Citrus and Chile Braised Short Ribs

Realized that the star of this dish is the sauce, not the meat, which remains relatively bland. So I cooked it over a low flame 3-4 hours more, cooled it, removed the bones and shredded the meat with my hands. No need to reduce the sauce. A night in the refrigerator and I could easily remove most of the fat. Voila - a straight 5. Dont forget the orange peel slivers over the reheated dish - it gives an incredible citrusey kick. The lemon and cilantro too.

• Mike Stern

• Israel

• 12/31/2021

I braised a few days ahead of time, removed the fat from the sauce and the ribs as much as I could after cooling, which made a huge difference, as the ribs are pretty fatty. The citrus flavor in the sauce was excellent. I served the ribs with an herb-lemon zest gremolata instead of the cilantro and pepper over polenta. Everyone loved it!

• kathiwojo

• Monterey CA

• 1/28/2018

I will keep this in my arsenal for a while. I'd even amp up the spices a bit, but this was a wonderful dish. Complex flavours and a fantastic leftover.....(always make extra!)

• chrynkow

• Maple Ridge, BC

• 1/12/2018

This recipe isn't worth the time and effort- sauce was thin and watery even after cooking down. I barely tasted the citrus even after doubling the orange juice. I use epicurious recipes all of the time and this one was a total miss.

• jlscully88

• Boston

• 3/14/2017

I made the ribs over three days: seasoned the ribs on day one, made the braise (and used a fat separator to remove the fat) on day two, served it on day three. I think that there are some significant technical issues with this recipe, but it's good nonetheless. The issues: 1) My 8x5-6" short ribs weighed a bit more than four pounds. Given the experience of another reviewer, the author had unusually heavy ribs. 2) It's unusual that the instructions suggest putting the pot full of cold (maybe room temperature) contents in the oven. I brought the contents to a boil before putting them in. 3) The oven temperature seems pretty high for a braise - I'd expect 275 or maybe 300. Maybe the high temp is because of not instructing us to bring the contents to a boil. 4) After braising for four hours (definitely didn't need five but see above comments for possible reasons why), the liquid was pretty reduced, so it was unclear to me if I ought to reduce it further. About what volume of liquid was I supposed to have after reducing? I had about four cups of "sauce" and one cup of fat. The four cups were reduced enough to gel when I refrigerated the ribs and I didn't reduce the sauce further. 5) The instructions don't say to skim the fat before service but I did so anyway (who'd want a cup of fat in their braise?). Seems like it'd be awfully greasy without doing so. It was good but I forgot to check the seasoning before my first service (only two of us were eating, so there's plenty left over). We added salt at the table and I added about 1/2 or a full teaspoon of salt to the remaining liquid.

• stevenhb

• Boston, MA

• 10/22/2015

所以我认为这是有一些问题cipe, but it's good nonetheless. My issues: 1) My 8x5-6" short ribs weighed a bit more than four pounds. Given the experience of another reviewer, the author had unusually heavy ribs. 2) It's unusual that the instructions suggest putting the pot full of cold (maybe room temperature) contents in the oven. I brought the contents to a boil before putting them in. 3) The oven temperature seems pretty high for a braise. Maybe that's because of not instructing us to bring the contents to a boil. 4) After braising for four hours (definitely didn't need five but see above comments for possible reasons why), the liquid was pretty reduced, so it was unclear to me if I ought to reduce it further. About what volume of liquid was I supposed to have after reducing? I had about four cups of "sauce" and one cup of fat. The four cups were reduced enough to gel when I refrigerated the ribs and I didn't reduce the sauce further. 5) The instructions don't say to skim the fat before service but I did so anyway (who'd want a cup of fat in their braise?). Seems like it'd be awfully greasy without doing so. It was good but I forgot to check the seasoning before my first service (only two of us were eating, so there's plenty left over). We added salt at the table and I added about 1/2 or a full teaspoon of salt to the remaining liquid.

• stevenhb

• Boston, MA

• 10/22/2015

I cooked the ribs in the morning and then reheated them in the braising liquid and reduced the liquid when company arrived. The flavor was superb although I forgot to add the lime juice at the end. I think the lime juice would have diminished the subtle orange flavor. The short ribs completely filled the baking dish and I put the last ribs meat side down so the meat would be submersed in the broth. I added an extra cup of water before baking to cover the meat. Serve with bread or something else to soak up the braising liquid!

• Gardener22

• Santa Fe, NM

• 5/31/2015

The flavor of this dish was wonderful, but I had some technical issues. In order to have 6 pounds of meat, I ended up with 12 short ribs. That turned out to be too many to cover with the liquid, so I had to add 2 cups of water. Because of that, the time it took to reduce the sauce was insane. Over 2 hours of simmering later, I finally gave up and served them without sauce. As I said, the flavor was amazing, but they ended up dry because I didn't have sauce to serve them with. It would have been helpful if the instructions indicated how to reheat the ribs if one wanted to reduce the sauce on a different day. It also would have been nice to know that reducing the sauce takes an extraordinary amount of time. Just looking at the recipe, I wouldn't have thought it would take as long as it did.

• SageCinnamon

• Portland, OR

• 5/11/2015