Beef Short Ribs and Tomato Ragoût
Ragoût (pronounced RAG-goo), is a thick, hearty stew of French origin; a similar version is also made in Italy, called Ragù. It's unfortunate that an American spaghetti sauce company absconded with the latter as a name for anything but what a true Ragù really is.
In thinking about naming this dish, I was content to leave the word "sauce" in the title because that's what its original author called it, published on a now famous site, The Pioneer Woman. Needless to say, I made a few modifications to her original recipe and made less sauce because I thought this dish should be more about the short ribs themselves.
I happened upon a cooking term seldom used anymore - a Ragoût - a thick, rich, well-seasoned stew of meat, poultry or fish that can be made with or without vegetables. That's it exactly!
Stewing means braising, a method of cooking tough cuts of meat for long periods of time in liquid, and that is what I did with this dish. The meat will be falling off the bone, which makes it easy to serve them on top of butter noodles with lots of the delicious gravy.
Beef Short Ribs and Tomato Ragoût
Ingredients
- 8-12 beef short ribs
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 14.5 oz can petite diced tomatoes (like, Hunt's)
- 1 15 oz can tomato sauce
- 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
- 4 tsp minced garlic
- 1 cup dry red wine
- 1 to 1- 1/2 cups beef stock (like, Swanson's or Kitchen Basics)
- 1 tsp ground thyme
- 3 tsp smoked salt (like, San Francisco Salt Company Alder Wood)
- 1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper
- 7-8 grinds freshly cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Salt and pepper all sides of each rib.
- In a heavy Dutch oven, heat the vegetable oil over medium high heat, then brown all sides of each rib, about 2 minutes per side, or 8 minutes total.
- Remove the ribs to a platter.
- Add a bit more oil to the Dutch oven if necessary, and then sauté the onions until they become slightly caramelized, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute.
- Add the tomatoes and sauté another 5 minutes or so.
- Add the tomato sauce, wine, thyme and cayenne.
- Return the ribs to the Dutch oven and finish with as much beef stock as you need to submerge all the ribs in the cooking sauce.
- Place the cover on the Dutch oven, and cook in the middle of the oven for 4 hours.
- Remove the ribs from the the oven and you'll notice that the sauce, or ragoût has cooked way down, and the ribs are deliciously browned on all sides.
- Add more beef stock if the sauce has evaporated too far.
- You can either use a fat separator to remove the grease, or place the gravy into a container and refrigerator overnight. The next day, you will see that all the fat has risen to the top of the sauce in an orange "fat cap" can be removed and discarded. Refrigerate the ribs in a separate container.
- If you did the latter method of separating the grease from the sauce, return the sauce and the ribs to a casserole dish with a tight fitting lid and heat through in a 350°F oven for 40-45 minutes.