Saturday was chilly, and after a brisk walk by the bay we felt the need of something substantial and warming for dinner. I glanced at my still-pristine copy of All About Braising by Molly Stevens, and found a recipe for Short Ribs Braised in Porter Ale with Maple-Rosemary Glaze. We love short ribs and have made them before with either a red wine braising liquid or a good dollop of Patak’s curry paste, so porter sounded like a good variation. The maple glaze sounded unnecessary and sweet, so I left it off, but I otherwise followed the recipe pretty closely.

Our grocery store sometimes sells both English-style and Flanken-style short ribs – this weekend they only had Flanken-style. For beer we picked out a large bottle of Scuttlebutt Porter from Everett – it’s smooth and rich without any bitterness, and cooked down with no off flavors.

J trimmed the outer fat off the ribs and cut them into large pieces, and I browned them in batches in the big dutch oven.

After the meat was browned, I threw in a yellow onion and a carrot and sauteed them in the beef fat.

Then the fun part – adding porter to a hot pan. It foamed up, then came to a simmer. I scraped up all the good bits off the bottom of the pan, and added some homemade chicken stock.

I nestled the ribs back into the liquid along with a couple of fresh bay leaves and a sprig of rosemary from the yard, brought the whole thing to a simmer, popped the lid on tight and stuck it in a 300° oven for about two and a half hours.

I fished the ribs out and set them aside, skimmed off some of the fat and boiled down the liquid to be a sauce. We ate the beef on egg noodles with a side of Swiss chard with garlic, and glasses of Alexandria Nicole Syrah.