Sous Vide Short Ribs

The hol­i­day sea­son is upon us and, above all, that means spend­ing time with fam­ily, reflect­ing on the bless­ings of years past, and endur­ing the hor­rors of dry, tough, stringy meat. Although I am for­tu­nate to have great cooks as par­ents, many of my child­hood mem­o­ries of hol­i­day potlucks were punc­tu­ated by the dis­ap­point­ment of a per­fectly good beef brisket or plate of short ribs that had been anni­hi­lated into shoe leather at the hands of a well-intentioned friend or rel­a­tive. The only sav­ing grace was my high tol­er­ance for the spicy, sinus-clearing power of horse­rad­ish sauce, which made the beef pos­si­ble to gnash down, quickly chased by a cup of grape juice (or a clan­des­tine glass of Manischewitz).

As is com­monly the pit­fall with Thanksgiving turkey, cuts of meat that are only cooked once a year often lack the care and improve­ment that come from fre­quent iter­a­tion. And although I’m per­fectly happy to eat beef short ribs and brisket year-round (espe­cially when bar­be­cued), many fam­ily tra­di­tions reserve this cut for hol­i­days and spe­cial occa­sions. The trick to prepar­ing a ten­der, suc­cu­lent piece of beef is to break down the sig­nif­i­cant con­nec­tive tis­sue with­out over­cook­ing the meat so much that it dries out; the physics at play are involved, and are often over­looked in the chaos of hol­i­day preparations.

Sous vide tech­niques, how­ever, make it easy to cook beef per­fectly, every time. By hold­ing the cut at a low, pre­cisely con­trolled tem­per­a­ture for a very long cook­ing time, you can achieve both per­fect done­ness and fork-tenderness with no need for bast­ing or fas­tid­i­ous ther­mom­e­try. And, cook­ing sous vide leaves your ovens empty, so Aunt Jeannie has space to warm her casse­role before the fam­ily buf­fet line forms.

At your next fam­ily gath­er­ing, up the ante by bring­ing a beef brisket or plate full of short ribs cooked per­fectly sous vide. And don’t for­get the wine, for the kids’ sake.

–Scott Heimendinger, Seattle Food Geek, and friend of The Cooking Lab

We invited Scott from Seattle Food Geek to con­sult with us on this recipe. Photo cour­tesy of seattlefoodgeek.com.

Tips and Substitutions:

  • This recipe is inspired by tra­di­tional Jewish fare, but is not meant as a replace­ment for an Orthodox Seder meal, as accord­ing to Kosher laws, meat and dairy should not be mixed. If you are look­ing for a stricter Kosher meal, try serv­ing the ribs with our Constructed Veal “Cream” (see page 5·33) or Crispy Beef and Shallot Salad (see pages 6·108 and 5·47).
  • We are for­tu­nate in Seattle to be able to buy fresh wasabi root at local mar­kets. If you can’t find fresh wasabi, try using our recipe for horse­rad­ish foam (see page 4·284). Alternatively, sub­sti­tute wasabi paste for fresh wasabi.
  • Make sure to trim any sil­ver­skin and excess fat from the meat before vac­uum seal­ing it.
  • When cook­ing sous vide meat for days, as in this recipe, we double-bag the meat to pro­vide extra pro­tec­tion against leaks. Vacuum-seal the meat as usual, and then place the sealed bag inside a sec­ond bag and vac­uum seal again.
  • The ribs will keep in the refrig­er­a­tor for about a week. To reheat them, place them in a bath set to the orig­i­nal cook­ing tem­per­a­ture and let them come to equilibirum.
  • Because these ribs keep so well, we like to make enough that we have left­overs. We used some of the left­overs from our video shoot to make an impromptu beef stroganoff.
  • To carve, turn the slab of ribs on its side, run the knife down the bones, and then trim off any unde­sired fat.
  • It is fine to sub­sti­tute beef stock for the jus, but we don’t rec­om­mend using the juice from the ribs. That juice doesn’t taste very good after being cooked sous vide for so long.
  • If you can’t find Manischewitz, you can spike the jus with a red port.
  • A hand­held immer­sion blender works if a rotor-stator homog­e­nizer is not available.
  • Agitating the wasabi with metal acti­vates its intensely hot fla­vor and aroma. We use a metal microplane to grate it.
  • Take care to hydrate the xan­than gum fully before you place the mix­ture in the siphon. If the gum is hydrated incom­pletely, the tex­ture will not be as silky as it should be.
  • If you do not have a whip­ping siphon, you can make the whipped cream with a hand mixer or a stand mixer with a whisk attachment.
  • We like to serve this dish with Seattle Food Geek’s latkes.

While great on its own, we like to serve this dish with latkes from Seattle Food Geek.

When cook­ing tem­per­a­tures can be pre­cisely con­trolled, braised beef short ribs will yield tex­tures rang­ing from steak-like to flaky.

Do you have any plans for spe­cial Hanukkah dishes this year? Tell us in our Cooks Forum!