Braised Short Ribs For Christmas Dinner At Almost Heaven South

As we often do, we invited a few folks over for Christmas dinner that we knew had no other plans so we ended up with nine to dine at Bev’s pretty table.  

One of my goals for the meal was make it as simply and low-mess as possible and that equates to as few pans as possible – three for this meal.

After enjoying Pam's Braised Short Ribs earlier in the month, we decided to scale the recipe up and make it for this Christmas meal.  I basically tripled everything to get the following:

Ingredients:

4-6 tbsp olive oil

24 boneless short rib pieces (about 1”x1”5”)

Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

3/4 cup flour

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp paprika

3 sweet yellow onion, diced (I chopped them all in the food processor)

10 carrots, peeled & diced

6 stalks of celery, diced

2 tsp garlic powder

3 cup of red wine, I used Cabernet

6 cups of beef broth, more if needed

6 tbsp tomato paste

2 tsp of dried thyme leafs

3 bay leafs

Please check out the recipe directions on Pam’s site.  

Notes: 

1. I sautéed the beef in batches in a large Dutch oven (pan 1) then cooked the other ingredients in it as well (It took about 40 minutes for this veggies and liquid). I then added this mixture to the large pan (pan 2) followed by the ribs and other veggies, covered with foil, and cooked in the oven.

2. If I were doing it again I would only double the amount of onion, carrots, celery, wine and broth for the pan I was using so the sauce wouldn’t be as thick.

3. I added some whole onions and carrot pieces to the pan with the meat.

I cooked it for about three hours, since it was larger and started with a cooler pan and ingredients.

It might have been easier to serve it by the plate, but I wanted to put it on a platter for the photo op.

After a delicious salad provided by friend Kathy, we served up the entrée along with Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes (pan 3) and Bev's hot rolls.

Once again, it was very good and it was a nice day to share with friends and family.  We were no where close to a white Christmas, so it might as well just go ahead and be 70F to make it easy for travelers and kids who want to ride their new bikes.  Oh well Betsy, maybe next year.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/25/16 event date