Beef Short Ribs with Seville Orange Sauce

Last week while at the Berkeley Bowl a couple types of citrus caught my eye. One was Bergamot and the other was Seville Oranges. The name bergamot was familiar but it took me a while to remember that I it is an ingredient in Earl Grey tea. Seville Oranges are a bitter Mediterranean variety most commonly made into marmalade or used in orange sauce for duck since its high acidity is balanced by the fattiness of the duck. This week I threw a couple of the Sevilles in my basket not sure what I would do with them. The obvious choice was duck but I had noticed that short ribs were on sale at Ver Brugge but didn' t connect the two ideas until I got home. I remembered seeing a short rib recipe in Cooking By Hand by Paul Bertolli so I looked there first. I expected to find it in the Bottom Up chapter which is dedicated to braising however I found Short Ribs Agrodolce in the Aceto Balsamico chapter instead. Agrodolce is Italy's version of sweet and sour. The recipe calls for saba and condiment grade balsamic vinegar. Saba is a sweet reduction of the same grape must used for balsamic vinegar, except cooked down even more, to about one- third its original volume. With this model in mind I went ahead with a standard braise and using the zest and juice from the seville oranges along with balsamic vinegar and red wine.