The world’s fanciest Hamburger Helper

That’s what he called it, after I had spent hours braising bison ribs, pressing every last drop of braising liquid out of the strainer and hovering over what I thought would be my greatest creation this month: The world’s fanciest hamburger helper. I guess that’s ok, and not entirely inaccurate, just, I wish it had been “meaty ambrosia” or “egg noodles, topped with pure joy” ok maybe that’s a little over the top, but you see my point. Anyways, I had spotted a small package of bison ribs at my supermarket. I knew that there’s no way that was enough for 2 people. I also knew that there’s no way I could pull off those lean ribs as straight up ribs, so I decided to braise them and serve them over egg noodles with the strained braising liquid and parmesan. This is something you will come to learn: there’s never enough cheese in this world…

2 vidalia onions, 2 celery stalks, 3 garlic cloves chopped in the food processor


Seasoned bison ribs waiting for the heat

Into the pan you go my beasties!

FLIP!

Add mushrooms and carrots until browned and then add the vidalia mash

Add the herbs... oooh sweaty! (the herbs are a nice fat bunch of fresh thyme -- stalk on, they'll fall off in the braise; and 2-3 bay leaves)

Return the meat to the pan

Don't forget the white wine and / or vermouth (dry, don't be gross and add the sweet)

ummm... I MAY have forgotten to turn the oven on....

Ok, there we go.

Well, I also kind of forgot to remove 2 pans that were hibernating inside the oven so I needed this nifty device that my uncle Ed made me it allows you to pull out the oven grate, and push it back in without using oven mitts. It works really well for such a simple device.

So once the oven has heated up and you remove the pans that were not supposed to be there, cover the meat / veg and put in the oven for about 2 hours. Remove the meat and strain the vegetables into another vessel

Here is the liquid. I also picked out the mushrooms because I thought it would be nice tossed with the pasta.

Boil up a pot of salted water and cook egg noodles. Toss the noodles with the strained braising liquid, mushrooms and a little bit of cooking liquid from the pasta. Let it sit for a little bit for the pasta to soak up the liquid and...

the parmesan!!!!!!