The curse of the marinade - Part 1

*£%*!!! Was my response (insert expletive of choice) when I realised that the Short Rib Feast and Creamed Cauliflower was meant to be cooked yesterday (January 7) from Nigel's book (pages 41 - 44).  No, not because I have a hatred for ribs, quite the opposite in fact.  It was that I had planned to have them for tea that evening and I read the words, every cook dreads...marinate.  The only thing you dread more is 'marinate for 24 - 48 hours'!!!!

Of course, they need marinating (face in palms).  It is meat designed to fall off a bone, that takes time and love and I was going to deny them that with the few hours I had.  Now, I am fairly practical cook, not one to fuss, but equally, I like to think I know when the extra effort is needed and this is most definitely one of those times.  Cue change of plans and cue my sister coming to the rescue and inviting us for Sunday Dinner, a delicious feast of lamb shanks (which I am sure she gave them time to marinate!).

So, this dish will be 'cooked' in two parts.  The first part is to make the marinade and in Nigel's effortless way of bringing some lovely ingredients together in order to bathe my beef ribs.  I managed to get beef ribs (not as common as the pork rib) but I could not get short ones only the standard ones, but they still look amazing:

One thing I was eager to do was to instantly pour the marinade over the ribs (seriously, I need to learn to slow down), however, as the marinade is warm you need to make sure it is completely cold.  Otherwise you would start cooking the ribs and it would be a hot bed for bacteria.

Nigel suggests marinating in zip lock freezer bags and I love this idea.  However, I only have resealable bags and they are not big enough for my ribs, so into a pyrex dish it goes with the lovely aniseed, sweet, salty marinade poured over the top.  Now we wait...

JanieCooksNigel

7/2/16