Regular stalkers of my blog will know that I'm a megawatt Francophile. I've been plugging 'Ripailles' by Stephane Reynaud for months now (a.k.a. 'French Feasts). Its a true French home style cookery bible, a celebration of all those animal bits that only the French can make palatable; no entrail, trotter or dangly part is overlooked in this 299 recipe tome.
Try as I might, I just can't follow a recipe to the letter. Rules, regulations, ounces, tsps, tbss, ugh, sometimes you've got to be creative; in this instance I took inspiration from the Bourguignon de joues de boeuf and the Boeuf braise aux carrots and produced some delectable, slow braised short ribs.
Here's a guideline to produce a similar ripaille.
Brown first, color = flavor
For 4-6 people you'll need: 6 boneless beef short ribs, (costco has great ones) 1/4 cup each of diced onion, carrot & celery. 1 cup red wine (something half decent) 1 clove garlic grated, 3 tbs olive oil, 2 tbs flour, 1 carton of beef stock, 1/4 tomato puree.
Firstly, heat the oil in a heavy based pan (I love le Creuset) and brown the ribs, in batches if necessary, don't crowd the pan. Season. Remove and add the carrots, celery, garlic & onion and saute until softened but not brown. Add back the ribs, sprinkle over the flour and deglaze with the wine. Reduce then add the stock, bring to the boil and place in a 325 degree oven for at least 2 hours or until meltingly tender.
Mimi was a fan of the 'chicken'!
Serve with pappardelle or any wide noodle. If you've never slow cooked this way before you'll be amazed at the intensity of flavor you can achieve by merely adding a little wine & using those magic mirapoix!
Click
here to treat yourself to a copy of Stephane Reynaud's formidable
'French Feasts'.
