Barbeque Style Braised Short RIbs

I have never cooked beef short ribs before. A month or so ago, they were on a super sale at my grocery store. So I picked some up thinking I would find a recipe for them. When I looked, a lot of the recipes were Asian inspired. Which is fine. I love good Asian food. But then I found the recipe for barbeque style braised short ribs and made that instead. I am sure glad I did. This recipe is amazing!

The recipe wanted you to cook the meal in a dutch oven. For those of you who are unfamiliar with dutch ovens except when camping, they are not the same thing. The dutch oven I am talking about here is a cast iron pot with a lid that is coated in enamel. They are great because you can use them to start a dish on the stove, then you can finish it in the oven.I wish I had one myself. I do not. So I used my cast iron skillet and put tin foil over the top when I put it in the oven. If you don't have either of these cooking tools, go and buy one. The recipe is good enough to make the purchase price worth it. 

I turned the oven on and put my skillet on the stove top and heated up some oil. Then I put salt and pepper on all sides of the short ribs and placed them in the hot oil to brown on all sides. This is the braising part. Once the ribs were browned on all sides I took them out of the skillet and placed them on a plate lined with paper towels to soak up the extra oil. 

To my skillet I added the onion which I had just sliced into rings and broke apart and my carrot chunks. After having made this recipe, I wish I would have put more carrots in there. So if you like carrots, put in as many as you want. I feel it will only increase your satisfaction with the recipe.

To my carrots and onions, I added garlic, tomato sauce, barbeque sauce (you can use your favorite brand) and beef broth.I simmer all the ingredients in the pot for a few minutes so the flavors could marry. Then I added the ribs back to the skillet and covered it with foil. My oven was hot and ready and I put the skillet in there for two and a half hours. 

What came out was heaven. The meat was tender and falling off the bone the vegetables where soft, and the sauce you could put on a tire and eat it. I served mine over mashed potatoes, but if you wanted to have a more refined dish,  a creamy polenta would work just as easily. On that note any meat that needs to be cooked on a low heat for a long period of time would work well for this recipe.If you want to make this recipe in your cooking district, the recipe follows. It serves 6 people so change quantities accordingly.

Barbeque Style Braised Short Ribs

2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil

5 Lbs. beef short ribs cut in 3 inch peices

1 Teaspoon salt

1/2 Teaspoon Pepper

1 large onion cut into thick slices and separated into rings

4 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

4 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped

1 (16oz) can of tomato sauce

1 cup barbeque sauce

1 cup beef broth

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Heat oil over medium heat in a large, heavy, oven-safe pot or Dutch oven, and brown the ribs on all sides, about 5 minutes, Working in batches as necessary. Sprinkle ribs with salt and black pepper as they brown. Transfer cooked ribs to paper towels to blot up extra oil.

Stir the onion rings and carrots into the same pot, and cook and stir until the onion turns translucent and starts to brown, about 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic, and cook until fragrant, about one more minute. Mix in the tomato sauce, barbeque sauce, and beef broth; bring the sauce to a boil, and simmer for 1 minute to blend flavors. Stir in the browned ribs.

Cover the pot, and bake in the heated oven until the rib meat is very tender, about 2 1/2 hours. Turn the ribs occasionally while cooking. Season to taste with salt and black pepper before serving hot.