Hello Reader,

If you don’t want to read the story, feel free to jump to the recipe.

How has your week been? Winter in Canberra has started to bite. On Friday, we had a frosty –5.5 °C morning. As I drove to work, the windscreens of all the cars parked on the road where I live were covered in ice. For readers in the USA, Liberia, and Myanmar, that’s about 22 °F.

My week’s highlight was the football game on Wednesday night. It was game three in this year’s state of origin series. It was being played at the home of Queensland rugby league, viz., Lang Park (also known as Suncorp Stadium).

It was a thrilling game, with three players leaving the field in the first few minutes because of head clashes. None of them returned after their head injury assessments.

In the latter part of the second half, there was also some biff (or biffo or fisticuffs). I didn’t see it because rather than watch the game on TV, I listened to it on a smart device application. 

While the lead changed a few times, it was a tight game, and the outcome was not certain until the very end; the Queensland Maroons were victorious, which meant we won the 2022 series two games to 1.

Recipe

Equipment

• Skillet
• Oven

Ingredients

• Beef short ribs (two) (Joshi, Kim et al. 2015, Soulat, Monteils et al. 2019)
• Garlic
• Onion
• Celery
• Carrot
• Mushrooms
• Brussels sprouts
• Potato
• Pumpkin
• Flour
• Butter
• Rice bran oil

Instructions

1. The night before, remove the beef from its wrapping and dry with paper towels. Season with salt and place the ribs on a rack and keep the meat uncovered in the refrigerator overnight. This is known as dry brining.
2. A few hours before you plan to serve dinner, dice the carrot, onion, and celery. Slice the mushrooms and halve the Brussels sprouts.
3. Heat a skillet and sear the surfaces of the meat. There’s no point trying to do this to the surface of the rib bones.
4. While searing the meat, add two halves of a garlic bulb with the cut surfaces down to apply maximum heat to the garlic. Add the diced carrot, celery, and onion to the hot skillet.
5. Turn the oven on to about 150 °C.
6. When the meat is seared, and the vegetables have taken on some colour, add some red wine and bring it to a simmer.
7. Simmer the wine for a few minutes and allow it to reduce a little.
8. Cut a potato in half lengthwise and a small piece of pumpkin.
9. Place the meat into a baking tray. Next to the meat, add the garlic, potato, and pumpkin. Then add the carrot, celery, and onion.
10. Pour the cooking juices over the ribs and add some vegetable stock.
11. Cover the baking tray with aluminium foil. Place the baking tray into a larger one which has some water in it.
12. Place the baking trays into the oven and cook for about three hours. The internal temperature of the beef needs to get to at least 95 °C (about 200 °F).
13. After about three hours, remove the baking trays and the aluminium foil. Add the Brussels sprouts and mushrooms to the baking tray and return the trays to the oven for another 30 minutes.
14. Once the Brussels sprouts and mushrooms are cooked, remove and cover the meat and vegetables.
15. Move the ribs and vegetables to a warm spot and sieve the juices.
16. Make a roux with some butter and flour, and then thicken the cooking liquor to make a sauce.
17. Pull off some of the meat from the bone and put the rest into vacuum bags for meals during the week.
18. Place one half of a potato and the pumpkin onto a dinner plate. Add the Brussels sprouts and mushrooms and finally the meat.
19. Pour the sauce over the meat.
20. Give thanks to the Lord.
21. Eat with a knife and fork.

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Thoughts about the meal

This is the first time I’ve cooked beef short ribs in the oven. I’ve cooked them before in a slow cooker and in a pressure cooker.

The meat was tender yet firm. It was firmer than the meat cooked in a pressure cooker or in a slow cooker.

Overall, the meat had tremendous flavour and mouthfeel.

Final thoughts

1. Have you cooked beef short ribs in an oven before?
2. What is your preferred way to cook beef ribs?
3. Do you have any ideas on how I should enjoy the leftover rib meat?
4. How do you feel about the risk of colorectal carcinoma and mammal meat? (Joshi, Kim et al. 2015)

I hope you have a wonderful week. Next week, I’m thinking of roasting a duck. (Baker and Darfler 1981, Chen, Zhao et al. 2020)

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Photographs

This is a gallery of photographs. If you click on one or select one, you can scroll through them.

References

Baker, R. C. and J. M. Darfler (1981). “A comparison of fresh and frozen poultry.” J Am Diet Assoc78(4): 348-351.

            Chicken broilers, chicken roasters, turkeys, and ducks were split; then one half was stored frozen; the other half was iced. Two days later, both halves were baked and then evaluated using the triangle test. Shear values and expressible fluid values were also determined. The taste panel could not significantly distinguish between fresh and frozen thawed paired halves of roast poultry. Objective testing by shearing and expressible moisture losses also failed to show a significant difference. However, of the judges who could distinguish between the fresh and the frozen thawed samples, the greater percentage preferred the fresh samples.

 

Chen, X., et al. (2020). “Effect of modified atmosphere packaging on shelf life and bacterial community of roast duck meat.” Food Res Int 137: 109645.

            The purpose of this work was to assess the effect of different packaging methods on the shelf life and bacterial communities of roast duck meat. Samples were packaged under the following five conditions: overwrapped packaging (OWP), 100% N2 (100% N2-MAP), 30% CO2/70% N2 (30% CO2-MAP), 50% CO2/50% N2 (50% CO2-MAP), and 0.4% CO/30% CO2/69.6% N2 (CO-MAP). Physicochemical and microbiological parameters were monitored during 14 days of chilled storage (0-4 degrees C). Results showed that MAP samples obtained higher and more stable redness, better sensory scores, and lower lipid oxidation, compared with OWP, in which CO-MAP samples had the lowest TBARS values (0.13-0.22 MDA/kg) during storage. Moreover, 30% CO2-MAP, 50% CO2-MAP, and CO-MAP effectively retarded the onset of bacterial spoilage and extended shelf life by 7 days compared with 100% N2-MAP and OWP treatments. Additionally, bacterial succession was significantly affected by the gas composition used in the packages, especially the dominant biota at the end of storage, which played an important role in the spoilage of roast duck meat under specific packaging. On day 14, Pseudoalteromonas spp., Lactobacillus spp., and Pseudomonas spp. became the most predominate genera in OWP, 100% N2-MAP, and 50% CO2-MAP, respectively. Notably, Vibrio spp. was dominant in both 30% CO2-MAP and CO-MAP, indicating 0.4% CO did not exert a further inhibitory effect on this genus. Additionally, the growth inhibition of Pseudoalteromonas spp., Lactobacillus spp., and Leuconostoc spp. by high CO2 concentration might be the reason for MAP (CO2/N2) samples having lower levels of TVC. Globally, these results indicate that 30% CO2-MAP, 50% CO2-MAP, and CO-MAP are promising packaging methods to improve roast duck meat quality and achieve shelf life extension.

 

Joshi, A. D., et al. (2015). “Meat intake, cooking methods, dietary carcinogens, and colorectal cancer risk: findings from the Colorectal Cancer Family Registry.” Cancer Med 4(6): 936-952.

            Diets high in red meat and processed meats are established colorectal cancer (CRC) risk factors. However, it is still not well understood what explains this association. We conducted comprehensive analyses of CRC risk and red meat and poultry intakes, taking into account cooking methods, level of doneness, estimated intakes of heterocyclic amines (HCAs) that accumulate during meat cooking, tumor location, and tumor mismatch repair proficiency (MMR) status. We analyzed food frequency and portion size data including a meat cooking module for 3364 CRC cases, 1806 unaffected siblings, 136 unaffected spouses, and 1620 unaffected population-based controls, recruited into the CRC Family Registry. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for nutrient density variables were estimated using generalized estimating equations. We found no evidence of an association between total nonprocessed red meat or total processed meat and CRC risk. Our main finding was a positive association with CRC for pan-fried beefsteak (P(trend) < 0.001), which was stronger among MMR deficient cases (heterogeneity P = 0.059). Other worth noting associations, of borderline statistical significance after multiple testing correction, were a positive association between diets high in oven-broiled short ribs or spareribs and CRC risk (P(trend) = 0.002), which was also stronger among MMR-deficient cases, and an inverse association with grilled hamburgers (P(trend) = 0.002). Our results support the role of specific meat types and cooking practices as possible sources of human carcinogens relevant for CRC risk.

 

Soulat, J., et al. (2019). “Effect of the Rearing Managements Applied during Heifers’ Whole Life on Quality Traits of Five Muscles of the Beef Rib.” Foods 8(5).

            The aim of this work was to study the effects of four different rearing managements applied during the heifers’ whole life period (WLP) on muscles from ribs in the chuck sale section. The characteristics of meat studied were the sensory, rheological, and color of the longissimus muscle (LM) and the rheological traits of four other muscles: complexus, infraspinatus, rhomboideus, and serratus ventralis. The main results showed that WLP rearing managements did not significantly impact the tenderness (sensory or rheological analyses) of the rib muscles. The LM had high (p ≤ 0.05) typical flavor and was appreciated when heifers received a WLP rearing management characterized by a short pasture duration during the heifers’ whole life (WLP-E). The heifers’ management characterized by a long pasture duration during their life (WLP-A) or by a diet composed mainly of hay during the growth and fattening periods (WLP-F), had lower typical flavor and were less appreciated than those with WLP-E management. Moreover, the LM color was redder for heifers of WLP-E than those of the WLP-A and WLP-F groups. This study confirmed that it is possible to obtain similar meat qualities with different rearing managements.