Braised beef short ribs

Peter Gordon shares his recipe for beef ribs as served on Air New Zealand business class flights. Ask your butcher for boneless beef short ribs, or cook on the bone and remove once cooked. Allow 160g of meat per person.

Ingredients

4 pieces	Beef short ribs, approx 160g each, or 8 pieces at 70g each (Main)
2 Tbsp	Flour
1 stalk	Celery, cut 1cm lengths
1	Carrot, peeled and diced
1	Onion, peeled and sliced
1	Garlic clove, peeled and sliced
1 Tbsp	Tomato paste
4 stalks	Thyme
2	Bay leaves
½ tsp	Black pepper, coarsely crushed
200 ml	Red wine, pinot noir or syrah would be ideal
600 ml	Beef stock, or veal stock

Directions

1. Heat oven to 160C.
2. Dust the beef ribs with the flour and a little salt (don't use more than 1/8 teaspoon of salt). Sear it all over in a hot pan with ½ tablespoon oil until browned. Remove the ribs and place in a deep-sided dish just large enough to hold them comfortably.
3. To the same pan, add the carrot, celery, onion and garlic and cook over medium heat till golden, stirring frequently. Add the tomato paste and herbs and cook for a minute then add the pepper and wine and bring to the boil. Cook over high heat to reduce the wine by half, stirring to prevent it sticking on the bottom.
4. Add the stock and bring to the boil then carefully pour over the beef. The liquid should almost cover the meat. Place a sheet of baking parchment on top and then a double layer of foil and seal the dish tightly. Place in the oven for 2½ hours.
5. Peel the foil back and if the meat is tender and falls apart easily when pulled, then it's ready.
6. Take from the oven and carefully remove the meat using a slotted spoon.
7. Strain the vegetables and cooking liquid through a fine sieve into a pan and cook over medium heat to reduce by two thirds. This is why it's important that you didn't add too much salt initially as it would now be too salty.
8. Pour back over the ribs and warm through to serve.

Sides to serve

This dish is also served with spring onion cake, wild mushrooms, wilted spinach and truffled chervil sea salt butter. The spring onion and potato cake is made from mashed potato mixed with egg, sliced spring onions and a little flour to bind it, before being shaped into patties and panfried until golden. The wild mushrooms are a mixture of four kinds of mushrooms cooked in butter and olive oil. The chervil butter is a mixture of truffle oil, softened butter, roughly chopped chervil and sea salt all whipped up together.