Short Ribs with Coffee and Chiles

Tonight's dinner was Short Ribs with Coffee and Chiles, shredded and turned into small burritos. Since the short ribs came from my freezer, it's perfect as an entry to Mele Cotte's Deep Freeze Summer Challenge 2.















I followed the NY Times recipe, using one mulato chile and one pasilla oaxaca chile, and baking at 300 degrees for 2.5 hours. The meat and the sauce were separated and refrigerated overnight. Today I removed massive amounts of fat from the sauce, shredded the meat, then mixed meat with sauce and reheated.

I also quick-pickled some sliced red onion in red wine vinegar, quartered a few baby limes, and chopped some cilantro.

Mini-burrito assembly: Heat a tortilla over a gas flame, spread some meat in the center, top with red onions and cilantro, sprinkle with lime juice, and roll. Served with lemon & chile powder cucumber salad.















If you are thinking of making this, be forewarned - it's not health food. Even after removing the fat from the sauce, there's still plenty left, because short ribs aren't exactly lean. But the pickled onion and lime juice help cut through the richness somewhat, so you don't feel gross after eating.

I'm not sure how much of the coffee or red wine flavor came through in the meat - everything kind of blended together to make a rich, earthy, slightly bitter sauce.

Hubby said it was too bitter, even though he has previously claimed he loves bitter (hmm...maybe that's why he married me). MIL loved it, couldn't stop telling me how good it was. I'm somewhere in the middle - I'll make something like this again, but probably without the coffee to reduce the bitterness, and maybe with a pot roast-type cut for a less fatty final product. I guess that would make it a completely different dish, but for me, it's all about the chiles (and cleaning out the freezer!).