17/12/2018

Beef Short Rib Ragu

Name: Beef Short Rib Ragu
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 60 min
Total time: 90 min
Ingredients: 1 tbsp olive oil; 1 kg beef short ribs (seasoned lightly with salt and pepper); 1 large onion (chopped small); 1 large carrot (in small dice); 2 sticks celery (finely chopped); 6-8 cloves garlic (finely chopped); salt & black pepper (to taste); 0.5 tsp dried chilli flakes (optional); 2 tsp dried oregano; 200 ml red wine; 800 g tinned tomatoes; 1 tbsp tomato puree; 1-2 tsp sugar (optional); 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar; 1 bay leaf; 1 large bunch basil, leaves only (roughly torn); 300-500 ml beef stock (low salt if possible); parmesan cheese (finely grated); pappardelle pasta (75-100g per person)

Beef Short Rib Ragu must be one of the best things I’ve made this year.

The meaty ribs are cooked with garlic, wine, tomatoes and a few other goodies until meltingly soft. The beef is then shredded and added to the semi-pureed sauce to make a knock-your-socks-off ragu.

Fabulous with homemade pasta, a crunchy salad and good wine, it’s comfort food at its finest.

Don’t have beef short ribs? Recipe will also work with shin of beef or chunks of beef brisket.

Jump to Recipe

BEEF SHORT RIBS

My Beef Short Rib Ragu was a spur-of-the-moment thing. It came about when, at my bi-monthlyish visit to the excellent Denstone Hall Farm Shop, I spotted these serious-looking beef short ribs. Beefy in every sense of the word.

Although this flavoursome cut is becoming more popular, I don’t see them that often. And, while any decent butcher will get beef short ribs if you ask (and Denstone Hall’s butchery counter is a fine one), I can be guilty of just buying what I see rather than asking. Consequently, I don’t cook short ribs often enough.

So, knowing how good Denstone Hall’s beef is, tasty and from their own farm, how could I resist these?

Of all the goodies I bought at the farm shop, I knew it was the ribs that I couldn’t wait to cook straight away. It was a Sunday so we certainly wanted something special. I love a good, rich ragu for pasta and thought that the ribs, with their creamy layers of fat, would be perfect to flavour and enrich the sauce.

Traditionally, beef short ribs need long and slow cooking, usually around 2 hours, to become beautifully soft. But if you’ve got a pressure cooker (in my case an Instant Pot electric one) you can reduce that time to around 40-50 minutes.

If you don’t have a pressure cooker, don’t worry. In the detailed recipe at the end of this post I give instructions for cooking in the oven too. If you want to make Beef Short Rib Ragu in a slow cooker, then you’ll need to adapt the recipe and follow your manufacturer’s instructions.

BEEF SHORT RIB RAGU

Like most Britons I guess, I used to make my meaty, tomatoey sauces for pasta with minced meat. But many years ago I discovered that chunks or shreds of meat are much more satisfying, and more authentic too. I’m not opposed to non-authenticity (see my fab but inauthentic recipes for Ultimate Meatballs & Sauce/Meatballs & Pasta al forno) but it’s got to be good.

And boy, is this Beef Short Rib Ragu good! Happily, it’s also not at all difficult.

First off, you need to get those ribs in some hot olive oil and brown them all over. It’s worth taking your time and doing this properly. Trust me, you’ll be rewarded with a deeper, meatier flavour in the finished dish.

Next, it’s just a matter of sauteing the usual vegetable suspects: onion, celery, carrot and garlic. I throw in some dried oregano (one of those herbs I always prefer dried to fresh) and also dried chilli flakes for a mild tingle of heat.

A glug of red wine goes in and is left to bubble and reduce for a few minutes. Then you can pile in the rest of the ingredients: tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, a bay leaf, fresh basil, a touch of seasoning and a little balsamic vinegar and sugar for balance. Those lovely browned ribs are popped back in the pot with enough beef stock to cover them. After giving the whole lot a quick stir, you can sit back and let time do the work.

A KNOCK-YOUR-SOCKS-OFF-SAUCE

Once the meat if falling off the beef ribs, I remove them from the pot and set aside to cool a little. Meanwhile, I work on getting the sauce absolutely perfect:

If I think the sauce looks a little thin I bubble it, with the lid off, to reduce
Using a stick blender, I whizz the sauce to a chunkyish puree
Check the seasoning: I add more salt and pepper if needed
When the sauce has slightly cooled, I skim off with a ladle any excess fat that’s risen to the top

The sauce will already be absolutely delicious, and that’s before you’ve even put the oh-so-tender-and-tasty meat back in.

If the beef is still too hot to touch, I start off by shredding it with two forks. But as soon as it’s cool enough I prefer to work with my hands. I find this much easier to separate the silky meat from any bits of sinew or large pieces of fat I want to discard. I return the shredded beef to the pot containing the reduced sauce, trying not to sneak too many morsels into my mouth as I go.

To make sure the ragu is piping hot and to get the juicy beef well combined with the lip-smacking sauce, I gently simmer the whole thing for a few minutes. I add some more fresh basil right at the end.

The result is just about the most perfect meaty sauce for pasta ever.

THE PASTA

Talking of pasta, please don’t reach for the spaghetti to eat with my Beef Short Rib Ragu. Save that for thin, simple sauces like olive oil, chilli and garlic. What you want with thick, meaty sauces like this are wide ribbons of pasta. At a pinch, you could use tagliatelle or fettuccine. But I think what goes best of all is pappardelle.

While writing this post, I learnt that pappardelle, the widest of the pasta noodles, gets its name from the Italian pappare which means to gobble up. How fitting! That’s exactly what you’re going to do when you taste my Beef Short Rib Ragu. So, do yourself and this impeccable sauce a favour. Get some pappardelle or even make it yourself.

I don’t eat pasta very often, so I’m certainly no expert at making it. But it’s surprisingly easy and I’ve never had it go wrong. I’m not going to give full instructions here as there’s plenty of resources online showing how to do it. I just make a dead simple version using, per person, one whole egg plus one hundred grams of plain flour and a little salt. Mix it. Knead it. Rest it. Roll it (with a pasta machine if you have one, with a rolling pin if not). Cut it. Boil it. Drain it. Combine it with the achingly good sauce.

If you don’t want to attempt pasta making, just make sure you buy as good a quality, fresh or dried, as you can afford. This stunning ragu really deserves it.

SERVING BEEF SHORT RIB RAGU

Serve the pasta and ragu sprinkled with torn basil leaves and freshly grated Parmesan. On the side, I like a good and crunchy mixed salad with a perky balsamic and olive oil dressing. Not to have a bottle of Italian red wine on the table would border on the criminal, I think.

Besides being perfect comfort food for a cosy night in, I think Beef Short Rib Ragu is great for entertaining. With pretty much all the work done in advance, it’s a relatively stress-free option for the cook. The amounts shown in the recipe will serve six people very generously.

The ragu is perfect for freezing too. As there’s just the two of us, I divided it into three batches. That meant as well as dinner on the day of making, we had the basis of another two awesome but quick meals in the freezer, with nothing to do but knock up some pasta and salad. Perfect.

If you love meaty pasta sauces, you really must make Beef Short Rib Ragu. Make friends with a proper butcher, order some beefy short ribs and get cracking. Your tummy, and your dining partners, will love you for it.

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