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Braised Short Ribs from the Woodfired Oven

Well are you in for a treat if you cook this  – meltingly tender, fully flavoured, slow cooked beef ribs in a rich red wine and porcini gravy; yum!! As ever we cooked this in the woodfired oven using the falling heat of our Bushman Santorini but you can cook it in a regular oven as well – just put the covered casserole dish in at 150C and leave for 3-4 hours.

We really hope you like this recipe – it is perfect for the south Devon autumn that’s assailing us at the moment and a dish we had to keep tasting, just to ensure it was ok. It was – we just had to check and check again….!

Here’s the video on our youtube channel – please leave a comment and a thumbs up to keep the youtube gods happy, and do let us know how you get on; we love to hear from you.

 

Ingredients

This will serve 4 happily (or 2 greedy types!)

2 short ribs, about 500g each – we got our from our friends at Piper’s Farm; highly recommended

2tbsp sunflower oil

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 stick celery, finely chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped and peeled if you like, we just washed ours

1/2 a bulb of garlic

1tbsp tomato purée

10g dried porcini mushrooms soaked in 100ml boiling water for 30 minutes at least

2 bay leaves, 1 large sprig thyme and 1 sprig rosemary tied up with a piece of string

150ml red wine

500ml beef stock

Salt and pepper

Oven state, equipment etc

1 Mississippi to brown the meat, soften the veggies and deglaze the pan

5 Mississippi for slow cooking

Door off for browning meat etc and on for slow cooking

Heat deflector is useful when you’re browning the meat to prevent sidescorch and keep the oven tidy

Method

  • Put a wide pan in the hot oven and when the pan has heated up add the sunflower oil.
  • Add the ribs and brown them on all sides. No description available.
  • Put the ribs into a large casserole dish when they are browned.No description available.
  • Put the onion, celery and carrots in the pan and fry in the entrance to the oven for 4-5 minutes until they have softened. No description available.
  • Add the wine to the pan and stir until boiling. Simmer for 2 minutes and add to the pan with the ribs.
  • Also to the large pan add the garlic, the tomato purée, the porcini and their soaking liquid, the stock and the herbs; season well with salt and pepper. The liquids want to almost cover the ribs.
  • Put the lid on the pan.
  • Carefully clear the oven of embers or let them die right down.
  • When the oven is at around 180/190C, put in the pan with its lid on tight and shut the door.
  • Come back in 1 hour to check the liquids aren’t disappearing too quickly; if they are add some more stock.
  • Put the pan of ribs back in the oven with the lid on and leave for another 2-3 hours, turning the ribs half way through so that the top is at the bottom.
  • When the ribs are completely tender, scoop out some of the super tender meat and serve on creamy mashed potatoes with the red wine sauce around the side.

Alternatives

  • if you can’t get short ribs, use oxtail or beef cheeks or chuck steak instead.
  • if you have an oven with less insulation like our Alfa, check out our pot roasting video here which will show you how to slow cook in these kinds of ovens.
  • use white wine, beer or cider instead of red wine or replace the wine with stock if you don’t use alcohol.
  • use chicken stock if you don’t have any beef stock.
  • if your oven is cooler than ours was – say 120/130C – leave the pan in overnight to cook super slowly.
  • our ribs were very lean but if yours are fattier, let the cooked dish cool before eating it so you can scoop off any fat that will solidify on the surface. Then gently reheat.
  • cool the meat and use it in lasagne, cottage pie, as an empanada filling, in soup….the possibilities are endless. We have found that we want to scoff it all straightaway as the ribs are so delicious!