Saturday Short Ribs In Vegetable Ragu
I’m not going to lie. This recipe takes all day. I’ve tried doing the sous vide on it. I’ve tried doing the Instant Pot on it. There’s pros and cons to both. Doing it in the oven as an all day venture is really the only way I like to do short ribs. There’s not enough surface area in the Instant Pot. Sous vide makes the fat rubbery and browning seizes up the meat. Slow roasting is just the way to go for me. And frankly, I was in no mood to waste another round of precious short ribs on another wacky experiment. I went with my gut.
Good thing, too, because this is one of Hubs’s favorite recipes. It’s been awhile since I made it because the last couple of times I experimented. Blah. We know how that went. And the girls came over….the girls being Jessie and Molly. Of course Joe and Kip came! Don’t be silly. We put away quite a bit of wine and planned our next supper club. Except none of us can remember what we planned.
Hubs made Parker House rolls. The sauce is pure vegetables, so I just made a blue cheese dressing and some salad of iceberg and crispy bacon. Sometimes I’m into baby greens and sometimes I just want a vehicle for salad dressing and lots of crunch. Then I go on iceberg binges. It made for a fantastic weekend meal. Bread and butter, iceberg and blue cheese, and beef braised in vegetable ragu. Classic.
What I really got excited about was the conversation about buying whole animals. My short ribs came from our cow and it seems Molly and Kip are interested in getting a whole side of beef this summer. So much glee! And as you know, Jessie and Joe raised our last pig. I’m super excited to get more folks to think about local hand raised meat. You get to know your farmer and butcher. That means something.
I wish everyone ate meat this way. But it is a lifestyle. And you have to make adjustments. We’ve figured out that a whole cow lasts us exactly one year. But I entertain. A lot! I’m excited to see what happens. I love the whole process of talking to my rancher about the next cow. I ran into him at Costco the other day! My beef guy is exactly what you’d think of as an Oregon cowboy. I should probably do a post entirely on him at some point. Ditto for my butcher. Is there ever enough time?!
My Short Ribs
Ingredients
- 12-16 short ribs
- 4 carrots peeled and rough chopped
- 1 large sweet onion rough chopped
- 5 stalks celery rough chopped
- 1 large clove elephant garlic rough chopped
- 2 cans tomato paste
- 1 handful thyme sprigs
- 4 bay leaves
- Salt and pepper
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons peanut oil
- 2 cups water
Instructions
- In a heavy bottomed saute pan, heat the peanut oil over medium high heat. Generously salt and pepper the short ribs on one side. Brown all the short ribs in batches and set aside.
- In a different heavy bottomed saute pan, add the olive oil and heat on medium heat. While that's heating, puree the vegetables in a food processor. Add them to the pan and brown stirring constantly to prevent sticking. I use a wooden spatula and it takes about 15 or 20 minutes.
- When the vegetable mixture starts to brown, add the tomato paste quickly and stir aggressively to prevent burning. You can lower the heat to medium low, but I don't. Cook for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Arrange the short ribs in a single layer and pour the vegetable mixture over them. Add a couple of cups of water and sprinkle the herbs on top.
- Bake on 350, covered, for 3 to 4 hours or until the meat can be removed from the bone with a fork. Serve with some homemade bread. Enjoy!