My friend Kelly started a trend in an online chicken chat when she posted the link to a short rib recipe she tried. I have not always been successful when cooking short ribs, but this sounded too good to pass up. The recipe comes from Emeril Lagasse, via The Food Network. It features short ribs, slow cooked in an Asian-inspired braising liquid. The flavors of orange, soy, ginger, garlic, and lemon grass sounded perfect and smelled divine as this dish cooked. I chose to remove the meat from the bones and serve it with sushi rice and baby bok choy. It's embarrassing to say, but Michael and I both groaned on the sofa after dinner, too full of Asian short ribs. It was one of those dishes where one more bite couldn't hurt, until it does.
I followed the recipe as written except I added a bit more brown sugar at the end, as the sauce was thickening. I enjoyed the sauce almost more than the beef, spooning it over my rice, again and again. This one's a keeper!
Just a note about short ribs: They can be good or they can be bad. By bad, I mean fatty and gristly. Buy short ribs with a good amount of meat on the bone. Talk to the butcher and ask him to pick out the best ones for you. Don't ruin a good recipe with bad beef. I learned this lesson the hard way.
Here is Emeril's recipe, but as always, the photos is mine.
Ingredients
- 5 pounds beef short ribs (cut into 4-ounce portions)
- 1 cup soy sauce
- ¼ cup rice wine vinegar
- 3 cloves garlic (peeled and smashed)
- 1 5-inch stalk lemongrass, halved and smashed
- 1 tablespoon peeled and minced ginger
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- 1 quart water
- ½ cup sliced green onion bottoms (white part only)
- ¾ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- ¼ cup fresh orange juice
- ¼ cup hoisin sauce
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- Jasmine Rice (for serving)
- 2 teaspoons finely grated orange rind (for serving)
- Sliced green onion tops (optional for garnish)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a wide stockpot or Dutch oven, combine the short ribs, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, lemongrass, ginger, brown sugar, water, green onion bottoms, crushed red pepper, and 2 tablespoons of the 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 about 3 hours, or until the meat is tender and falling off the bones. Remove the short ribs from the braising liquid and cover to keep warm. Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees F.
- Drain the fat off of the cooking liquid and discard. Place the remaining braising juices in a medium saucepan with ¼ cup of the hoisin sauce and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the liquid until only about 1 ¼ cups remain. Strain through a fine-meshed strainer, discarding the solids. Stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons of orange juice and the lemon juice.
- Return the short ribs and the reduced sauce to the stockpot or Dutch oven, coating the short ribs well with the sauce. Bake for 10 minutes, 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.