I’ve already talked about Molly Stevens’ recipe for braised short ribs with porter, but I did leave one thing out when I made it before: the glaze. I really think I like short ribs best as a kind of stew, with everything mushed up in the pot together and served over noodles, but we thought it was worth a try to do the recipe in its entirety at least once.

The idea is, after you’ve done your braise, you arrange your short ribs in a single layer in a heavy pan, tuck the vegetables around the sides, then paint them with a glaze made of rosemary-infused maple syrup mixed with prepared horseradish (the recipe uses 3 Tbsp syrup to 1 Tbsp horseradish). The pan goes under the broiler until the glaze is glossy and caramelized. Then, finally, you can eat them.

It worked fairly well – J got the ribs going in the morning so they could cool down again before the final assembly. The warm maple syrup smelled really exciting with a couple of rosemary branches sitting in it. And we liked the final result (although it seemed to want to burn, rather than get glossy – is it us? our oven?) But it seemed like a heck of a lot more work for an only slightly different product, and there ended up being a lot less sauce for tossing with noodles.

We didn’t have trouble eating the ribs, though.