From Saveur: Slow-Cooked (Medium-Rare?) Short Ribs with Fermented Harissa

Jesse Sutton: Ok, everyone, I pulled another recipe out of Saveur (tip the 40, best defunct food magazine this side of Lucky Peach), this time from issue #193.  It had two techniques I wanted to try, one because it fascinates me, and one because I thought it was highly suspect.  It was in an article on fermentation (A Living Larder), by Gabe Ulla, about chef Cortney Burns (check out her bio), a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author (Bar Tartine), and all-around interesting chef.  (And kinda hot, in a less-scary-Dominique-Crenn kinda way...)

Here is the online recipe.  In a nutshell, you make a harissa (Moroccan spice paste) using house-fermented peppers.  Then, you marinate cross-cut short ribs in the paste overnight, and the day of, bake them at incredibly low temperatures for 4-6 hours, before blasting them at high heat and serving with harissa mayonnaise, grilled scallions, and mint leaves.  As I said, I wanted to try this recipe for 2 reasons.

Fermentation: First, I have wanted to get into fermentation for a while.  Nate bought me Sandor Katz's fermentation book years ago, and I read it cover-to-cover, but I still was a little squeamish about doing it myself.  Then I spent a couple years working with local badass Josh Keeler, who is a fermenting fool, and was always cool with sharing his delicious fermented peppers with me, to the point that I became powerfully physically addicted.  But, for whatever reason, most of my own fermentation experiments came out kinda wack, whether it was because they were furry, had off-flavors, or just spooked me in general.  However, I am fascinated with vegetable fermentation, so I was bound and determined to take another stab at it.

Slow-Cooked Short Ribs: I love beef short ribs.  All chefs do.  When you're in cooking school, you're taught that it's a braising cut, period.  For years, it was braise-or-nothing.  However, over time, I started to hear about other methods.  There is the slice-em-thin-and-grill method favored by the Koreans.  At Poogan's Smokehouse, I learned that they can be barbecued in a 250F smoker for 4 hours.  And we've all heard about the sous-vide 48-hour short ribs (which I am trying out next week on the circulator Nate loaned me, so stay tuned).  This recipe had a technique I've NEVER seen.  It wanted the reader to cook the ribs in a 125F dehydrator all afternoon.  I had a hard time imagining this working, and nothing makes me want to try a recipe like being 85% sure it won't work.  It's a win-win!  If I was right, I'm vindicated.  And it I'm wrong, I learn a new, counterintuitive technique.

How the fermentation went:  The second time went great.  The first time, well, let's call it educational.  The harissa required fermented pepper mash, and preserved lemons.  That's a lot of advance prep that has to be done a week out.  For me, it was a comedy of errors.  I started my pepper ferment, then bought lemons to preserve, then forgot them, and my wife used them.  Then I bought more, finished my pepper ferment, and put it in the back of the fridge and forgot it.  Then my lemons got moldy.  Then I waited 2 weeks and bought MORE lemons, and this time, actually got them sliced and onto salt.  (Incidentally, preserved lemon method: slice lemons thin, and bury them in alternate layers of kosher salt [minimum 2-3mm thick] to cure for about a week, then rinse them, cut away the flesh, and use the peel.)  

Finally, after three tries to remember to salt the lemons (which is easy and takes 5 minutes, so I really have no excuse), I pulled out my pepper ferment, and it was absolutely shot through with green, furry mold.  Sigh.  Start over.  Lesson learned: Once your ferment is done and cold, you still have to babysit it, and clear away the mold every couple days, or you will have to start over.  So anyway, my second ferment went perfectly, and I made it a point to finish the harissa within a day or three.

How the short ribs went:  Dude.

See that?  That's a rosy-pink medium temp on a short rib, done in a regular oven.  She called for 4-5 hours at 125, to an internal temperature of 125.  Regrettably, my oven doesn't really do 125F.  The lowest temp it'll hold is 170, so I did 5 hours at that temp, and I'll be damned.  The meat was tender and pink.  I was absolutely astonished.  A quick blast at 500 to sear the outside, and we were in business.  So good!

Now, it's not a perfect method.  The low temperature cook made the meat nice and tender, but it didn't really break down the connective tissue, so you found yourself working around gristle.  (This would be mitigated by using chuck flap boneless shorties, being free, as they are, of bone and sinew, but the recipe specifically called for 1.5" thick pieces, cross cut (so there were three exposed rib bones in each piece), a but I finally located at the Mexican market, interestingly enough.  Costilla de res, if you need to ask for it.) This wasn't a problem for me, but may be an issue in a restaurant, especially if the diner is used to the totally-tender-gelatinous-submission of a braised shortie.

Does sous-vide solve this problem?  Will I get rosy, moist flesh AND tender connective tissue?  Well, kids, that's my next experiment.  

So how were the results in general?  Nice enough dish.  Well, not really a dish, more like a meat with garnishes.  I found the experience more valuable for the techniques learned than the dish itself.  The harissa was rewarding, because I got to work towards perfecting my fermentation, but also proved pretty difficult, considering the result.  It was good, interesting, and complex, but we are talking a weeks-long process to get a marinade.  I'm never one to complain about difficulty, but I'm not sure I'm in a hurry to make this again.  Also, the harissa was a little peculiar.  Not bad, it was actually really delicious, but it had a lot of ingredients you wouldn't expect.  I mean yeah, it ha\d all of the usual harissa elements (lemon, chile, garlic, olive oil), but also a number of flavors that were pretty out-there (marjoram, dill, mint, caraway).  Pretty wild.  Not bad, just crazy.  And then it was a trip to see that the author's recommended way to finish the sauce was to mix some of the harissa into mayonnaise.  We went from ultra-precise fermentation-nerd cuisine to bar-and-grill-easy in just one step.  Not complaining by any stretch.  After the insane difficulty level of the harissa, it was great to have a step that only took 2 seconds.

Well, that's all for today.  More recipes from Saveur and more experiments with short ribs coming soon, along with more rescued recipes, more podcasts, and more self-important puffery about American gastronomy!  See y'all then.