There's nothing I love more then a bit of gastro pub grub, and braised beef short ribs is up there with the best. So I thought how hard can it be to make at home? the answer.... super easy. The oven does all the hard work for you, the most you'll have to do is brown off the beef and veggies first, then pop it in the oven to slow cook.. sound good? Then give this recipe a go, it's easily as delicious as any roast joint for a family meal and you don't have to worry about it being over cooked because quite frankly the longer you leave it slow cooking the better it will taste.
I serve mine with creamy mash and crispy battered shallots for the full gastro pub experience but it tastes fantastic with any kind of potatoes and veggies of your preference.
Prep time 20mins
Cooking time 4.5hrs
4 beef short ribs, around 350g bone in weight each
4 tbsp olive oil
Salt and ground black pepper
3 shallots, roughly chopped
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 celery sticks, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, bashed
500ml red wine
3 sprigs each of fresh thyme and rosemary
2bay leaves
500ml of beef stock (or enough so that the beef ribs are fully submerged)
150g cherry vine tomatoes
Pre heat the oven to 170ºc fan
In a bowl pop the beef ribs season all over with the 2tbsp of the oil, salt and pepper.
Heat a large frying pan to a high heat and add 1tbsp of oil, once hot seal the beef ribs on all sides until brown and place in to a large casserole dish or deep roasting tin.
Now in the same pan add a drizzle more oil if needed and add the shallots, carrot, celery and garlic cook on a medium to high heat for 5 mins until beginning to soften then pour in the red wine and the rosemary, thyme and bay leaves, use a whisk to deglaze the pan. (Deglaze means to get all the crispy bits of beef that may have stuck to the pan while browning it off from the bottom of the pan, it'll all add to the flavour) Bring the wine up to boil and bubble for 5mins and then pour everything over the ribs.
Add the beef stock. Ensure the ribs are just submerged. Pop the lid on and cook in the oven for 2.5hrs.
After the 2.5 hours add in the tomatoes and put back in the oven uncovered for another hour. Turn the ribs every 20mins. The liquid should begin to reduce in this time.
After the hour of uncovered cooking check that the ribs are very tender and you can easily shred it from the bone. Remove the ribs from the sauce, cover and set aside.
Strain the liquid into a saucepan and try to remove as much fat as possible. Here are the a few easy ways to do so.
Once you have removed as much fat as possible place the sauce in to a saucepan and place on the hob turn the heat up to high and reduce for around 10mins or until you have the constancy you are after, this will create a thin but intense gravy however there will not be a lot of it... if you are gravy lovers and love to drown your food in it see below for another gravy method.
If you want lots of lovely thick gravy don't worry about reducing the sauce just add add 1tbsp of cornflour to 100ml of cold water, stir until combined and then pour in to the cooking liquid, repeat if its still not thick enough.... or add some good old beef bisto 1tbsp at a time mixing well after each addition until it's at your required consistency.
While the sauce is reducing I like to shred the meat in this time and add it to the cooking liquid once its reduced to get fully covered. Don't forget to taste the sauce once its reduced and add more seasoning if required, it doesn't normally need a little more salt and pepper but that's up to you individually.
