Short Ribs Braised with Chile

One of my favorites easy, make and forget dish that is easy and makes for great warm up left overs and freezes well is Short Ribs.
The flavor actually gets better a day or two after the initial cooking. This recipe can be modified if you like to make the dish more astringent, simply add some apple cider vinegar and a little more sugar, but not too much otherwise it will turn out like a sweet BBQ style.
I like the heat from the chipotles, of you are sensitive to heat, just leave them out!

To Start

Soak the Ancho chile's for 20 minutes in some boiling hot water. Clean by removing the stem and and seeds then coarsely chop. Toss into the food processor the carrots, onions, garlic, tomato paste, chipotle. Quickly pulse 5 or 6 times until you come up with a thick paste.

You may have to add some water to the mix to homogenize. .

Cost the ribs with salt and pepper. Take your dutch oven and put on the stove, crank up the heat and some oil and brown the ribs. Remove and save.

Fry the bacon in the pan you browned the ribs. When the bacon has rendered most of it's fat put in the seasoning paste you just made.

Cook for about 5 minutes then add the rest of the water, cumin, molassess or piloncillo ,salt and pepper.

Now add the seared ribs, Cover and stick into a preheated oven at 325 for about 5 hours..

Remove from heat, let cool on the counter until it is cool enough to put into fridge so that the fat will solidify on top for easy removal. They are better the next day anyway. If you must, go ahead and skim the fat off the top and use the same day.

I usually service this on some exotic rice like jasmine or basmati.

Stuff you will need:

3-4 medium dried ancho chiles
1 large onion chopped
2 carrots chopped
5 garlic cloves chopped
2 tablespoons of chipotles en adobo plus 1 tablespoon of adobo sauce
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons molasses or one piloncillo crushed
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 cups of water
2 slices of bacon chopped
1 cinnamon stick
6 pounds of short ribs