Beef Short Ribs for Multiple Meals

Beef Short Ribs for Multiple Meals

Beef short ribs are among my favorite cuts of meat to sear and braise. Baked, braised or grilled, beef short rib meat is marbled with fat and so is delicious, soft and quite moist. It also takes on incredible flavors, whether braised in stock, wine or beer, or something else, and they go exceptionally well with myriad vegetables.  That is why I began thinking about it as a "Multiple Meal" meat, so this post is about how I make beef short ribs, Mexican style, that can be made into various dishes.  IF you scroll through my recipes on this site, you can find a recipe where I braised beef short ribs with wine, also an amazing recipe, my birthday dinner, served with vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes with a red wine reduction sauce! Delish!!!

Now, let's get to this recipe. 

Ingredients

6 beef short ribs

2 bottles Mexican beer 

1 large red or yellow onion

six cloves garlic/ 3 whole, the rest grated

2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 14.5 ounce cans fire roasted tomatoes

2 fire roasted Anaheim green chiles, diced

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

Spice Mix

3 tablespoons smoked paprika

1 tablespoon cumin seed

1 tablespoon granulated garlic

1 tablespoon granulated onion

1 tablespoon coriander seed

i tablespoon dried thyme

salt and pepper, teaspoon each

4 chile ancho pods, stemmed and seeded

Toast the spices and pods in a skillet over Medium-low heat for several minutes. Turn the chile ancho pods after five minutes. The aroma is the spices' flavors waking up. That is when they are ready to be processed in a spice grinder or molcajete, or mortar and pestle. 

The aroma of this spice blend is indescribably gooooood!!!

Preheat the oven to 259-degrees. 

Take out and open the package of short rib meat. While it is coming to room temperature, bring a cup of water to a boil in a small sauce pan and add the stemmed and seeded chile ancho pods to it and cover. After fifteen minutes, when the pods are reconstituted, remove and add to a small processor along with three tablespoons of the water in the sauce pan. Add three cloves garlic and a teaspoon of the spice blend. Process until pasty. Set aside. 

Now, over medium-high heat, add four tablespoons of vegetable oil to a Dutch oven or high-sided oven-safe pot.  Add the spice rub on all sides of each beef short rib and, when the oil begins to ripple, add the ribs, bone side down and sear on all sides until a good caramelized crust forms on all sides. This will take about or less than ten minutes.  You just want a good crust on the rib meat, but not cook them all the way through. 

When done, remove the ribs to a plate. 

Next, add a couple of ounces of the Mexican beer, and, with a wooden spoon, scrape up the browned bits off the bottom of the pot.  Add the onion and garlic and saute three minutes. Add the canned tomato products, the roasted green chiles and the chile Ancho paste.  Saute to combine and add the remaining beer.  Bring to a boil and snuggle in each short rib, bone side down again.  

Add two tablespoons of the spice blend and season the braising liquid.  Bring it back up to a boil and then reduce the heat to low.  Place the pot in the preheated oven for 2.5 to 3 full hours.  

When you remove the pot, be very careful, as the pot is very hot!  Remove the lid, use tongs to remove the meat, which, beware, may fall apart.  You may need a slotted spoon to help with that!  Some of the bones will probably have fallen out, too.  Remove the bones, too.  The marrow has already flavored the braising liquid.  Bring the remaining liquid to a boil and then set the heat to medium.  Stir vigorously to scrape any burnt bits from the bottom of the pot, and scrape the sides, as well, as condensed flavors are part of that ring around the pot. Let reduce for at least thirty minutes until the braising liquid becomes a thick sauce; more like a thick onion jelly. Remove from the heat and let it cool. 

Meanwhile, shred the rib meat.  

Believe it or not, we are near the end of this post!  I used the meat for sandwiches, tacos and pasta.  I forgot to take photos of the pasta and tacos, but I did the sandwich.  That rib-onion-chile jam is insanely flavorful.  

I'd added cheese and chipotle mayo spread on sliced focaccia bread.  What a delectable sammy!

I am going to recreate a dish - hopefully with my friend, Anne - using short rib meat in a large pasta pizzaola meal.  Stay tuned for that post in early August!  Another meal i had forgotten to make to show you was short rib meat tostada and mixed with Spanish rice with lime and radish and shredded fresh cabbage.  

Think about dishes You would like with short ribs!  Drop me a line and let me know! Thanks!

As always, I am truly grateful for your viewership and consideration.  Let me know what you think when you or If you make it!  Thank you!

Now, go cook for someone you love!  Cooking for your loved ones, friends, family or otherwise, is the Best and Greatest way to show them how much you love them.  Now....Go!  Cook!  

~Martin

In-House Cook