Recipe #34 - Braised Short Ribs

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This recipe came from Geoff Garrett, a copilot my father recently flew with on his trip to Calgary, Canada. At some point during the flight, the conversation turned toward cooking (it must have been a long flight) and Dad told him about My Year of 25 challenge. Geoff told Dad about his favorite Braised Short Ribs recipe. Immediately, Dad came home and began begging me to make this recipe every day for over a week! Which was a nice break from him begging me to cook crawfish (yuck!) for the last month. So I compromised, short ribs it was!

I had initially planned to make this for Easter dinner. However, on Easter Sunday, I went over to the Pina family's cookout with the intension of only eating a few nibbles. Epic fail. I could barely walk out of there, let alone cook short ribs for dinner. So, I made them the following Monday.

Preheat oven to 325. Heat oil in a dutch oven or large, heavy covered pot over high heat. Season ribs with Creole seasoning (I used Tony's Creole), patting it in well with your hands.

When pot is nearly smoking add ribs without crowding them and sear on all sides until they form a brown crust. Do this in batches, if necessary. When all ribs have browned set aside.

In the same pan used to sear the ribs, odd onions, celery and carrots; saute 1 minute to brown slightly or until onions are transparent. Stir in tomatoes, garlic, vinegar, Worcestershire, bay leaves, and pepper.

Now I tried to use a Pyrex dish, but it wasn't deep enough. So I transferred it to the dutch oven. Place ribs in the Dutch oven and add vegetable mixture. Add enough broth to just cover the ribs and bring to boil. Place the dutch over on a cookie sheet and then put it into the oven. Cover and let simmer until very tender, about 2 1/2 hours. About an hour and 1/2 in, the broth had boiled down and I added the rest of the 2 quarts that was called for.

Remove ribs from sauce and set aside. In a separate cup, mix together 8 tablespoons flour and 2 cups water. Slowly pour the flour mixture, while constantly stirring, into the sauce creating a gravy. (Add more flour mixture for thicker gravy.)

To serve, mound ribs in center of 3 plates, spoon sauce over and garnish with chopped scallions. Serve with egg noodles (which you can add the gravy too as well).

Sticking to the FedEx theme, my father was on a layover with another co-pilot, Dave Brown, in Panama City, Panama. Dad had bought dinner and drinks for him the night before. To return the favor, Dave showed up  to the flight the next day with a bottle of Argentinian red wine. He had learned a thing or two about South American wines when he did a foreign exchange tour with the Air Force before he worked at FedEx. Dad, again, shared with him my cooking challenge and told Dave that he'd find the perfect meal to pair it with. Red meat with red wine. Two FedEx stories. It was a no brainer to drink it with this recipe. It paired very well.

This recipe said it served 4, and I guess it depends on the cut of the short ribs, but I only had 6 ribs. That was only enough for 2 per person. I think that you could almost double the amount of ribs while keeping the other ingredients the same. I had a lot of left over gravy, that just went bad after a while.

The 2 1/2 in the oven was perfect! The original recipe said to do it over the stove, but Geoff suggested transferring it to the oven to help maintain a constant temperature. It worked beautifully. The meat was just falling off the bones and perfectly tender.

Rating: 10
Time: 3 hours
Serves: 3
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 1/2 pounds short ribs, cut into individual ribs
2 tablespoons Creole seasoning
1 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1 cup peeled, seeded and chopped fresh or canned tomatoes (I used fresh)
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
3 bay leaves
2 teaspoons black pepper
2 quarts beef broth
1/2 cup chopped scallions (green part only) for garnishing