The Best Beef Short Ribs At Home

This is the greatest short rib recipe you're gonna find. You can stop your search. This short rib is everything that anybody who has ever imagined a beautiful, succulent, glazed short rib, whatever you're thinking it tastes like, this is that, and you can make it. Anybody can make it. It's incredibly easy. Yes, there's a long braise time, but other than that, the rest of it is pretty hands-off, and I promise you, if you make this properly, it will be the best short rib you have ever had. Period, end of story. Print this recipe. Don't ever lose it because it will deliver again and again and again. That being said, let's make this, shall we? So we'll start by braising our short ribs. While that's going, we'll make some toppings, and of course, a side option. Finally, we'll finish our ribs off, and once everything's done, we'll serve. All right, first, we have the veg. Medium yellow onion. This has been peeled. I'm gonna split it in half, and we're just gonna give it a rough chop, but I want it relatively large, so I've cut these into little half-inch segments. Because of the size of this, I actually only think I need to cut this once, twice. Rough little dice. Set that into a bowl. Do it again. Our next onion, one, two. That really doesn't need to be perfect because it's all gonna get strained out anyway. It's in there to give it flavor. Just don't cut it too small, otherwise it'll literally f***ing evaporate into a puree. Now, two medium-sized carrots, peeled. A half-inch coin, I think, is more than enough. You can go even thicker if you want. You can even throw them in a hole if you wanted to. I wouldn't advise that, though. It's gonna go into our bowl. All right, and we have four ribs of celery. I like to cut this top part off just a little bit because it always tends to be dried out and kind of gross. You don't have to. Personal preference, right? Again, half-inch pieces. You can go as thick as an inch. I think half-inch is a good, happy medium. And again, into our bowl. Last but not least, garlic. I want a whole head, dude. I don't want you to waste time peeling it. I don't want you to waste time chopping it. Just take the whole head, skin and all, and then take a sharp knife, and then I want you to just cut that in half carefully, like that, so that it's exposed in this way. That's it. Throw that into your bowl, too. Now that we have the veg, what's the most obvious part? If you're gonna make short ribs, you might've guessed. Ding dong, short rib. You're gonna need six large, powerful, proud, thick, beautiful short ribs. But please be aware of one thing. The short rib that you select matters. Do not let your butcher with you. Not allowed, okay? If they hand you something like this, tell them to quit their job. Your short rib should be thick. It doesn't have to be this big in the sense of overall size, but the bone-to-meat ratio matters. Look at this. Which one do you think is gonna be more enjoyable when your diner, or your guest, or your mom, or whoever sits down at the table to eat this meal that you worked hours to make? Which one do you think is gonna make them happier? The one that's 50% bone? I mean, look at this. Literally half of this is bone, which is completely inedible. The other half is almost mostly fat. What the ****? But look at this. This is more of like a third of bone. You've got a thick, almost steak-level amount of meat here. It's well-marbled, but it's not a solid chunk of fat. It's actually meaty and nice. It's very hard to find consistent short ribs. Make your butcher fight for you, okay? Don't let them be lazy. This is about making the best short ribs ever, all right? And that's step ******* one. Pick the right short rib. Now, once you have those, we're gonna season these very generously with salt and pepper. You cannot over-season a short rib, okay? Season them on all sides with kosher salt. Very, very, very generously. Yes, even the bone side. Remember, we season high, like in the air, okay? Not under the influence. We season high into the air for maximum coverage. You get even spread of salt. And we're gonna hit it with some pepper, again, on all sides. You can obviously also just roll this around in all the seasoning that you just caught on the table or on your sheet tray or wherever they are. Just kind of mop up that salt and pepper. Okay, now, once those are all seasoned nicely, you're just gonna sprinkle a little bit of all-purpose flour on them. Again, you can't over-flour them either because most of this will fall off. And I want you to coat the entire short rib with flour. So we're sort of just rubbing it with the flour, rolling it around in the flour, getting every little edge nook and cranny. Then once that's done, just kind of shake off the excess. You have a beautifully dusted seasoned short rib ready for the next step. All right, it's searing time. First, we have a large, heavy-bottomed Dutch oven pot. This is optimal. You can also do this in a large stainless steel pot, a stock pot, something similar. Just you need a lid. Just beware of that. So you're gonna heat this over medium-high heat. We're gonna add enough high-heat oil that could be avocado oil, canola oil. I really don't care. I'm not gonna have the whole conversation about the war on seed oil. It's f***ing something. Lard, beef fat, pork fat, duck fat, just not olive oil. You want something with a high smoke point. And then once that's hot, you're gonna add your ribs in batches, probably two to three at a time. And then you're gonna sear, ideally all sides, but at bare minimum, sear two good sides for two to three minutes so that they look beautifully golden brown like this. Repeat that with at least one other side if you're in a rush or all sides if you want the full browning. While that's searing, you're gonna pour a bottle of red wine into a medium-sized sauce pot. Bring to a boil over high heat. Be careful not to go too high, otherwise it will catch on fire. And then you're just gonna reduce that until two cups remain, about 10 minutes. Now, as your wine is on its way to getting its proper reduction, your meat will likely complete its browning process before that. So as your meat finishes browning, set it to the side and repeat with any remaining pieces of beef. All right, next step. We're gonna add all of our veg to that pan. I've reduced the heat to medium. That's gonna go in. Season immediately with a little bit of kosher salt to help bring out the water. Give it a stir. Now, let that sit for like a minute. I want it to get just a little bit of color on it. Once that's got a little bit of caramelization going on, then you're gonna give it another stir. You don't need to cook this anymore. It's gonna continue cooking. Now, at this point, I'm gonna add three tablespoons of tomato paste. And I want you to turn the heat up to medium-high at this point. Give it a stir. And I want you to cook this, stirring pretty often, just until that tomato paste is not only coating the vegetables, but also starting to caramelize a little at the bottom. Don't let it burn. Just a little bit of caramelization. That's why you gotta keep stirring it. All right, it's starting to caramelize. The tomato paste has darkened a little bit, about one to two minutes of that. Then you're gonna add one tablespoon of sugar. It's just gonna add a little bit of sweetness. It's also gonna help when this reduces to make a really nice sauce. All right, now we're gonna add one quart of beef stock, your reduced red wine, and then a half cup of shiradashi. The shiradashi is kind of optional, but if you can find it, you can get it in an Asian market. You can get it on Amazon. It's essentially like a salty soup base. It also has MSG in it. So there's a little secret for you there. Anyway, gonna give that a little stir. Now I want you to set that to medium high and wait for that to come up to a boil. All right, so we're gonna make a little bouquet garni. All you need is a nice sheet of cheesecloth. I like to double line it. So instead of doing one single layer, I'll take a long layer, fold it over itself so that it's super, super fine. And to that, you're gonna add a nice little bundle of thyme, about yay, one bay leaf, and then around a tablespoon of whole black peppercorns. So you're gonna fold one side over, the other side over like that. And then you have these sort of two points here. Bring the one point all the way over and then just roll that the rest of the way up, kind of like a burrito. Now, you're gonna take kitchen twine and I want you to sort of lay it over so you have one really long end and one sort of three inch long end. You're gonna wrap the super long end all the way around a couple times until you have two equal sized pieces here. And then just tie a nice strong knot. There you go. You have all of your beautiful, herbaceous, and spicy qualities in a little tea bag. All right, so once that's boiling, you're then going to reduce the heat to low so it's a nice gentle simmer. You're going to carefully place your ribs, ideally bone side down because the bones are gonna be very loose. Just nestle them in there wherever they fit. Don't overthink it. Just try to keep them all in one nice layer. I don't wanna see this. That's not gonna work for me guys, okay? Just find a space to nestle it in. Even if it's a little tight, that's okay because they're gonna shrink substantially. But you'll notice that they're all somewhat submerged in liquid. Some will be fully submerged, some will be sticking out. That's totally fine. Now, I've got my bouquet. Bouquet is gonna go in there as well. Doesn't have to fully fit, that's fine. And then, this is optional, but I prefer to add this, a cartouche. To make a cartouche, you've got a baking sheet size sheet of parchment paper. You're gonna fold that in half lengthwise and then in half again, also lengthwise. And when you do that, you're gonna notice that this side has an open end, this side is all open, this side has an open end, but this, there's gonna be one corner that's totally closed except for the middle. That is your midpoint. So wherever the midpoint is, you'll hold your finger down there and you'll fold it over itself, making sure that each fold points to that little corner. Kind of like that, see? Kind of like we're making a paper plane, but instead of folding the other side, you're just gonna keep folding that one direction. Making sure to make it nice and flat. Fold again, make it nice and flat. And you'll have something that looks kind of like this, right? Except, I'm gonna take this little tip and I want you to just cut off a tiny little sliver. And then, I want you to use this to measure the pot. So we're gonna kind of take this tip, find the middle as best as you can. So we're gonna say right about there. And notice where the edge of the pot is. You're gonna kind of cut within the pot. So now I know how long to make this and I'm just gonna cut directly across that little marker I just made. So now I have this. When you open it up, you have a cartouche. Okay, cartouche goes over the pot like that. It's okay if it adheres a little bit, that's actually good. And then once that comes back up to a simmer, you're gonna place your lid on and then this will go into an oven set to 300 Fahrenheit for about two and a half to three hours. Now, we're gonna make a quick little chive gremolata. So we have beautiful, lovely chives right here. I like to cut the top off, just all these little sort of frilled bits and get them all the same size. I want you to just slice these chives as thinly as you can. So you got about a half cup of thinly sliced chives. It'll probably take maybe one, two bunches of chives. It depends on how big your bunches are, but I would get two to be safe. All right, next, three lemons. You're gonna zest these. Now, you could zest them like this, which will take you forever. The easier way to do it is to take your zester, hold it at the blade. Don't worry, you're not gonna zest your hands, kind of like right around here. And then I'm gonna place it at the top of my lemon, the very top. The thumb holding the microplane is pushing up, the hand holding the lemon is rotating it back. So it sort of looks like this motion, right? So place that at the top and just kind of close your arms and do that motion nice and slow from top to bottom and then rotate a little bit so that you have fresh zest top to bottom. Rotate a little bit, top to bottom. And then you'll just rinse and repeat and you'll very quickly realize you've essentially zested a whole lemon. You get a ton of zest out of that and just repeat with all your lemons. Pretty simple. Now, you're gonna take a knife and just chop that up. Try to get it as fine as you can because I don't want long threads. I want little tiny sort of flecks of yellow in this. This is gonna add a ton of freshness, not just citrusiness, but like a fresh bite. Take that, place that into our bowl of chives. And then last, we have a beautiful horseradish. You don't need much. I'll take a little one-inch segment here. Peel the edges off and then you're just gonna grate that on your microplane. You don't need a lot of horseradish. You only need about a tablespoon, maybe two tablespoons if you're feeling extra spicy. You'll take your horseradish, add it to your bowl as well. And then I don't really want you to use a spoon. I want you to use your hand here, okay? Because these are really delicate herbs. I want you to just lightly toss all that together. Just give it a little stir, lightly toss. That is a beautiful chive horseradish gremolata. Grab that with plastic wrap, leave it in your fridge. Keep it cold. This is what we're gonna top our short rib with. Woo! This part's totally optional. You can serve short rib with anything, right? Mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, rice. Especially really good with rice, I'm not gonna lie. But an unlikely side, if you wanna make it, I'm gonna give to you right here, which is a simple polenta. We have one quart and a cup of chicken stock. You could do beef stock, you could do pork stock, you could do duck stock, you could do vegetable stock, whatever flavor you want it to be. You're gonna set this over medium-high heat, bring that to a boil, and then once it's boiling, you're gonna carefully add in one cup of polenta. But I don't want you to just dump it in there. I want you to start whisking. We're on medium-high. I'm gonna reduce the heat just a little over medium. I'm gonna slowly sort of sprinkle this in while constantly whisking. It'll start to bubble up, give it a second. A little more, more, more. We're just gradually adding it, if that wasn't obvious. Okay, it's all in there. Make sure there's no lumps. So reduce the heat to low. We want this at a light simmer. You're gonna cook that for about five minutes or until it's thickened and cooked. Now once that's done, this actually happened in like two, maybe three minutes, so keep an eye on it. You don't want it to get too thick, but it should look sort of something like this. The texture of almost like cream of rice. Now cut the heat off. I want you to add about a half cup of pecorino, fresh grated. You can add more, by the way, but just start with a half cup. Whisk that in, and then follow that with about a quarter cup of cold, unsalted butter, cubed. You're gonna add that in. A couple tablespoons at a time, whisk. Once that's melted and emulsified, you can add a little bit more until you've added all of your butter. Now, the polenta should look creamy, beautiful. You can add more butter to this if you want, but first taste it, know what you're looking for. Number one, salt level, flavor. Does it need more pecorino? Does it need more salt? Add it at this stage. I'm actually gonna add a touch more butter. It's very hard to over butter a polenta, in my opinion. By the way, you can add other cheeses to this. You could add cheddar, you could add gruyere, you could add literally anything you want. Now, once that's all emulsified and looking beautiful, we're gonna add a tablespoon of orange juice and a tablespoon of orange zest. I know it seems weird, but that's just gonna add a touch of brightness and freshness to all that richness. Look at that. That is a beautiful polenta. I like my polenta a little more runny, but you can also cook it a little longer and it will, of course, be thicker, so that's up to you. All right, she's done braising. Oh my God, it smells insane. First, you have our lovely short ribs that we're going to carefully remove because they're extremely tender. Look at that, dude. Gently place those onto a plate or a metal tray, just set to the side, and repeat with each of your short ribs until they're all removed from the pot. Move our sachet. You can put that in your strainer here. All right, now next to this, you'll notice that I have a strainer set over a beautiful pot. We're gonna strain our braising liquid directly over that. Now, you wanna strain this through a fine mesh sieve, anything you got, a chinois is best. You're gonna press that liquid gently through. You don't wanna miss any of that because what's in this liquid is going to make, essentially, our sauce, our glaze to the short rib. All right, now, if there's a ton of fat in here, you're gonna first wanna skim that fat off. If you take a large, wide spoon, tilt the pan, and then just gently let your spoon skim the top. You can also do this with a ladle. Remove that fat. You wanna remove as much of this fat as possible. This is even better if you make this the day before and refrigerate it because all this fat will solidify, and then you just pull the disc of fat off, and then you reheat it, and you don't have to do this part at all. Okay, so at this stage, you're gonna reduce this down. You set this to medium-high heat. Bring it up to a boil. Now, once that's boiling, reduce it down just a little bit to medium, medium-low. You wanna reduce your liquid until it starts to become a little bit glossy, a little bit thickened, right? Once that happens, cut off the heat, and then you're gonna add a tablespoon of honey, one and a half tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and then you're gonna add a couple tablespoons of cold, unsalted butter. Mix that in, bring it up to a simmer, and then just let it reduce for about a minute or until it reaches a maple syrup consistency, if you will, and then add your short ribs back in, baste them in the liquid, and then you can serve. Little about a half cup to a cup of polenta onto a plate, top with a glazed short rib, and garnish with a spoonful of gremolata. I like to do the whole top, but you could also just add a little sprinkle. Serve and enjoy. Finally, long prep. Is it worth it? Beyond worth it. This is one of those things where you don't remember how good it is until you make it, and the first thing you ask yourself is, why don't I make this all the time? The polenta only takes like 10 minutes, so realistically, even though there is a long cook time, this is a cook time that delivers, and if you do it in advance, it feels like it takes no time at all. The freshness, the rich, unctuous, sticky glaze, it's slightly sweet, super umami, really in-depth, the meat is tender, it melts in your mouth, it's fatty, it's rich, but then that gremolata on top just brings this amazing freshness without the need for acidity because the glaze is acidic and sweet enough to cut the richness, but instead adds just this depth, this sort of roundness, this sort of brightness that takes what was already really good and makes it perfect. Something I think everyone in their life should make at least once, but I know if you make it once, you'll make it twice, and I know if you make it twice, you'll make it forever. Love you, subscribe, bye.