum foil to cover the pot.

I did replenish the water a couple times, when it had noticeably dropped, but I might have been able to cook it the whole time without refilling. It didn't evaporate all that fast. Probably because the temperature wasn't all that high, hmmmmm?

Okay, confession. These didn't actually cook 72 hours. They cooked for about 71 hours because I wasn't thinking quite straight when I started cooking, and at 71 hours it was dinner time and I didn't want to wait any longer. But I figure that the difference between 71 hours and 72 hours wouldn't have been that significant.

The short ribs were pretty amazing. They were incredibly tender - possibly even more tender than a traditional long-braised beef. And not stringy. Still pink inside. And even though I didn't add any salt or seasonings (because I wanted to see what the sous vide did for the flavor) they were incredibly flavorful.

If I never ever ever cooked anything else sous vide, it would be worth it to have the Anova just for this. Seriously.
Yum