I have a secret ingredient that I use when I braise.
Today let's make a slow, braised, Certified Angus Beef short ribs with
Dr. Pepper.
Trust me on this.
There's a method to the madness.
We're going to chop our mirepoix.
So celery, carrot, onion.
So this recipe is really whimsical, in my opinion.
I mean, this is a pop.
And yes, I say pop because I'm from Ohio.
Soda, that I grew up drinking.
Okay, so mirepoix is done and ready
to go.
Certified Angus Beef chuck short ribs.
I'm just going to season with salt and pepper, so I'm going to use
Himalayan salt and our five pepper blend that we have available on our brand store.
If you're interested, I will give these a hefty seasoning
and get every side turning, patting.
Some pepper.
You don't need quite as much pepper.
Don't forget the ends, my friends.
Don't forget your ends.
Pat it down.
So now these will be seared into a heavy
bottomed Dutch oven with a little bit of oil.
So we seared all of the short ribs really hard on high heat.
So little bit of oil.
And it's really important to, one,
get all of the sides, including both of the ends.
But it's really important as well
to not be afraid of the color.
The color is flavor.
And a good sear on your short ribs is what's going to help you get.
That much more flavor out of them as they slow cooked down.
So now I'm going to set these here while I get our mirepoix
in the same pan using all of those little bits in the pan
because this is a bunch of flavor as well.
So we'll saute the onion, carrot and celery.
So the Dr.
Pepper plays really well
with soy sauce and molasses.
So those are two ingredients that aren’t traditionally found
in braised short ribs.
But they are in this one.
We want the tomato paste to caramelize and kind of cook a little bit.
So when you break it up really well
and get those veggies coated, you kind of let it sit
so it can caramelize a little bit.
Dr. Pepper, being one of the most popular
fizzy drinks, has a lot of spice to it.
There's a lot of depth of flavor in it.
I'm killing my heat and we go back in and really kind of nestle
each of those short ribs down into
this veggie and liquid that we have in the pan.
And then we'll add in our beef stock.
Perfect.
Now to do some thyme
and some bay leaf.
And those will braise for 6 hours.
So I have one ready to show you.
So taking the very
tender short rib out in a place it
separately from the vegetables
so we can use the liquid that's left in this pot to make our gravy.
I'm going to bring this up to a simmer and we're going to thicken
it just as we would any regular gravy with the cornstarch slurry.
But the interesting part of this slurry is we're going to use cornstarch and Dr.
Pepper.
And the ratio for a slurries about 2 to 1.
But Dr.
Pepper makes it a little different.
So probably about three tablespoons of Dr. Pepper.
Okay.
So once this simmers, I pour that in.
Then I dump Dr. Pepper in.
Now that the gravy is done, it's simmering nicely.
I'm going to put the short ribs back into the gravy
to give them a nice little coating.
Being very gentle, I'm
just going to use a spoon and glaze these a little bit
so I don't have to move them around very much because they're super tender.
So a braised short rib just isn't the same without some mashed potatoes.
So I have a little mashed potato here
and I like to garnish with some chopped parsley. But
that's all she wrote
with this.
The Dr. Pepper and the soy sauce really deepened the color of this beef.
And it is fork tender.
I'm excited to taste these.
This short rib is cooked perfectly.
It is so tender and you get a little bit of the molasses and a lot of that Dr. Pepper.
I told you there is a method to the madness.
Try this out.
You will love it.
See you next time
here in the test kitchen.