Chinese Short Ribs

If you like short ribs, you're going to love this recipe.  I got the original recipe from Hung Huynh, Top Chef winner.  I made a few tweaks to the recipe, but not too many.  This is a great one pot meal.  It really can be done in a crockpot or in an oven safe pot.  I prefer to make this dish in the oven, it's faster and wouldn't make any difference in the crockpot.  Don't get me wrong, when I say faster, it still takes 3 hours of cook time.  But, it's something that is definitely worth the wait.  The ribs are very tender and have a great flavor.  Sorry, but there is definitely no way to make this one vegan.

One other thing I wanted to mention about this dish is that it calls for wine.  A lot of people think that you have to have a real expensive bottle, but that's just not true.  The wine I used cost around $6 and it worked great.  The more expensive wine you use, maybe it will alter the taste, but I think a nice inexpensive bottle will work just fine.  If you're going to splurge on wine, drink it during dinner, don't cook with it.

Browning the Short Ribs

This is the wine that I used for this recipe

Ready for the oven

 Straining the sauce

 The Final Plating

INGREDIENTS

• 5 bone in Short Ribs
• 2 large onions
• 4 medium carrots
• 1 bottle Cabernet red wine
• 1 cup Tomato Paste
• 6 thyme branches
• 6 bay leaves
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup soy sauce
• 4 cups beef stock
• 2 tbs. black pepper
• 2 tbs. ground anise
• 1/2 ts. cinnamon
• 8-10 garlic cloves (minced)
• 1 bunch of scallions
• 1 tbs. ginger
• vegetable oil

DIRECTIONS

• 1
  Preheat oven to 325
• 2
  Heat the oil and brown the short ribs in a pan. This is a very important step.
• 3
  Remove the ribs and add carrots and onions. Sauté for a few minutes.
• 4
  Add pepper, anise, cinnamon, garlic and tomato paste. Combine in the pan.
• 5
  Transfer vegetables to oven safe pot.
• 6
  Add stock, wine, thyme, bay leaves, brown sugar, scallions, ginger, and soy sauce to the pot and mix well.
• 7
  Add the ribs to the pot and cover. Place in the oven for 3 hours.
• 8
  Remove the ribs from the pot and strain the sauce.
• 9
  Add the ribs back into the sauce to coat the ribs and you are ready to plate.