Braised Short Ribs

The Goods:

1 750 ml bottle red wine*
2 boneless beef short ribs (1 lb total)
1 onion
1/2 a medium-sized carrot
1/2 cup fennel
1 shallot
5 cloves garlic
2 handfuls parsley
1 small bunch thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp good, dark, country-esque mustard
1 pinch red pepper flakes
1 tsp peppercorns
2 cups stock/water**

First off, I should say I was inspired by a co-worker's*** story of a Sunday afternoon well spent braising short ribs and had to race home and try it. One thing I noticed when doing the quick internet recipe search to see what one generally does with these things, is that there is great variety in short rib recipes. They run the gamut from simple, almost short rib/pasta/stew-ish things (see: De Laurentiis, Giada) to crazily intricate (see: Keller, Thomas). The one unifying theme is: sear meat, combine with aromatic vegetables, flavorful liquid, and braise for a long time in the oven. In this case the choice of aromatic vegetables (and what you do with them before adding to the flavor liquid) and flavor liquid are completely free to the cook.

I did the braising in an 8 quart Le Creuset stockpot (not the dutch oven ones, which would have been much better). You will need something that can comfortably hold the ribs and the braising liquid, while being oven safe to around 400 F. Add the whole bottle to your braising pot, set the heat to medium low. The goal here is to reduce the wine by around half and cook off much of the alcohol. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Add some canola (or other high heat friendly oil, I used sunflower) to a heavy bottomed skillet and turn the heat to medium high. While this is heating up, season the ribs with salt and pepper. Dredge them in some flour, patting off the excess. Sear the meat on both sides until a nice crust develops (2-3 minutes per side). Set the meat aside on a plate and turn off the heat. Mince the onion, carrot, fennel, shallot, 3 cloves of garlic, and half the parsley. Pour off the fat in the pan until only a thin coating remains, and set the heat to a medium low. Begin to saute the chopped vegetables, adding them in the order listed. Season with salt, pepper, and the red pepper flakes. If the mixture feels dry, spritz on some olive oil. Once the vegetables have sweated a bit and the onions look translucent, but not brown, add them to the reduced wine. Add the rest of the parsley (un-chopped), the bay leaves, the remaining cloves of garlic (smashed), the peppercorns, and the mustard. At this point, one has to assess how much liquid to add. It is important that the ribs be entirely covered by the braising liquid. Add water/stock to increase the liquid level in the pot.

Add the ribs to the pot and place it in the oven, covered. Let it cook for roughly 1.5 hours covered, then another hour uncovered. One can cook the beef really as long as one wants, though I imagine that after a long enough time the meat will start to fall apart. After 2.5 hours of cooking, I found that it was quite tender. To serve, I did the easiest thing. Plate the beef, add side(s) (in this case cous cous, though any grain or legume would work), and spoon braising liquid over the whole thing. From here, one can get ambitious and create a more complicated sauce for the beef out of the braising liquid, or use the braised beef as a base for another preparation.


*I went with a malbec (Conquista, from Argentina, 2008); but I'm not exactly wine-savvy. I think anything that isn't especially sweet or fruity would probably work just as well. You also probably, as a rule of thumb, should only cook with wine you can tolerate drinking. Now is not the time to break out the Carlo, unless you want the dish to taste like feet. Perhaps next time I'll go with a cab.

**I used water because I was all out of stock, and the ribs did not suffer for it. I imagine that they'll be even better with a nice, homemade beef or vegetable stock to use instead of water. Also, another plus, I've saved the braising liquid for future use. This liquid, slow-cooked with all of these aromatics and beef, is stock-like.

*** A tip of the hat to the Mikes (Corbett and McGeary). The former for the original inspiration and the latter for his pointers on the basics of short rib cookery, he being the generally acknowledged supreme beef overlord.