Asian-Style Braised Short Ribs

It's Sunday. If you're a regular here, you're looking for my weekly meal plan. Sorry, no meal plan today friends. As a consolation prize, I am offering this fabulous Asian-Style Braised Short Rib recipe.



I was away all weekend. My sister had a baby on Friday morning! In my rush to load the car and the kids and get to my sister and the baby as quickly as safely possible, I am proud to say that I remembered my recipes and coupons and everything that I would need to make a meal plan and grocery list while away from home. But... I never got to it. I spent the weekend having fun with my family, cooking out, hanging by the campfire, and oh yeah....holding my beautiful new baby niece!



I also got to spend a whole afternoon with my grandparents on Saturday. It's been too long since I've had the chance to do this. My grandma has been "under the weather" for the last few weeks. So on Saturday, I hauled the ingredients for the short ribs over to her house, put my toddler down for a nap in the guest room, sent my oldest outside with my grandpa to cruise the lawn and feed the calves, and I settled into the kitchen for 3 hours to cook for and visit with my grandma. I wonder how many meals she's cooked for me? Too many to count. It was definitely my turn.

Speaking of my Grandma Shirley, here she is holding her 13th great-grandchild. That's my little one on the left and that's new big sister, Ella (soon to be 2) on the right, looking on. What a precious moment!



Now that I've shared a couple pics from my brag book, let's take another look at these Asian-Style Braised Short Ribs. I have wanted to try these for a long time! Recently, when I found myself with with a number of packages of short ribs from last year's crop of beef, I ended up trying The Pioneer Woman's Short Ribs. I was not disappointed, but I still wanted to try them Asian-style. I ended up going with a recipe by Emeril, that I found on The Food Network site. Served over Jasmin rice and garnished with green onion and grated orange peel, this dish plated beautifully, was absolutely full of flavor, and so delicious!



Here are my short ribs. The recipe calls for 5 lbs. cut into 4 ounce portions. This was definitely more than 5 lbs. Maybe closer to 7? And they were not cut into 4 oz. portions.



If you've never cooked with short ribs before, then you're probably observing that they are NOT a lean cut of beef. That's okay. All of that fat allows for a really tender, flavorful finishes product if cooked properly. I placed all them in a large roasting pan.



Before I did anything else, I grabbed for an orange. The recipe calls for fresh orange juice in the sauce and orange zest on top for the garnish. I grated the orange first, then put the zest in a baggie and refrigerated it until needed.



Then I juiced the orange for the sauce. I found my great-grandma's orange juicer in the far reaches of one of my grandma's kitchen drawers. It's so pretty! I have fond memories of my great-grandma (who worked in an orange grove) bent over this juicer, squeezing my fresh breakfast OJ when I visited her in Florida. Nice lil' trip down memory lane. Apparently, my memory didn't serve me all that well...I forgot that you're supposed to put the juicer on top of a cup first and let the juice pour down through the HOLES in the bottom. I totally did this on a cutting board and had juice running everywhere! Ooops.



Once the orange is juiced, then you can combine the juice with all of the other sauce ingredients: soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, garlic, lemon grass, ginger, brown sugar, sliced green onion (just the white part), crushed red pepper, and water.



Pour the sauce over the short ribs. They were supposed to be submerged (or at least close). Mine weren't. I did flip them halfway through the cooking process so that both sides were submerged for half of the time. COVER and bake at 350 degrees for 3-4 hours, until the meat is "fall off the bone" tender.



I don't have any pictures of the meat coming out of the oven. I had to leave. My other sister (the one whom didn't just give birth, of course) was hostessing a cookout at her house and I had the meat, the salad, and the dessert. I assigned my grandpa the task of taking the ribs out of the oven and my grandma separated the short ribs from the sauce. Both went into the refrigerator overnight. Remember that short ribs have lot of fat? As they cook, that fat melts and melds with the sauce. If you chill the sauce overnight, it is much easier to skim the fat from the sauce. That's just what I did when I returned to my grandparent's house late this morning: I removed great chunks of fat that had risen to the top of the sauce.



The sauce needs to reduce to 2 cups (or a little less), so add 1/4 cup of Hoisin sauce and boil it down.



While the sauce reduced, I trimmed the meat out of those short ribs. I'm not sure how Emeril plated these...if he just placed the full short rib over the rice, bone and fat and all...but to me, all of that waste is a hindrance when you're trying to eat. I just wanted the edible part of the beef. My grandma had pulled out the bones before she put them in the refrigerator the night before, so I just needed to trim off the fat. The container pictured on the left holds all of the fat. The roasting pan on the right is where I placed all of that delicious, tender beef.



Once the sauce is reduced, pour it through a strainer, then add in a couple of tablespoons of fresh squeezed lemon juice.



Now pour the sauce over the meat. Stir it around a bit, to coat.



Pop the short ribs back into a pre-heated 425 degree oven and bake for 10-15 minutes more until the ribs are heated through and slightly glazed.



Serve over Jasmin rice, topped with sliced green onion and orange zest. Be sure to ladle some of that amazing sauce over the top too! Love this sauce!

Now you may be thinking, "This is the meal she made for her ailing granny!?" Yep. It is. Why? Because I know that my grandma is like me...not picky. Plus, also like me, she has an adventurous pallet. PLUS, we have an abundance of short ribs. I sat next to her today at Sunday dinner and I know that she enjoyed this just as much as I did. We weren't the only fans...my test group consisted of: both of my parents, my daughters and one of my nieces, and an uncle that stopped by just as we were finishing up. Rave reviews from everyone...except for my picky grandpa, who wouldn't even try one bite. Oh well. He's never eaten a rib in his life, I didn't really expect him to start today.



Asian-Style Braised Short Ribs Adapted from a recipe courtesy Emeril Lagasse, 2004 original recipe found HERE.

Ingredients
•5-7 pounds beef short ribs, (ideally, but not necessarily) cut into 4-ounce portions
•1 cup soy sauce
•1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
•3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
•1 (5-inch) stalk lemongrass, halved and smashed
•1 tablespoon peeled and minced ginger
•1/2 cup light brown sugar
•1 quart water
•1/2 cup sliced green onion bottoms, white part only
•3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
•1/4 cup fresh orange juice
•1/4 cup hoisin sauce
•2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
•Jasmine Rice, for serving
•2 tablespoons finely grated orange rind, for serving
•Sliced green onion tops, optional for garnish

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large roasting pan or Dutch oven, combine the short ribs, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, lemongrass, ginger, brown sugar, water, green onion bottoms, crushed red pepper, and orange juice. Make sure that the stockpot is deep enough so that the short ribs are submerged in the liquid.

Bake the short ribs, covered, for 3-4 hours, or until the meat is tender and falling off the bones. Remove the short ribs from the braising liquid and cover. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Reserve the braising liquid. Refrigerate to bring fat to the top.Drain the fat off of the cooking liquid and discard. Place the remaining braising juices in a saucepan with 1/4 cup of the hoisin sauce and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the liquid until only about 2 cups remain. Strain through a fine-meshed strainer, discarding the solids. Stir in the lemon juice.

Remove the rib meat from the bone and trim additional fat. Return the short ribs and the reduced sauce to the roasting pan or Dutch oven, coating the short ribs well with the sauce. Bake for 10-15 minutes in a pre-heated 425 degree oven, until the short ribs are heated through and slightly glazed. Serve hot over jasmine rice. Season each portion with the orange zest and garnish with the green onions if desired.

Braised Short Ribs a la The Pioneer Woman

I've been thinking about using the short ribs that reside in my freezer for a few weeks. I've seen some wonderful recipes in magazines and on other blogs. It was a tough decision which to try first. I narrowed it down to The Pioneer Woman's braised short ribs and an Asian-inspired recipe. This time PW won. But you haven't seen the last of short ribs in my kitchen. I still have another package in the freezer, so I'll get to try the other version soon!

I will say that Ree knows short ribs. Her version was delicious and the braising sauce was out of this world good. I'm serious. I could eat just that stuff with a spoon. Actually, I did. I found myself standing in front of the fridge, late on the night after I baked these and spooning a bite of sauce out of the tupperware. I needed just one more taste of that sauce!


Here's the ingredient line up: kosher salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, flour, broth, olive oil, red wine, bacon, carrots, shallot, and an onion.



Oh yeah, and you need beef short ribs too.



To get started, fry up some bacon or pancetta in a skillet. Personally, I'm partial to bacon. Bacon is smoked and pancetta is not. I prefer the smokiness of bacon and it's less expensive too. Yay for bacon!



Once your bacon is nice n' crispy, remove it from the skillet. Keep the fat and pour in two tablespoons of olive oil. Heat the oil while you prepare the ribs to meet their destiny.



Give those short ribs a healthy sprinkle of kosher salt and grind on some pepper.



Send them for a roll in the flour.



Now drop them into the heated oil and brown on all sides. PW recommended approximately 45 seconds per side. I concur. Once the ribs are browned, remove them to a baking dish. I ended up using my 13 X 9 inch Pyrex casserole dish. I believe that Ree used a lovely blue Le Creuset Round French Oven dish for this purpose. Stove top to oven. Very nice. I'm just a teensy bit jealous.



With those ribs out of the way, I tossed in the diced carrots, onion, and shallots. Cook for a couple of minutes and then...



Pour in the wine! I used Winking Owl Merlot from ALDI. It's only $3.29/bottle. It's not bad at all for a cheap wine. I've definitely had worse. It worked nicely in this dish. If there's one thing I've learned about cooking with wine, it's this: If you don't like the way it tastes in the glass, you are NOT going to like it cooked into your dinner. You can read more about my experience with "bad" wine HERE. I'm all for cutting costs, so go for the cheap wine... but be sure to taste it first.

Okay, back to what's cooking. So, stir the wine dig that girl (darn that Ally McBeal-esque trait. I always have a song playing in my head). Besides, it's spill the wine. (Did I mention that I also tend to make up my own lyrics?) Man, what is up with me?! It's one tangent after another tonight. I swear that I haven't even touched a drop of wine myself. Focus, Krista. Focus. Anyway, stir the wine and loosen any bits of bacon, veggies, or fried flour from the bottom of the pan. Bring the wine to a boil and cook for two minutes. Then stir in the broth, a teaspoon of kosher salt, and pepper. I also sprinkled in dried rosemary and thyme. You're supposed to use fresh, but my herbs are dead and the grocery was asking a crazy amount for the little plastic packets of fresh herbs.



Pour the braising liquid over the ribs.



Cover and bake. I don't have a cover for this baking dish, so I used aluminum foil. These should bake at 350 degrees for 2 hours, then reduce the heat to 325 and cook for an additional 30 to 45 minutes. Ribs should be fork-tender and falling off the bone.



Let them sit, covered for 20 minutes once you've removed them from the oven. Check em' out!



Uh-oh. I'm about to embark upon another tangent... here's the thing about short ribs: they are really fatty. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That fat creates a tender, flavorful meat that many other cuts could never rival. However, are you actually supposed to eat the fat? I only ask this because in the Pioneer Woman's post she served them on the bone, fat and all. I've seen a number of other food blogs post about short ribs lately, and in the pictures, they all served these delicious, tender ribs whole as well. I certainly couldn't bring myself to eat the fat and to pick around it at the dinner table would be a messy business. I almost wouldn't want to eat these in public. I mean, you should see me gnawing on some baby backs at the rib joint. It ain't pretty.(Just give me a rib bib and a moist towelette and I'm good to go.) I'm certainly not "prissy" when it comes to meat on the bone, but I can't imagine tackling these with an audience. Am I missing something? Probably you just use your fork to separate meat from fat, right? I know I sound so un-cultured right now. Short rib lovers of the world, please, enlighten me.

I resolved to peel away the fat and search for bits of meat between the layers.



For my kiddos (and my sanity) I separated the meat from the bone and fat.



I took a few tastes as I was picking through the ribs and I thought to myself, "this tastes a lot like pot roast." Then I went back a re-read Ree's post about short ribs and noted her thoughts, "If you’ve never had beef short ribs before, you’re missing out on one of life’s great pleasures—and I’m not exaggerating this time. Beef short ribs are like the most flavorful, delectable, tender, soft pot roast you can possibly imagine—but the meat is on a handy stick for your eating convenience." Okay, so I'm not crazy. Well, at least not when it comes to short ribs.

Here is some of the meat I gleaned from the ribs.



The meat itself was perfect, but the sauce, I'm telling you...THE SAUCE...Amazing! I was trying to think of what else I could spoon it over when I ran out of meat. Ree recommends polenta. Excellent thought!




Okay, here's the recipe with my modifications...

Ree's(aka The Pioneer Woman) Braised Short Ribs original recipe found HERE.

Ingredients
•8 whole Beef Short Ribs
•Kosher Salt & Pepper To Taste
•¼ cups All-purpose Flour
•6 pieces Bacon, Diced
•2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
•1 whole Medium Onion, Diced
•3 whole Carrots, Diced
•2 whole Shallots, Peeled And Finely Minced
•2 cups Red Wine such as Merlot
•2 cups Beef Or Chicken Broth (enough To Almost Cover Ribs)
•1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dried Thyme
•1 teaspoon dried Rosemary

Preparation Instructions
Salt and pepper ribs, then dredge in flour. Set aside.

In a skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until complete crispy and all fat is rendered. Remove bacon and set aside. Do not discard grease.

Add olive oil to pan with the bacon grease, and raise heat to high. Brown ribs on all sides, about 45 seconds per side. Remove ribs to baking dish. Turn heat to medium.

Add onions, carrots, and shallots to pan and cook for 2 minutes. Pour in wine and scrape bottom of pan to release all the flavorful bits of glory. Bring to a boil and cook 2 minutes.

Add broth, 1 teaspoon kosher salt,plenty of freshly ground black pepper, and herbs. Taste and add more salt if needed. Stir in bacon. Pour liquid over the ribs; they should be almost completely submerged.

Cover and place into the oven. Cook at 350 for 2 hours, then reduce heat to 325 and cook for an additional 30 to 45 minutes. Ribs should be fork-tender and falling off the bone. Remove pan from oven and allow to sit for at least 20 minutes, lid on, before serving. At the last minute, skim fat off the top of the liquid. (Can also refrigerate mixture, then remove solid fat from the top.)

Serve ribs (or rib meat removed from the bone) topped with cooking liquid (the sauce).

To download or print this recipe click here!