Short Ribs Fail

Have you ever set out to make an incredible recipe in your kitchen only to have it fail miserably?

This is what happened to me a couple weekends ago. We were having friends over for dinner, and I really wanted to make short ribs. I searched around and thought I found a great, reliable recipe from Tom Colicchio on Food & Wine's website. I figured I couldn't possibly go wrong with a recipe from two sources I trust.

I started the night before, following the recipe all the way through. I heated oil in a large skillet and seasoned the short ribs with salt and pepper. I browned the short ribs on both sides, about 9 minutes per side, as the recipe instructed.

Then I transferred the ribs to a shallow baking dish.

I added onions, carrots, celery, and garlic to the still-hot skillet and sauteed these over low heat for 20 minutes.

Then I added wine and thyme sprigs to the skillet.

I brought the wine to a boil and poured the hot marinade over the short ribs. I set the dish aside to cool and then covered it and put it in the fridge overnight. (I did forget that I was supposed to turn the ribs once while they were marinating, but I don't think that mattered much because the meat was all submerged.)

The following evening, I preheated the oven to 350 and transferred the ribs and marinade from the shallow baking dish to my cast iron Dutch oven.

I poured the chicken stock in, and heated the mixture on the stove until it came to a boil. Then I covered the Dutch oven and put it in the oven for an hour and a half.

After that, I uncovered the short ribs and left them in the oven for another 45 minutes. The sauce should have been reduced by half at this point, but I don't think it was. (Should I have continued cooking the ribs uncovered?)

I transferred the short ribs to a shallow baking dish, poured the sauce through a fine-mesh sieve, and then poured the strained sauce over the short ribs. I covered the ribs and left them to sit in the turned off oven until our guests arrived and we were ready for dinner (probably an hour), and then I heated them under the broiler (this seemed weird but that's what the recipe said to do).

I brought them to the table, and we all piled buttermilk mashed potatoes on our plates along with a short rib each. We topped our short ribs with extra sauce and started to dig in. I had high hopes for fall-apart, tender meat, but the meat was chewy and tough, and I needed to use a knife. I was so disappointed (I didn't even take pictures of the end result). Everyone comforted me by saying they were good and had great flavor. And while I agree that the flavor was pretty good, the ribs themselves were not good.

We had two ribs leftover from the dinner, and I ended up putting them in the oven a couple days later at 325 for about an hour. They were much better after that. But how could the cooking time possibly be that far off?

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What went wrong? Have you made short ribs before? Do you have any tips or recipes for me?