Flat Ribs and Using the Slow Cooker

When I think of ribs, I tend to think of a beastly rack of pork ribs, slathered in barbecue sauce.  I’ve been conditioned to think this is the only way to eat a portion of meat with lots of bone, fat and connective tissue.  What I didn’t realize until recently is how much of the flavor of the meat I’ve lost out on with the overindulgence of over-sweetened sauce.

If you hadn’t figured out from my last post, I love braising.  I love slow cooking.  I think it’s the best way to cook almost everything on most animals – slow cooking in liquid, or slow roasting in an oven with a gentle heat.  I went over some of the principles I follow with slow cooking in the last post, and now I’ll offer up some quicker solutions for cuts like flat ribs that went out to many customers in the last month.

If I had my druthers, I’d still slow cook the flat ribs on the stovetop, and did, in fact, this week.  I’d still fry up a couple onions, brown the beef, add some stock and an acid (in this case cider vinegar and some home-canned roasted tomatoes from our garden), and salt and spice in the end.  You could add a little bit of molasses or honey to your taste, but don’t overdo it – the flavor should be coming from the stock and the beef.

But, if I was in a time crunch, and I often am, I will cheat a little and put some flat ribs in the slow cooker.  Here’s a simple schedule for those of you who have the 9-5 and have limited time for cooking:

Tuesday night – Chop up 2 onions, defrost broth, pull beef out of freezer to defrost.

Wednesday 7am – Pour coffee

7:15 – Place beef flat ribs in slow cooker

7:16 – Turn on slow cooker to low setting, add onions

7:16:30 – Pour in canned tomatoes and about ¼ cup cider vinegar

7:17 – Pour in stock, add black pepper corns and other whole spices

8:30 – Go to work

5:30 – Check beef, should be almost falling off the bone by now

5:35 – Put beef in roasting pan with a little of the liquid from the slow cooker

5:40 – Set oven to broil, get that nice “browned” flavor I talked about in the last post, removing the beef (and covering it with foil) as soon as you see some nice crispy edges forming

5:40 – Simultaneously, put the liquid in a saucepan and reduce it over some heat

5:55 – Once it’s reduced by one half or so, thicken it if you like (it should be pretty darn thick with gelatin on its own) and remove from heat.

6:00 – The beef should now be well rested and ready to slice.

6:01 – Pour some liquid over the beef, and serve the rest in a bowl or gravy boat

It’s easier than it sounds, and if you’ve never thickened a sauce before, it’s also pretty simple.  Reducing will thicken a sauce, but so will flour.  White flour and cornstarch work, but I like arrowroot best because it doesn’t infringe upon the flavor of the stock so much.  In this case, I used what Anna’s family calls the “boat motor,” which is just a handheld blender.

Enjoy the braised ribs with roasted root veggies, a salad, or some corn bread.  Check out the recipe section for our short rib recipe with red wine – you can really play around with this method, making Asian short ribs by adding ginger, garlic and soy sauce, or stick with the tomatoey American barbecue classic.

-Brooks