Red Wine Braised Short Rib
- nathan
- entrees
" alt="" />
" alt="" />" alt="" />
" alt="" />
- Serves: 6 Servings
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cooking: 8hrs15 mins
- Total Time: 8 hrs 20 mins
Okay, so it got aggressive real quick. We were grocery shopping on a Saturday, running an errand or two, and all of a sudden we said "yeah, lets make a ton of new recipes" - so we did.
Braised short ribs are one of those things i see at restaurants and get excited for because I know I am never going to make them. Honestly, they even seem daunting just at the meat counter. They don't look approachable and with all the fat they have they seem too unhealthy to even bother with. So, I am wrong yet again.
Braising is the process of searing an item to hold in its flavor and then letting it cook in a heated, covered environment for an extended amount of time. This does A LOT for foods that are otherwise untenable in terms of chewiness or fat content. Short Rib, Octopus, Pot Roast - you get the idea. It takes meats that are too firm and slowly melts them into submission over hours and hours. This also lets you get creative and impart loads of flavor into the item by adding sauces and certain vegetables.
So, once I finally bit the bullet and bought these, the question was... what to eat with it? These are so good you could definitely have it on a sandwich or just by itself but, that's not exactly our style. Christina paired this with a rock solid Farro Bowl recipe and then for breakfast we used the leftovers to make one hell of a Juevos Rancheros. Once you have this, it's delicious in just about anything.
Ingredients
Directions
Trim away any sinew and excess fat off your short ribs. It comes off in the slow cooker, but there's enough fat as it is so you won't sacrifice any flavor this way and you remove some unneeded fat. Add 1/2 your olive oil to a clad iron skillet (not non-stick if you can) and warm it up on medium-high. Once the olive oil is fragrant, sear the short ribs for about 2 minutes on each side until brown.
Once seared, dump your short ribs into a slow cooker but don't clean out the pan. In the same skillet, add the remainder of your olive oil as well as your garlic, onion, celery, and carrots. Bring these to a nice golden brown over 6-8 minutes and then deglaze the skillet with you red wine and beef broth. The sudden change in temperature rapidly cools the skillet causing all the yummy flavor caked onto it to get washed away and also makes doing dishes soooooo much easier. Add your thyme.
Bring the liquid and vegetables to a boil and once boiling dump the entire content of the skillet into the slow cooker with the short ribs and add your peppercorns. Set the cooker on low for 8 hours or 4 hours on high. Always always always make sure to never remove the lid when using a slow cooker, it can kill the progress and remove the much needed heat from the container. So don't be tempted by those gorgeous scents, wait it out - we believe in you!
Once done cooking, the bones fall right off and you can remove any remaining fat or sinew as you desire. Shred in a large mixing bowl and serve with pasta, sandwiches, BBQ sauce, or follow suit and you can make a delicious sweet potato farro bowl like we did :) As always, enjoy!
