Chow chow and Ultimate Comfort Food....SHort Ribs and Mac and Cheese

I can't think of anything yummier than this on a cold winters day. Creamy, cheesey mac and cheese served with melt in your mouth short ribs.


And since my kitchen usually looks very neat in my pics I decided to fess up and show you what it actually looks like when I am cooking. I go through about 4 sink fulls of this mess during any one recipe.


I love the flavor of slow cooked rib and shank meat. I make it a lot. For this recipe I started out by browning some diced pancetta.


And added a lot of diced onions.


Ditto with the carrots.


Diced into small pieces.


This is the shank meat.


You always want to remove the 'silver' from the meat because this does not break down during cooking. You just slide a sharp knife underneath it and run it along the length until it is removed.




I dry out all of the meat on paper towels.


Then sprinkle it heavily with freshly cracked pepper.


And cover it with sea salt.


Then dip each piece in flour to coat.


The meat should be at room temperature.


Melt a bit of bacon grease with some olive oil in a heavy pan.


Then sear each piece of meat on each side until crisp and browned.


Do not crowd the pan.


Put some anchovies, or in this case, anchovy paste in a small bowl...


...along with about 4 tablespoons of tomato paste.


Saute' the carrots in the bacon grease and oil until just beginning to soften.


Add the diced onions.


When the onions become translucent, add about 4 cups of red wine.


Then about 3 tablespoons of beef demi glace.


Then add the anchovy and tomato pastes.


And the browned pancetta.


Bring it to a boil.


Add a bunch of fresh thyme.


And several sprigs of fresh rosemary.


Then add about 4 cups of beef stock.


Then place all of the browned meat into this mixture.


I used boneless beef short ribs in this recipe and to compensate for the lack of bones, I added a few marrow bones to the stock mixture.


Cover the pot and place it in a 300 degree oven for about three hours.


You can tell when the meat is ready by the presence of a certain someone in the kitchen. The Teddy timer has just gone off. The floor is thoroughly inspected for any signs of kitchen mess. Teddy wishes I was a bit messier.


She looks pleadingly for an offering. A tiny morsel for me mama? I am a hungry pup!


Chow chows have tunnel vision so she looks very closely to make sure she didn't miss anything.


Come on mama...there is six pounds of beef in that recipe, can't you just slip me a little?


After a couple hours, remove the pot from the oven.


Remove the marrow bones scraping all the marrow from the inside of each bone.


You can see it floating on the surface. I use an emersion blender to blend this into the sauce.


Meanwhile, while the ribs are cooking, melt 8 tablespoons of butter in a heavy sauce pan. I add some granulated garlic and onion to this instead of fresh because it blends in better.


Boil some pasta...I used 2 # of cavetappi.


Shred about 2 cups of cheddar and 2 cups of a mild blue. I used buttermilk blue in this recipe.


Add about 8 tablespoons of flour to the melted butter and stir over medium heat for several minutes.


Grate some fresh nutmeg and add it to the butter mix.



Add some paprika.


Then add some salt and pepper.


Stir this all together and add about 4 cups of whole milk.


Continue to stir over medium heat until it begins to thicken. You don't want it to be too thick because you are aiming for a creamy result.


While it is thickening, dice up some oven roasted tomatoes. If you don't have any on hand just skip this step.


Add the cheese to the slightly thickened mixture.


Then stir in the tomatoes.


Ignore the change in color. I just remembered to turn on the cooktop light.


Stir in the cooked pasta. Always under cook your pasta because it will continue to cook in the oven.


Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.






Serve it side by side so you can take a fork full of pasta and scoop up some of the meat at the same time.

* I make the meat a day ahead and refrigerate it so I can remove the fat before serving.

** Remember to enter the giveaway by clicking on the button on the sidebar.