Bathed in hard cider, spices, and molasses.
INGREDIENTS
½ cup flour
1½ Tbsp cornstarch
2 tsp salt
2 tsp white pepper
3 lb beef short ribs*
2 Tbsp olive oil, plus extra
1 onion, thinly sliced (about 3 cups)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup carrots, sliced
2 cans (12 oz each) hard cider
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
4 Tbsp molasses
2 sprigs thyme, whole
2 tsp allspice
1 tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp cloves
2 tsp ground ginger
*TIP
Be selective with your purchase. Look for short ribs that are thick and not overly fatty.
DIRECTIONS
In a plastic bag, add flour, cornstarch, salt, and white pepper. Seal the bag and shake to mix. Working in batches, add short ribs to the bag, thoroughly coating each piece. Remove the ribs, shaking off the excess flour, and set aside. Repeat until all the short ribs are coated with flour mixture. Discard remaining flour and bag. Let the short ribs rest at room temperature for 20 minutes.
Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven on medium heat. Working in batches, brown all sides of each short rib. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Add the onion, garlic, and carrots to the pan. Add additional olive oil to prevent the vegetables from burning, but do not overdo it. Cook vegetables until tender.
Add ½ cup hard cider to deglaze the pan. Stir up all the delicious brown bits. Add the rest of the hard cider.
Add apple cider vinegar, molasses, thyme, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, and ground ginger. Since molasses is sticky and difficult to get off the measuring spoons, we swirled the measuring spoons in the cooking liquid to make sure we removed as much molasses as possible.
Add the meat to the cooking liquid. Raise the heat to medium-high until it boils, then lower the heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 2 hours.
Remove meat and bones from pan. Raise the heat to medium and reduce the liquid by half. While the liquid is cooking down, prepare the short ribs. Short ribs have bones and tough, inedible gristle attached to them. Cut the bone and gristle off the meat, and discard. Once the sauce has thickened, add the meat back to the liquid and cook until the meat is warm again.
Serve the meat with a generous spoonful of sauce. We recommend that you serve this over our Yankee Red Flannel Hash recipe (page 69).