This is one of my favorite recipes for short ribs. Sometimes it is hard to find short ribs but today I was fortunate at Wal-Mart and found extra meaty back ribs. Back ribs and short ribs are the same thing. It is so cold and supposed to be colder tomorrow, so I thought that tonight would be a good time to make this meal for my family.
12 beef short ribs
Kosher Salt and ground black pepper
1/4 cup good olive oil
1 1/2 cups or 2 large onions chopped
4 cups large diced celery
3 carrots peeled and diced
1 small bulb of fennel, fronds, stems and core removed and diced
1 leek, remove outer leaves, cut in half and dice, place in bowl of water, swish around and then scoop out of water and place in colander.
3 large garlic cloves, minced or use garlic press
1 small can tomato paste
3 cups burgundy or other dry red wine
Fresh rosemary sprigs
Fresh thyme sprigs
6 cups beef stock or two 26 oz. Swanson Beef Stock
2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Place the short ribs on a parchment lined half sheet pan. Salt and pepper ribs and place in oven for 15 minutes. Remove ribs from the oven and reduce heat to 300 degrees.
While the short ribs are in the oven, prepare the vegetables and heat the oil in a large dutch oven and add the onions, celery, carrots, fennel, and leek and cook over medium low heat until translucent. Pour the 3 cups of wine and the tomato paste over the vegetables and cook on high heat until the wine reduces at least by half. I cook until the heat concentrates the wine and the vegetables are almost solid looking again, about 20 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper. Tie 2 rosemary springs and about the same amount of thyme into a bundle and the brown sugar and add to the pot. Give everything a good stir.
Place the roasted short ribs in the pot in two layers and add the beef stock and add to the pot. Pour in the beef stock all at once and heat until the contents boil again. Cover the pot and place in the preheated oven. Bake for two hours or until the meat is tender. You do not look in the pot during this time, it will do everything for you all by itself.
After 2 hours carefully remove ribs with tongs and set aside. Take out the bundle of rosemary and thyme and discard. Skim excess fat from the top of the pot with a large spoon. Cook the vegetables and sauce over medium heat for 20 minutes, until reduced again. Put the ribs back into the pot and heat through. Serve with the vegetables and and sauce. The meat may fall off the bones!
I like to serve these ribs with wild rice. To cook the rice. Measure out about 1 1/2 cups of rice. Place 1 1/4 cups of chicken stock into a small pot and bring to a boil. Add the rice and stir well. Cover the pot and reduce heat to low. Do not remove cover for 15 minutes. Remove cover after 15 minutes and fluff rice with a fork.
This will serve 4-6 people depending on whether they eat 2 or three ribs.
