Transcription
[Music] hello this is chef john from foodwishes.com with how to braise beef short ribs. that's right. the original name for this video was going to be korean chili apple cider braised short ribs, but due to a very surprising, shocking, and unbelievable ending to the recipe, i decided i could not keep that name. and what started out as a specific recipe for beef short ribs is now officially a technique video. which is fine, because if you love beef, one of the absolute must-have techniques to master would be how to properly braise beef short ribs.
and to get started, we're going to need to very generously season some english cut short ribs, which hopefully look like this. and when you're at the meat counter talking to the butcher, make sure you're asking for the larger pieces, since they all basically have the same size bone in them, but we want to make sure there's a ton of meat attached. and some of the smaller pieces can be almost half bone. and then what we'll do is season these very generously with a lot of salt, which really is the only mandatory ingredient. but this would be the time to apply whatever else you want. and it's probably a little hard to see, but i also had a little bit of freshly ground black pepper and cayenne mixed into my salt. and then above and beyond that, i decided i wanted to use some korean chili paste, also known as gochujang. and i'm usually mother-in-law's. and no, not the mother-in-law's, a mother-in-law's. so i transferred on a few spoons of that, and i gave that an initial smearing. and then besides that incredibly flavorful fermented chili paste, i went ahead and tossed in some garlic, as well as some sliced celery and onions. at which point i took two clean hands, and i got in there, and i got in there deep, and i mixed everything together until i was 100% positive it was thoroughly, thoroughly coated, including, but not limited to, every nook and cranny. and then once i was sure everything was thoroughly coated, i tossed it for another half minute to be really sure. at which point we'll cover this in plastic and pop it into the fridge overnight. so yes, if you want to eat this today, you have to start it yesterday. and while we could just braise this right now if we wanted, it really does benefit tremendously from letting those seasonings soak in overnight. so that's what i did.
and the next day, we'll go ahead and pull it out and unwrap it. and we'll take our tongs and scrape off any of that aromatic vegetation, which we will reserve and use later. but at this point, what we need to do is brown these pieces of beef over high heat and a little bit of oil, and hopefully whatever pan or pot we're going to braise these in. and whatever you decide to use should ideally be just big enough to fit in all the beef, plus it needs to have a very tight fitting lid. and these french style ceramic coated cast iron braisers are really, really good for this, but a dutch oven or something similar would work. and what we want to do here is give these short ribs a nice browning on all sides, or as many sides as we can manage, which is always going to add more flavor to the operation, but it's also going to give our sauce a deeper, more beautiful color. and i guess if you're in a hurry, you can just do the two larger flat sides. but if you're in a big hurry, why are you braising beef short ribs? so personally, i do think it's worth spending a few extra minutes to try to get a little browning on those ends.
and then once that's been accomplished, we'll go ahead and remove our short ribs to plates, and we'll transfer in all those reserved vegetables from our marinade. at which point we'll reduce our heat to medium, and then we'll sauté that, stirring for about three minutes or so, or until the onions just start to soften up. at which point i like to add some tomato paste, and that's generally true, no matter what i'm flavoring my short ribs with. and what that's going to do is add some extra savoriness and acidity. and like browning our meat, is also going to make our sauce look a lot nicer. and what we'll do, still on medium, is cook this for about two minutes or so, or until it starts to stick to and brown onto the bottom of the pan, continuing to form what we call in the business, a fond. f-o-n-d. which is all that beautiful caramelization that forms on the bottom of a pan.
and then what we'll do, once our pan is looking fantastic, is we will go ahead and deglaze with whatever braising liquids we're going to use, which in my case is two different ones, including some hard apple cider, or if you want, just regular american non-alcoholic cider. and then i'll follow that with a little bit of chicken broth, plus anything else we feel like flavoring our beef short ribs with. and it was right here i decided to hedge my bets. i would add another spoon of my korean chili paste. and at this point, we'll stir everything together, and then raise our heat to high, and we'll wait for this to come up to a boil. because what i like to do is reduce these braising liquids down by about half before we add our beef back in. all right, just to reduce the volume a little bit and intensify the flavors. oh, and i should mention, you can, if you want to, just use an american style non-alcoholic cider, but it's been my experience that a little bit of alcohol in the braise really does help elevate all the flavors. so you decide. i mean, you are, after all, the victor cruz of using booze. but anyway, like i said, we'll go ahead and bring that up to a boil, and then cook it, stirring occasionally, until it reduces by about half. at which point we can turn off the heat and transfer our beef short ribs back in. oh, and if you're wondering how you know you reduced it by exactly half, well, you don't. and you don't need to. okay? if you reduced it by 60%, that would be fine. if you reduced it by 40%, that would be fine. so just get it close. that's all we ever ask.
and then the rest of this braising technique is very, very simple. since all we're going to do is go ahead and cover this tightly, at which point we're going to transfer it into the center of a 325 degree oven for three hours, or until tender, but not, i repeat, not falling apart. and other than that, the only thing we need to do at the halfway point, after about an hour and a half, is go ahead and pull this out and uncover it. and we will turn each one of our beef short ribs over. and by the way, if you forgot to or refused to do this step, it would probably all still work out fine. but i do feel a little better about things knowing each side of that beef got to spend about the same amount of time in that braising liquid. so we'll go ahead and turn those over to about the one and a half hour mark and put them back in for another hour and a half or so. at which point we'll uncover those and check to make sure they're done. and how we know is that a knife or fork will go in with almost no effort. okay? i didn't say no effort, that i think is overcooked. but at the same time, we should be able to pierce these very, very easily. which i could. which means we can go ahead and grab our tongs and remove those to a plate, where we will loosely cover those with foil while we finish our sauce.
and by finish, i mean turn the heat back on to medium high so we can reduce our braising liquids down for a few more minutes. and also that will give us a chance to skim some of the fat off the top if we want, which of course is optional, and in many cultures, very much frowned upon. but generally, since beef short ribs are nice and rich and fatty, i do try to skim off a good amount of it. which, yes, is very, very challenging in a shallow pan like this. okay? to do this properly, we would transfer this into a small saucepan, which would make it a lot easier. but as you can see, i couldn't be bothered. and since i was going to reduce this for about three or four minutes, i figured i had time to get most of it, or at least enough of it, so i could look my cardiologist in the eye. and that's it. once our sauce has reduced a little more, and we've skimmed off as much fat as we want, other than, of course, checking for seasoning, we are ready to serve up our short ribs with our gorgeous sauce ladled over the top. and in case you're wondering, those are mom's scalloped potatoes served alongside. and if you haven't seen that video, go check it out. and then i finished up with a few sliced green onions because i'd used korean chili paste, and that's the rule.
and i cannot tell you how excited i was to tear into this, since i knew the combination of that spicy korean chili and that sweet apple cider was going to be amazing. so i went ahead and tore a small bite off the edge so i could get a lot of that braised on goodness. and then i dragged it through the sauce and took a bite. and i could not have been any more disappointed with the flavor, which had nothing to do with the beef short rib. right? that tasted great, and super beefy. it really was cooked perfectly. what was so shocking and surprising and disappointing is that i couldn't taste any korean chili or apple cider. as in, none. it just tasted like very flavorful beef. which is certainly not a bad thing. but when you're thinking something's gonna taste of korean chili paste and apple cider, and then it doesn't, it can be a little disconcerting. okay? if this was advertised as just braised beef short ribs, i would have been beyond thrilled and very much enjoyed it. but if the menu said korean chili paste cider braised, then i might not be as thrilled. so i'm not exactly sure what happened, but i'm thinking i needed more of everything, plus maybe a spoon of something sweet like brown sugar, and maybe also a splash of vinegar to bring out the other flavors. so i'm gonna have to figure out that part.
but let's forget about those specific flavors for now, and instead focus on how perfectly braised the short rib was. and for me, the true indicator isn't that it comes off that bone clean, since it will probably do that after just about an hour. but for me, a short rib is perfectly cooked when that super tough, chewy connective tissue that attaches the meat to the bone has completely broken down and gotten soft and succulent and gelatinous. mmm, gelatinous. so to summarize, no matter what you flavor your beef short ribs with, i think this really is a highly successful method for cooking them, which is almost guaranteed to produce you a very, very flavorful short rib, even if, like in this case, it was not the flavors you thought you were gonna get. so if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna finish this other piece and then head back into the lab to try to figure out what happened. but in the meantime, i really do hope you give this great technique for beef short ribs a try soon. so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info, as usual. and as always, enjoy. [Music]