Short Ribs

[ickster]

I had braised short ribs at a restaurant recently and want to try them at home. I have the Sunday Supper cookbook and there is a recipe there..anyone ever try cooking that? If so, how did it come out? Any other good recipes for braised short ribs?

[lawrence]

i just made the zuni cafe cookbook recipe for short ribs braised in chimay ale last night. pretty tasty and extremely tender. they only thing i couldn't replicate was the "syrupy" consistency of the pan juices, similar to what Goldfish wrote above.

the recipe is similar to those above. but zuni calls for pre-salting the meat a day ahead using about 3/4 teaspoon a pound. it may seem a lot, but allowing it to salt a day ahead seemed to season the meat throughout without making it taste salty. you also brown the meat on all sides and add equal parts chimay ale and chicken broth, along with lots of sliced onions, a couple bay leaves and white peppercorns. braise in the oven at 300* for 2 hrs or until tender. you then smear dijon mustard on the top of each rib and glaze under the broiler until golden brown. a very tasty addition.

again, my only issue is how to reduce the liquid quicker without having to do it on the stovetop. perhaps by removing the foil the last 1/2 hr of braising?

good luck with your ribs and report back!

[Mickey Blue]

Thank you so much Jillp and "Goldfish" for the wonderful recipes!!!!

I will definitely give these a try.

[Diane in Bexley]

OliverGail, yes, I learned to cook from my Hungarian grandmother, so needless to say, we ate a lot of cabbage. I, too, make sweet/sour cabbage soup. Sometimes I use short ribs, sometimes I use chuck with soup bones. Kind of depends on what I can find in the market.I no longer keep kosher and true short ribs are hard to find in my part of the country. I also make mushroom barley soup with short ribs or chuck, this is a meal in one soup with lots of vegetables, fresh and dried mushrooms; all you need with this is some hearty bread.

[valerie]

This recipe from Epicurious is really easy and delicious.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/rec...

[Diane in Bexley]

I grew up in a kosher home and we substituted short ribs for pork ribs for BBQ. If you braise them simply with onions, carrots, and celery with some red wine and beef stock, you can degrease the stock from the finished product, mix with BBQ sauce. Place ribs on indirect heat grill, baste with sauce for about 20-30 min. Yum Yum! If you have high quality ribs from a prime rib roast, you can skip braising, put them on grill with garlic, salt, pepper, grill seasoning and do rare or medium rare, that is good too.

[olivergail]

Hi Diane. I grew up in a kosher home, as well. The best short ribs ("flanken" in Yiddish) dishes were the soups my grandmother made: pea soup with flanken, and cabbage borscht with flanken. I make cabbage borscht with flanken occasionally and cook the short ribs in seasoned (salt, pepper, onions, carrots, celery) water for a couple of hours the day before - essentially making a beef broth. Then I refrigerate the broth, scoop off the fat the next day, and continue making the borscht using the defatted broth and the almost-tender short ribs.

[olivergail]

Hi Norm Man,

I roast the short ribs in a single layer, covered (with no addition of liquid), at 350F. They actually brown in the fat that is released, caramelizing the surfaces.

I do the same thing with beef ribs, then put on a glaze or barbecue sauce, and onto the grill. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

[Will Owen]

Rick Bayless has two versions of a killer short rib recipe, one in "Mexican Kitchen" and a simpler version in "One Plate At a Time." Both recipes were so well-written, and looked so delicious, that I had no qualms about cobbling up a combination of the two and serving it to company! It was a big hit - though I tried very hard to make enough to have leftovers, there was just enough to make a small lunch for me the next day. I'm sorry that I don't have my synthesis available in digital form - I might need to cobble it together some time. In the meantime, if you have either of those books you can't go wrong with either recipe.

[Katie Nell]

Here's one from "One Plate at a Time": http://www.fronterakitchens.com/cooki...

[MMRuth]

I don't know if you have the Balthazar cookbook, but I love that short rib recipe.

[olivergail]

When I make short ribs, I cook them in a covered roasting pan for about 1 1/2 hours first. A huge amount of the fat ends up in the bottom of the roasting pan. I then take the de-fatted short ribs and continue on with my recipe. There is no loss of flavour by pre-cooking the short ribs, and the texture is amazing.

You can also just glaze the short ribs at this point (but I'd suggest cooking for 2 hours initially) and grill or broil them, rather than continue on with a braising recipe.

[Norm Man]

Olivergail, what temperature do you roast your short ribs for the first 1.5 hours? And you roasted the short ribs covered with no additional liquid? Thanks in advance.

I've seen recipes on Chowhound for slow oven roasting/baking pork ribs and though about doing beef short ribs this way (instead of braising). I'm looking forqarding to trying your cooking method of roasting then grilling the short ribs.

[cheryl_h]

Ana Sortun's tamarind-glazed short ribs are a thing of wonder. Recipe is in her book Spice. I made this in big quantities for a big dinner a week ago and it was a huge success.

[twodales]

Try this link to a recent post

http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/...

This recipe has a more Asian feel to it with the ginger, soy and star anise. Hope you like it.

[Val]

I hardly eat beef anymore BUT I have a weakness for short ribs and the ones I have access to here are really beautiful, quite lean and meaty and usually $2.99 per pound. I think short ribs are one of the most often-discussed topics on these boards!

[goldfish]

Hey, this is my first post! Glad to be here!

Here's a recipe for braised short ribs that I came across not too long ago. I've made it twice and absolutely love it - my wife loves it too. Recommend serving with mashed potatoes.

By the way, I never seem to get the "gravy" much thickened at the end (recipe says "syrupy") but it doesn't matter - the "au jus" style gravy you're left with is great drizzled over the ribs and mashed potatoes.

Also, I recommend going with nice chunky bone-in short ribs, exactly as described by rtmonty a few posts above.

Enjoy!

Mahogany Short Ribs
(By Julia Ewan -- The Washington Post)
4 servings

The prune juice tenderizes the marbled ribs of beef, while the teriyaki sauce adds sweetness and salt. If you're serving wine, a California zinfandel makes a perfect match. Adapted from "Recipes 1-2-3," by Rozanne Gold (Viking, 1996).

3 pounds bone-in or boneless beef short ribs, cut into 4 pieces
1 cup teriyaki sauce
1 cup prune juice
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

Place the meat in a lidded container and cover with a mixture of the teriyaki sauce and prune juice. Cover and refrigerate overnight or up to 1 day.

Remove the ribs from the marinade, and set aside.

In a large pot over medium-high heat, combine the marinade, water and peppercorns.

Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, add the meat and cover.

Cook for 2 hours, or until the meat is very tender or falls away from the bone.

Transfer the cooked short ribs to a platter. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook the sauce for 5 minutes, or until it is syrupy. Pour it over the meat, and serve hot. To reheat, remove any congealed fat from the top of the sauce and slowly warm the ribs in the liquid.

[jillp]

I've used the recipe in Sunday Suppers at Lucques and just love it. I think I've done it three times now and just bought more short ribs today so I can do it again, now that the weather is chilly.

[yumyum]

If it's not too much trouble, would you mind paraphrasing that recipe? I'd like to try it -- the last short ribs I made turned out greasy. Not sure why.

[jillp]

Sorry for the delay in replying; I was distracted by the real world for a while, something I try to avoid as much as possible.

The Sunday Suppers recipe says to coat the short ribs in thyme and black pepper and let them sit overnight in the refrigerator. I've abbreviated that step without any noticable loss of flavor.

What makes the ribs so good is, indeed, the liquid in which they are braised.

First sear the ribs in olive oil until they're brown on all sides. Once they're browned, transfer them to the pan that will go into the oven, letting them lie flat, ribs standing up.

Into the pan you used to sear the ribs add 1 cup diced onion, 1/3 cup diced carrot, 1/3 cup diced celery, thyme sprigs and 2 bay leaves and cook them until they begin to caramelize.

Add 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 1 1/2 cups port and 2 1/2 cups red wine, turn the heat up and reduce the liquid by half.

Add 6 cups beef or veal stock and bring it to a boil then pour the liquid over the short ribs. The mixture should almost cover the ribs.

Goins says to cover the pot tightly with plastic wrap and then aluminum foil and cook in a 325 degree oven for three hours. I just use parchment and a very tight lid.

Once they're done, take them out and then strain and reduce the pan juices. Try not to eat all of the juice straight from the pan, but if you can't stop yourself, use good crusty bread to sop them up.

She also mentions that these are best made a day ahead and reheated, and she's right.

[yumyum]

Thanks jillp -- and try not to let the real world interfere too much!

[donnival]

How do you reheat the short ribs? In the liquid or just by themselves? I was very curious about this.

Thanks for anyone that has help to my question!

JH

[rtmonty]

I put liquid and ribs in an oven proof dish, cover with foil and put them in the oven at 325 until hot and steamy.

[sel]

I haven't tried it yet but here it is:

http://www.boston.com/ae/food/article...

[oakjoan]

I agree. Susanne Goin's recipe is a bit of trouble, but not bad and the result is, imho, the best short ribs I've ever eaten. Is it the combo of balsamic and red wine along with the horseradish cream? I think so. By all means, try it!!

[yumyum]

Hi -- bumping this thread up. I'm making the sunday suppers short ribs tomorrow. They are going to be seasoned and rested overnight, using a combo of Zuni's salt and Goin's pepper and thyme. Two questions for anyone who's made this:

1) Several mentions in this thread and others about accompanying horseradish cream -- is there a real recipe for that or is it just horseradish stirred into whipped cream?

2) Any reheating advice? I have dinner plans tomorrow night so I'll reheat these for Monday night. How best to reheat?

Thanks guys!

[yumyum]

Answering my own thread -- just pulled these out of the oven after the 3 hour braise. They are falling off the bone and the sauce is delicious. I'm going to let them cool and refrigerate them tonight. Skim the fat off, reduce sauce and reheat ribs tomorrow and serve with mashed potatoes and creme fraiche w/horse radish. Can't wait!

[yumyum]

So, this might be the most time-consuming dish I've made besides Zuni's mock porchetta. And like that recipe, none of the steps are difficult, there are just a lot of them spread out over 3 days. the end result was delicious, meaty rich goodness in lots of silky sauce, but this may go in my category of "once a year" recipes. the leftovers are divine and I plan to munch on them for the week! They just get better and better.

[oakjoan]

I actually used 2% Fage yoghurt for the horseradish sauce and it was great.

[lawrence]

i've only made the zuni cafe version (see bottom of thread) and that came out pretty good. but yes, these dishes are time-consuming. whoever said there could only be 24 hrs/day sucked.

[rtmonty]

I've never cooked that recipe but I fix short ribs many times during the winter, it's a great hearty, warming dish. You can go to FoodTV or Epicurious and find numerous recipes for short ribs. I like the ones where they are braised in the oven as opposed to on the stove top, but either way works.

Currently I have about 2 1/2 pounds of short ribs (bone in) cooking on the stovetop. They will be part of a beef and barley soup that is on the dinner menu.

Oh, many times you can find short ribs cut two different ways. The "flanken" cut is very thin and normally used for Korean BBQ. Get the 2-3 inch cut short ribs WITH the bone, adds lots of flavor to the braise.

[jackie de]

Hi,
Check all the posts on All about braising--beef. You'll find the comments and prob. the recipe for short ribs braised in Ale with a maple rosemary sauce. Sounds wonderful doesn't it?