catalan beef stew

My most recent encounter with short ribs was last Sunday. It had pissed with rain all weekend and 'er Indoors decided we needed a decent dinner. She was looking through the latest edition of Cooks Illustrated at the time and liked the look of their catalan beef stew recipe. I did too when she mentioned it used short ribs instead of stewing beef. Our experience with Cooks Illustrated recipes is that they are incredibly involved and precise - but if you follow them to the letter, they turn out beautifully. In this case you had to make a sauce base called a "sofrito" - deeply caramelized onions with tomato pulp and spices. After about three hours of cooking the gravy was thickened with "picata", toasted breadcrumbs and almonds, flavoured with garlic. Some mashed potatoes and broccoli and Robert's your Father's brother. We drank our Chateauneuf-du-Pape from French Country Wines - just fab. Let it rain as much as it wants.