Braised Short Ribs
in Wine & Pancetta
Cooked down in a Dutch oven with delicious Pancetta and dry red wine, these Beef Short Ribs are delicious on noodles, mashed potatoes, rice, grits or on Kitchen Tapestry’s recipe for Parmesan Polenta.
This another short rib recipe from the Pioneer Woman website. Short Ribs are good dinner fare; the aroma of them simmering away in a rich broth, filling the house on a lazy Sunday afternoon is the stuff of culinary legend.
This recipe is very simple to make. You can spoon off the fat before serving over a bowl of creamy, cheesy Parmesan Polenta like I did, or you can put the gravy in a container, let it sit in the refrigerator overnight and then just simply pull off the fat cap that developed while the liquid settled and cooled. This recipe would be delicious over rice, noodles, mashed potatoes, corn bread, cheese grits, or just all by themselves.
Pioneer Woman tends to complicate some of her recipes, I suppose because her website is as much about photography as it is about food. For example, she advises the reader to salt, pepper and flour each rib individually. I advise to throw everything in a plastic zip-lock bag and shake it. As another example, she advises the reader to dice three whole carrots. I bought the packaged pre-shredded kind and ran a knife through them to whack them down to size. She further used fresh herbs; I used dry. There are some recipes in which fresh herbs make a difference. This isn’t one of them.
Braised Short Ribs in Wine & Pancetta
Ingredients
- 8-12 beef short ribs
- 3 tbsp fine sea salt
- 3 tbsp black pepper
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup cubed pancetta, or 4 slices of bacon cut into lardons
- 3 cups diced carrots
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 2 shallots, finely diced
- 2 cups dry red wine
- 2 cups beef broth (like Swanson's)
- 2 tbsp dried thyme leaves
- 2 tbsp dried, crushed rosemary
- 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Put the salt, pepper and flour in a large zip-lock bag, throw in the ribs and shake to coat.
- Pre-heat the oven to 350°F.
- Over medium heat in a large Dutch oven, cook the bacon or pancetta until crispy and all the fat has rendered. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Add the olive oil to the pan with the pork fat and brown the ribs, about a minute on each side. Do this in batches depending on the size of your Dutch oven so that you do not crowd them in more than a single layer. Remove the ribs from the pan and set aside.
- Add more oil if needed. Toss in the carrots, onion and shallots. Sauté until the onions begin to take on a little color, about 5 minutes.
- Add the wine, beef broth, thyme, rosemary and the cooked pancetta or bacon and bring to a boil for a couple of minutes, then add the ribs back to the liquid. They should be completely submerged.
- Put the lid on your dutch oven, and put into a 350 degree oven for three hours.
- Remove the ribs to a platter, cover with foil and put back into a warm oven for 20-30 minutes while the gravy settles. Spoon off the grease after it rises to the surface.
- Serve your ribs on grits, noodles,mashed potatoes, corn bread or rice - or with Kitchen's Tapestry's Parmesan Grits - with some of the gravy spooned over top.