Beef Bourguignon with Short Ribs has probably been done for years, but if you haven't tried it yet, you don't know what you are missing. Beef Bourginon may have an intimidating name, but it's essentially beef stew with some wine. Really, really, really good beef stew with wine. We like to serve it with your favorite version of potatoes!
I don’t really like short ribs. They are either fatty or tough or usually both. In Hawaii, they are quite popular, and unfortunately, the preparation they have for it here is not my favorite either.
When I was living in France, for some odd reason, one of the things I had brought with me were cooking magazines. (Don’t ask me why, it’s not like a had a lot of extra room when moving from Hawaii to Paris.) One day, I was looking through the magazine and saw this recipe for short ribs that looked delicious. The picture was incredible! In that moment, for whatever reason, I completely forgot about my lack of love for short ribs. Like, it never occurred to me that I didn’t like them, nor had I ever made them.
I was having my new French friends over for dinner that week, for the first time, and somehow thought it would be a great idea to make short ribs, a cut I don’t like, and a dish I’ve never made, for them. To this day, I have no clue what I was thinking.
So then came the next challenge. How the heck does one say short ribs in French. This is not as easy as a task as you might imagine. You can’t just go up to someone and as them how to say short ribs, it’s kind of a specialized item. I mean not, really but think about it, you may know be fluent in another language, but does that mean you know every cut of meat on every animal. So you can’t really ask anyone, you can describe the part of the animal, but that also only goes so far because different countries cut their meat in different ways. Certain cuts exist in France that just don’t exist in America.
So I started Googling it. And in 2015, nothing came up. Like nothing. It was impressive actually. Finally, after a ton of searching, I found a google books link to an excerpt of a Julia Child cookbook where, ironically, Julia Child found herself in the same predicament as me. Thankfully, Julia didn’t leave me hanging and put the equivalent in the book, which I was not able to access thanks to the controversial Google Books. Answer: bouts de côtes.
Then came the next step. Going to a butcher and trying out my new word. Seeing if they understood me. And then seeing if they actually had it. I walked downstairs, and ask the butcher next to my apartment. To my glee, he knew what I was talking about, but he didn’t have any. I walked down the street to my Thanksgiving Turkey Butcher Hero (a very good story), and he didn’t have any as well. From there, I made my way deep into the fifth, the more the local side of rue Monge and tried a butcher I’d walked past frequently.
And he had short ribs!
I came home, overjoyed, made them for my friends in my brand new Staub dutch oven (it had been a birthday present for my 22ndbirthday, but I had waited until I was in France to buy it!). The result, my new friends liked my food enough to come back many, many more times over the course of the next couple years, and I found a new love for short ribs.
Apparently, short ribs don’t have to be touch and fatty, they can be tender and delicious.
Fast forward to Thanksgiving 2018. We were having dinner with Sean’s family. The thing about his family, and I sure a lot of people can relate, they are not bound by tradition. For example, we were celebrating Thanksgiving, but it was technically Sunday so everyone could make it. And that extends to the dishes as well. For me, I am purest. If I am serving Thanksgiving, it it doesn’t qualify for a “traditional dish,” we are not having it.
But for Sean’s family, every is goes and everyone is game. Ham, ribs, pork chops, saimin, boiled peanuts. All delicious, why not let everyone enjoy! I really, don’t mind at all, because you never know what will appear and it’s always delicious.
So for this particular Thanksgiving, Sean’s sister brought short ribs. Let’s just say the short ribs stole the show. Easy, hands down, they were incredible. In fact, to this day, these short ribs are infamous. People were politely fighting for them as leftovers at the end. And her short ribs got me thinking.
My biggest beef… pun intended… was Beef Bourguignon, is that not matter how long I cook the meat, even if I cook it, let it cool, and cook it again, I never feel like the flavors and juices penetrate the beef chunks. You have this incredible sauce, soft vegetable full of favor, and the meat is tender, but when you bite it’s dry. It was there, I decided short ribs were to be my cut of choice for beef bourguignon. Beef bourguignon with short ribs, not necessarily tradition, maybe it was a one point, who knows, but really, truly, a step in the right direction.
This recipe of course works with any cut of beef. You can do beef chunks for stew, or heck, follow Ina and do filet. You may have to adjust the cooking time a little but that’s it.
Get the recipe below!
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📖 Recipe
Beef Bourguignon with Short Ribs
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Braising
- Cuisine: French
Ingredients
- 1 lb. thick cut bacon, chopped
- 3-4 lbs short ribs
- 1 yellow onion, sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tbsp. flour
- 1 750ml bottle, dry red wine, French pinot noir is great
- 2 tbsp. tomato paste
- 3 carrots, cut in large pieces
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp. MarnaMaria dried thyme
- 4 cups good beef broth
- 2 tbsp. butter
- 1 cup cremini mushrooms, sliced
- pearl onions *(optional, these are sometimes really hard to find. If you can't find them, just leave them out)
- ½ cup frozen or fresh peas (optional)
- salt and pepper
- parsley to garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Heat a Dutch oven or large, heavy pot over medium-high heat. Cook bacon until extra crispy. Remove bacon and reserve bacon grease to a small bowl.
- Season short ribs generously with salt and pepper.
- Raise temperature to high heat. Add 1-2 tbsp. of bacon grease. Sear short ribs on all sides until a deep brown crust has formed all over each piece. About 2 minutes per side. Add more bacon grease as needed. Reserve short ribs to a plate.
- Lower heat to medium, add remaining bacon grease, or you can use butter or oil if needed.
- Add onions, 1 tsp. salt, and 1 tsp. black pepper. Cook until onion are soft and translucent, about 10 minutes
- Stir in garlic and let cook for about a minute.
- Lower heat to low and stir in flour. Allow flour to cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent flour from burning.
- Raise heat to high and quickly deglaze pan with red wine, scrapping the bottom of the pan to release any pieces that may be stuck to he bottom.
- Stir in tomato paste, carrots, bay leaves, and thyme.
- Add just enough beef broth to cover the meat and vegetables.
- Bring to a boil, cover, and place in oven to cook for 2 hours.
- Just before serving, in a sauté pan, melt 2 tbsp. butter over medium heat. Add mushrooms and stir to combine. Cook slowly, stirring occasionally until mushrooms release their water and are slightly soft, about 5 minutes.
- Remove beef bourguignon from the oven and stir in mushrooms, onions, and peas.
- Leave uncovered and let simmer over low heat for 15 minutes longer for flavors to combine.
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