Braised Beef Short Ribs

Date Completed: 7/18/2021

Get ready for another adventure with beef! Apparently boeuf bourguignon didn’t scare me completely away from oven-roasted beef dishes. This is from America’s Test Kitchen Twentieth Anniversary TV Show Cookbook’s Beef chapter.

One lesson I haven’t yet learned: start making these roasted beef dishes at least 2 hours before you think you should. It’s less fun when you’re starving at 8 pm and the beef just isn’t tender enough to take out of the oven.

This recipe calls for 3.5 pounds of boneless short ribs (or 7 pounds of bone-in short ribs). Obviously, we halved the recipe and went for 3.5 pounds of bone-in. We asked the butcher to remove the bones at the store. This was a great time-saver, but did result us getting a quick lecture from the teenager behind the butcher counter about how we still had to pay for the bones.

After we confirmed that we did, in fact, understand that we paid based on the weight pre-bone removal, we headed home. Then I waited until what I thought was an appropriate time to get dinner started.

We trimmed the short ribs and cut them into about 4-inch pieces. I also peeled and chopped the onions and carrots.

We heated up the dutch oven on the stovetop and browned the meat in batches until it had great color. After setting that aside, I threw in the sliced onions and cooked until they were brown and tender.

I stirred in about a tablespoon of tomato paste and added 3 whole garlic cloves.

Then I used about a cup of a Côte du Rhône wine to deglaze the pan. I don’t believe I’d ever tried a Côte du Rhône before, but Ina Garten always talks about how much she loves them on Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics. As we established in the last post, I’m in the midst of a Barefoot Contessa phase right now!

At this point, I also added in the carrots, a bay leaf, and fresh thyme. Then loaded in all the beef and enough beef broth to cover them halfway.

Into the oven! At this point, I was still telling myself we had a chance to be eating by 8. Ha!

As the beef cooked, the recipe suggested we turn the meat “frequently.” I decided that meant every 30 minutes, so that’s what we did. The recipe suggested a cooking time of about 2 to 2.5 hours. Unfortunately for me, we needed the full 2.5 hours to get the beef fully tender.

It did smell amazing! And I did eat a snack in the meantime (which helped).

After it came out of the oven for the last time, we moved the beef and carrots to a separate plate.

The verdict is still out as to whether these next few steps really made any difference in the final results.

First, can anyone tell me what I’m doing wrong with my fat separator? You can see that I strained out the solids just fine, but I feel like the fat “separator” doesn’t separate anything else. I’m just pouring liquid into a fancy cup and squirting it all back out of the rubber bottom. There’s never any fat left behind. What am I doing wrong?! At this point it’s just giving me an extra dish to wash, and I am not a fan.

The other mystery step was dissolving gelatin in some water and then adding that to the “de-fatted” sauce. The recipe says this is supposed to give the sauce a silky texture. I did not see a difference before and after I added it. Perhaps I wasn’t patient enough?

Those few steps complete, it was finally time for Sunday night dinner!

Taste Report:

I’ll give you two taste reports: my first impression and my leftover impression from the following evening.

First impression: This was not worth waiting until 8:45 to eat dinner. I’m never making oven-roasted beef anything ever again. The carrots are very flavorful, and I wish I had added more of them.

Leftover impression (eaten for dinner at a normal hour): Okay, this is actually really yummy. The beef has a rich, oniony flavor that I love. It’s super tender.

There was also enough to freeze for a third dinner. So that redeemed this recipe a little bit more!

Mess Report:

Like many recipes that take a while to cook, this had two rounds of messes. Neither was that overwhelming, but Garrett also did most of the second round. I was grateful!

Lesson learned: start Sunday night dinner earlier than you think you need to. Maybe if I type it again I’ll start to live by this rule.