THE BEST BRAISED SHORT RIBS

Jacobs Ladder Full Short Ribs

Glorious sumptuous melt in the mouth tender beef short ribs slowly braised in a rich beef stock reduction and burgundy red wine, a marriage of my nan’s slow braised chuck steak and my French families Boeuf Bourguignon this cut of full short ribs, known as Jacobs ladder in the UK are slowly braised with extra roasted marrow bones, mirapiox, rich reduced beef stock and a decent bottle of burgundy red wine, some herbs and seasoning and most of all time, this dish is worthy of this process and delivers one of the best most comforting sumptuous family dinner’s, left overs unlikely but in that event left overs make a great pie filling with left over gravy.  Serve these ribs with the best buttery mashed potatoes ever, 250g butter to each 1kg of peeled potatoes! Yes and sometimes I add double cream too!

My personal advice is to eat this with a spoon, so you can get plenty of gravy on your spoon along with the short ribs and buttery mashed potatoes, every mouthful a genuine pleasure.

Quite a simple one pan cook leaving the hob or oven to do all the work delivering perfection on a plate.  This is a great dinner to impress friends and family with and with very little effort for such a maximum results.

Cooking time 4 hours

Ingredients 

(serves 6)

1 whole rack of Jacobs ladder approx 3kg)

(ask your butcher for the cut)

2 marrow bones optional

2 carrots finely diced

1 Spanish onion finely diced

1 leek finely diced

1 rib of celery finely diced

6 cloves garlic chopped

50 ml olive oil

50g butter

2 ltrs rich beef stock recipe below

1 bottle burgundy good quality

4 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

3 sprigs fresh thyme

1 fresh bay leaf

10 whole black peppercorns

Sea salt and ground black pepper 

Pre heat your oven 180 C / 355 F and pop the marrow bones if using in to roast for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile heat a deep casserole dish medium hot add half the olive oil and butter then the diced onions, garlic, carrot, celery and leek, cook until translucent approx 10-15 minutes.  At the same time heat a cast iron skillet hot, toss the Jacobs ladder ribs in some olive oil and season with salt and black pepper, sear all sides of the ribs for around 45 seconds per side in the skillet creating a wonderful caramelised flavour to the ribs, remove the ribs and place in the casserole dish, take some of the stock and pour in to the skillet to capture all the flavours of the seared ribs and pour into the casserole dish along with the rest of the ingredients pop on a lid and place in the oven for 3-4 hours until the meat is falling off the bone.

Strain the stock gravy and season to taste if needed, serve the short ribs on top of glorious buttery mashed potatoes (recipe below) and plenty of stock gravy, enjoy.

Serve with This Glorious Mashed Potato

1 kg peeled halved potatoes

250g butter

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

Sea salt and white pepper

150ml double cream optional !

Simple method to ensure the best fluffy mashed potatoes, rinse the potatoes and then place in a large pan with cold water and a good pinch of salt, bring to a rolling simmer and cook until fork tender, the reason to boil potatoes from cold is to ensure the potatoes cook all the way through evenly, if you add potatoes to boiling water the outside cooks quicker than the centre which leads to soy wet mashed potatoes!  Drain and leave the potatoes to steam dry in the colander for a few minutes, meanwhile place the saucepan back on the lowest heat, add the butter to slowly soften, add back the potatoes along with the vinegar salt and pepper, mash to your choice of consistency, I’m super smooth but my husband likes lumpy!

I like my potatoes pushed through a ricer for that super smooth mashed potatoes, but for lumpy I just use my old fashion hand masher from my Nan.

Bone Marrow Beef Stock

1 good glug olive oil

25g butter

2 marrow bones

Various beef bones and knuckles from the butchers

(or left over roast beef bones)

2 carrots roughly chopped 

1 rib celery roughly chopped 

1 onion roughly chopped 

1 clove garlic chopped

1 leek roughly chopped 

2 sprigs thyme

1 bay leaf

10 whole black peppercorns

2 ltrs water

1/2 tsp Himalayan sea salt

If you are making your own stock do this the day before so you can leave the stock to very gently simmer for 8 hours to maximum the flavour.  I like to roast all the bones for 1 hour to increase the flavour and colour of the stock. But this is not necessary.  Heat the oil and butter add the carrots, leeks, onion, garlic and celery and soften for 5 minutes, place the rest of ingredients into your stock pot add water to cover the bones and leave to gently simmer for up to 8 hours, strain and return to the pan, taste and season with salt and pepper, or reduce the volume to intensify the depth of flavour.