Braised Short Ribs with Plum Sauce
I love ribs. Absolutely love them. Beef shortribs are a different animal (no, er, ok, some pun intended), but still, they’re ribs! A beautiful but tough, rich and fatty cut, that with a bit of time and slow cooking, can be transformed into the most tender, flavorful, delicious meat. With that being said, I wanted to enjoy these with some plums before they disappear for the season, and so the result was a dish that seemed like a blend of homey comfort food and some Asian flavors: Braised Short Ribs with Plum Sauce.
Braise dishes just scream late autumn/winter to me, and this is the kind of dish that will keep you warm but still have surprisingly bright, full flavors. After hours of slow cooking, the ribs will be fall apart tender and the sauce will take on a very full body with surprisingly complex flavor. The plums lose some of that bright fruitiness, but combined with spices like anise and cloves, after all this cooking, they take on a different, sultry character that stands up to beef nicely. Served with a bit of rice (good for sopping up stray sauce) and steamed veggies, and this dish is a real winner.
- 4 strips bacon
- ~4 lbs short ribs
- flour
- salt
- pepper
- cumin
- coriander
- 2 star anise
- 5 cloves
- dash of anise
- 5 cardamom pods
- fennel seeds
- black peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 shallot
- 1 carrot
- 1 celery
- 2 anaheim
- 2 serrano
- 8 cloves garlic
- 1 inch chunk of ginger
- 2 cups beef stock
- 4 plums
- 1 Tbsp apricot preserves
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1 Tbsp worchestershire sauce
- 1/4 cup hoisin
- 1/4 cup mirin
- 1/4 cup rice cooking wine
- 1/8 cup soy sauce
- 1/8 cup cider vinegar
Get things ready by finel dicing up the vegetables.
Cook the bacon and set it aside, reserving the grease.
While you wait, dredge the shortribs in flour, salt, pepper, cumin, and coriander and then brown them in the bacon grease for about 2-3 minutes per side (don’t move them around or they won’t get that beautiful crust). Work in batches so as to avoid crowding the ribs (or you’ll steam them rather than brown them). Set these aside.
With the meat out of the way, drop the whole spices in the grease for a minute–they should just begin to give off a nice aroma before you proceed. Then, add in the celery, carrot, and shallot, sweating them for 2-3 minutes before you add in the peppers for another 3 minutes. Finally, add the garlic and ginger for a minute further.
With the vegetable base softened, deglaze the pan with beef stock. Pit and chop the plums. Add them to the mix.
Finally, add in all of the remaining ingredients (apricot preserves, etc) as you wait for this to warm up. Crank the heat up to get this to a boil and return the meat to the pan (bacon included). Do your best to submerge it as much as possible.
Once boiling, cover the pan and transfer to a 350°F oven for 3 hours. Flip the meat once halfway through cooking.
Once time is up, remove the meat from the pan and set it aside. Now, in a food processor or a blender, puree the mixture and strain it to get a nice, smooth sauce. Boil it hard for 5-10 minutes to reduce the liquid to a saucier texture and skim the fat that will froth up around the perimeter of your pan.
Depending on how much fat you saw in your sauce (probably a lot) and your time constraints, a good last step is to further defat your sauce by setting it in the fridge. As it cools down, the fat should begin to solidify and settle on top. Remove these chunks of fat, warm the sauce back up again, add the beef back in so you can heat them again, and finally, its time to eat!
I plated a mound of jasmine rice with some steamed sugarsnaps and julienned red peppers. Top with a rib or two, ladle on some sauce, and enjoy!
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