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I thought I was going to get some shuteye. I am up entirely too late. But, I must blog this. And, given who I'm talking about, I think I'll borrow their voices. No jokes about Sci-Fi's showing of Doctor Who this week, please. Creeeeeeeepy.


I suspect at least two of you listen to Click and Clack on Car Talk. Well, I don't get to listen to them on any regular basis because I have to work for a living when their show is on, and good riddance! I mean, I miss the show. Especially the end credits. To the two of you, why didn't you post about this?

They have likely mentioned this on their show: they have a new animated show for PBS, an hour long, and it's starting this week. The show is Click and Clack's As The Wrench Turns. It's Tom and Ray at their goofiest! The animation... well, it's Tom and Ray at their goofiest. What do you expect, high production values from Car Talk Plaza? Still, it's one of the funniest new things I've seen on PBS in a long time, and considerably longer if you take out the imported Britcoms.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Start Your TiVos! And give your poor suffering engines a rest!

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So, I mentioned recently about barbequed beef fat having a particular texture, which I think Mark Bittman would describe as "unctuous". Here's what I did with the beef short ribs (boneless), which I found quite by surprise at my local Costco.

1) I seared the beef. This put a nice browning on it, which is good for flavor. I made it a point to sear, not to cook all the way through at this point.
2) I assembled something of a sauce for braising. This was nothing I can point to and say, "Here's a recipe!"
2a) I went back upstairs to frantically watch the Bittman podcast about beef short ribs on the NYTimes website for suggestions, then hurried back downstairs and ignored most of them.
2b) I caramelized some onions and garlic using chicken broth, softened more onions and garlic, added some red wine, ancho pepper, aleppo pepper, black pepper, cane vinegar, a little mirin, a bit of brown sugar, roasted garlic cloves, likely one or three more thangs I'm forgetting, and a large glug of this tomato ginger salad dressing that's been in our fridge for a while.
3) I put the beef back in, got the sauce to simmering and bubbling, and turned the heat all the way down. Low, slow and moist was the name of the game. Per advice of Mr. Bittman I turned the beef roughly once an hour, and by roughly I mean up to half an hour variance.
4) After some 5-6 hours of cooking, with occasional times when I turned off the burner to keep it from bubbling too much, the meat was tender enough to eat with a fork and had a beautiful flavor. I took a stick blender to the sauce and chunkier bits, initially in a container I did not know was made to break if you did that in it, and made it a good thick smooth sauce. I talked about putting some tomato paste in, but my wife objected.
5) Yum!
6) I heated some beef and some sauce up last night, reducing the sauce down quite a bit in the process. So long as you get the beef properly heated again - yum!