20100717

Slow Cooked Beef Short Ribs

The first time I looked at raw short ribs I remember thinking, "Oh boy. That's a lot of fat." This was even after I'd retrained my brain to think of animal fats as nourishing healthy foods. Despite what they look like raw, and the fiddling you have to do with them cooked, short ribs are some of the tastiest bits of beef and worth the effort.

Trust me on this, do not try to cut some of the fat off your short ribs. Leave it alone. Seriously.

These can be cooked in the oven or a crock pot. The directions for the oven are below. For the crock pot, put everything in and cook for 8 hours on low. The rest of the directions are the same.

Ingredients:
3-4 lbs short ribs, pastured beef
1 large cooking onion, chopped into large chunks
5 cloves garlic, cut in half
1 tbsp honey
1" piece ginger, finely grated
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 cup beef broth
splash of apple cider vinegar

Method
Preheat the oven to 300F.

Place the ribs in a large dutch oven. Sprinkle with the onion and garlic chunks.

In a small bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients. Mix and pour them over the ribs. Cook with the lid on for about 3 hours. The meat will be falling off the bone when done.

Remove the ribs from the cooking liquid and let cool for about 15 minutes. At the same time, pour the cooking liquid into a clear jar or measuring cup.

When the ribs have cooked a bit, get in there and separate the bones out and trim off the excess fat. You can save this in the freezer for future stock. Cut the meat into bite sized pieces and put it into a saucepan.

The cooking liquid should have settled a bit by now and there should be a nice layer of fat on top. I use a small ladle to skim the fat off and into another jar to save for cooking. 

Pour the cooking liquid over the meat in the saucepan. Reserve some of the cooking liquid and/or fat for any veggies you might have made if you wish.

Gently reheat the meat on the stove top. I like to serve this with Mashed Cauliflower. This recipe makes enough for 4 adults.

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