It’s one of those gray December days that makes me feel like cozying up on the couch with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate. I know that it’s too warm for snow, but it looks like it could start flurrying any minute. It’s early enough in the season that I don’t mind. It still feels festive to stay inside by the Christmas tree, or even to bundle up and walk through the neighborhood at dusk, looking at everyone’s lights (and, let’s be real, the plethora of horribly tacky but also endearing Christmas inflatables in our neighborhood).

It’s also the perfect sort of day for slow cooking. It will be dark by 4pm, at which point we’ll start thinking about dinner and wonder what we have that we can pop in the oven. That’s what this short rib recipe is for. It’s for days when you have hours to while away indoors, when you crave something rich and tender, when you want an excuse to open a nice bottle of red wine before 5. This is your excuse – you’ll need a cup or two of wine to braise the short ribs. This is also your excuse to stay put while the short ribs roast, filling your house with the savory scent of beef slumping into red wine.

These short ribs are classic but wonderful. If you do a little research, you’ll find that most short rib recipes out in the world are fairly similar, with only minor tweaks in the order of operations and a secret ingredient here or there. You could argue that this means the recipe is ripe for innovation, or you could just take what’s been tried and tested by the world’s greatest chefs and go with it. This version is most closely inspired by Sunday Suppers at Lucques, my favorite cookbook. I go through periods when I can’t seem to cook from any other book, as I’ve mentioned before. It also takes a few cues from this Daniel recipe. Whichever recipe you use, the tricks I’ve picked up for great short ribs are as follows. One, season generously.  Two, brown until caramelized, not just grayish-brown. Three, set aside at least 3 hours cooking time and don’t be tempted to take the ribs out before they are super tender. Four, refrigerate overnight before serving in order to skim and discard as much fat as you can.

I had originally planned on doing a follow-up post as well – a short rib grilled cheese sandwich. They offer a similar sandwich, on rich challah bread, at Tatte. We made the sandwiches but, shockingly, they were too rich for me. It turned out I had met my match when it comes to how much richness you can squeeze into one bite. So I’ll save the short rib grilled cheese for another day, when I’ve cracked that recipe. For now, I hope these delicious red wine-braised beef short ribs will warm up your kitchen this winter.

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More winter braises…

Tunisian Lamb-and-Eggplant Stew with Farro and Harissa

Braised Lamb Shanks with Blue Cheese Polenta

French Beef Stew with Red Wine

Classic Red Wine-Braised Beef Short Ribs

Classic beef short ribs, braised in red wine for hours until meltingly tender. Best served over creamy mashed potatoes, potato gnocchi, or buttered egg noodles.

Adapted from Sunday Suppers at Lucques and Daniel (via Serious Eats)

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in short ribs, about 10-12 oz each (3 lbs. total)
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
• 1 TBS fresh thyme leaves
• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 whole bay leaves
• 2 cups full-bodied red wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon
• 1/2 cup port wine
• 3 TBS saba or aged balsamic vinegar
• 3 cups beef broth
• 1 bunch fresh parsley

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325F.
2. Pat the short ribs day and sprinkle the pepper, sea salt, and thyme leaves on top of them. Rub the seasoning in to fully coat the short ribs on all sides. Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven or medium heat, then add the short ribs to the pan (do this in batches if they don’t fit in a single layer). Brown the short ribs on all sides, about 2-3 minutes per side, until a nice, caramelized brown crust has formed on the exterior of the ribs. Remove the browned short ribs to a plate.
3. Drain the rendered fat from the pan, reserving only 1 TBS of fat in the pan. Return the pan to the heat and lower the heat to medium-low. Add the chopped onions, carrots, celery, garlic and bay leaves to the pan. Saute until the vegetables are tender and translucent, about 5-7 minutes.
4. Add the red wine, port wine and balsamic vinegar to the pan with the vegetables. Bring to a simmer and scrape up any browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Simmer the wine until it has reduce by one third, which should take 5-8 minutes.
5. Add the beef broth to the reduced wine and stir to combine, then place the short ribs back in the pan. They should fit snugly in the pan and be just barely covered by the liquid. Tuck the parsley in to the pan around the side of the ribs. Cover with a lid and transfer to the preheated oven. Roast the short ribs for 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours, checking every 30-45 minutes and turning the ribs over in the pan at least once. When finished, the ribs should be completely tender, such that you can easily pull the meat apart with a fork. Remove them from the oven and let cool for 20 minutes. For best results, cover and transfer them to the fridge overnight before serving.
6. When ready to serve, remove the ribs from the fridge. Skim off and discard the hard white fat on top of the dish (there will likely be a lot of this). Preheat the oven to 400F, and return the ribs, uncovered, to the oven for 15-20 minutes – this is to both reheat the ribs and to gently brown the exterior. Before serving, ladle the sauce and vegetables out of the pan and strain through a fine mesh strainer. Discard the vegetables. Serve the ribs on mashed potatoes, gnocchi, or buttered egg noodles, topped with the strained sauce.

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I like this time of year more and more as I get older. I’m not talking about the holiday season. That I’ve always loved, and actually the holidays seem to become a little more stressful and a little less joyful every year – but I’ll save that topic for another day. I’m talking about the time between the holidays, the normal, early winter days.

I typically approach winter with a feeling of dread. January and February are usually so HARD for me – it’s dark, the snow and the cold the past few years have been relentless, my skin gets so dry that I can’t sleep, and my emotions get all out of whack. Last year I tried to combat it with an end of January trip to the USVI, which helped a little, but February, and even March, to be honest, were brutal. Thankfully, we’ll be skipping a solid 6 weeks of that awful deep winter time this year – thanks to my job, it seems I’ve become a snowbird at a young age.

But December is a different story. I vividly remember walking home from work one night in mid-December last year – it was cold, but very bright. After I passed through the hubbub of Harvard Square, it suddenly felt deeply quiet, the kind of quiet that is rare in a city. The kind of quiet that I associate with being in the woods, with a soft blanket of snow reflecting the moon into the night. The moon was full, the trees, stripped of their leaves, left stark echos against the blue-black sky. And I realized, all at once, that I love that quiet, that stillness. It’s a stillness that only comes with true cold, with the earth settling into sleep. So there is a part of winter that I love, and it felt significant to me to recognize this, to embrace something I was dreading.

These past few weeks I’ve been experiencing the same thing – a feeling of calm on cold, moonlit evenings, and on brisk, crisply sunny mornings. Enjoying the quiet as I wait for the bus in the early morning light, watching my breath form puffy clouds in front of me. It’s a nice counterpoint to the chaotic joy of the holidays.

As you may recall, another reason I can get behind winter is warm cocktails. Over the years I’ve posted a number of my favorite recipes here, like this Burnt Sugar Hot Buttered Rum and this Nutella Melt. Last year I did a little round-up of all my favorite winter cocktails… which it seems I might have to update soon. My first contribution to that list for this season is this Mulled Spiked Cider with Port and Cranberries, which also has a little red wine, apples, and clementines. Like many of my favorite drinks, it’s inspired by Maria and Tara‘s genius book Winter Cocktails, which pretty much becomes a fixture in my kitchen at this time of year. This warm, sweet, boozy drink was the perfect thing to warm us up over the lazy long weekend… and the leftovers are just the thing to look forward to coming home to after a stressful weekday.

Mulled Spiked Cider with Port and Cranberries

Inspired by Winter Cocktails. Serves 4-6.

• 2 whole cinnamon stick
• 2 whole star anise
• 10 whole cloves
• 3 c. apple cider
• 2 clementines, scrubbed and cut into thin slices
• 1/2 c. fresh cranberries
• 1 apple, cored, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
• 1/4 c. white sugar
• 2 c. red wine
• 3/4 c. tawny port
• brandy or Bourbon to taste, optional

1. Add the cinnamon, star anise, and cloves to a large saucepan or dutch oven and toast over medium heat until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the apple cider, clementines, cranberries, apple, and sugar and gently simmer until fruit is soft, about 10 minutes. Add the red wine and port and continue heating just until the drink begins to steam, then remove from the heat and cover to keep warm. Ladle into mugs to serve, removing any cloves that you see as you do so. Adding a splash of brandy or Bourbon to each if you like your drinks a little stronger!

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February’s cookbook of the month is Roast Figs Sugar Snow, a book that focuses mainly on the foods that those of us in Northern climes crave during the winter months.  While we haven’t exactly had a fierce winter this year, I wanted to review this book before another year went by – I don’t find myself wanting to roast a pheasant or gorge on cheesy pumpkin tarts in the middle of summer.  The collection of recipes in this book is one of the most intriguing I’ve found, bringing me back to the book again and again – there’s Russian cheese pancakes, French pumpkin matefaims, Northern Italian farro and smoked duck salad, Austrian plum squares, and Scandinavian cookies.  Most countries that experience a true winter are represented in the book, and it makes for a great cross-section of flavors and cultural influences.  The downside of a cookbook focusing on winter foods?  Most of the recipes are extremely rich – there’s a lot of butter, cream, and cheese going on in this book.  Now, this isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, because, really, who doesn’t love butter, cream, and cheese?  But, say you wanted to plan a winter-themed menu from this book – perhaps Onion and Cider Soup with Melting Camembert, followed by Poulet Suissesse, with a plate of Plum Squares to finish it off – you’re guests might be leaving less-than-well.

I’ve only tried a handful of recipes from this book – I think 5 in total – but the ones I have tried have varied a bit in quality.  Nothing has been bad, but only 2 of the recipes have been truly special, and both of them happen to be desserts.  The Cafe Sperl Plum Squares I made last week were the perfect balance of sweet and tangy, and the recipe pictured here – Port and Cranberry Jellies with Port Syllabub and Frosted Cranberries – was exquisite.  However, the Poulet Suissesse – a chicken dish cooked in a rich sauce of creme fraiche, parmesan and gruyere – was too rich without the flavor payoff I was looking for, and both the Red Cabbage with Cranberries and the Roast Squash and Lentil Salad with Goat Cheese were about what I was expecting – good, but nothing particularly new or interesting.  This is not a book I’m going to give up on though – most of the recipes are too alluring.  High on my list are the Melting Leg of Lamb with Juniper Berries, the Toasted Ginger Cake with Wine-Poached Cranberries, and the Roast Pheasant with Quince, Blackberries, and Honey.  That is, if I ever find pheasant or quince anywhere near me.

A bit more on the Cranberry-Port Jellies featured here: think of these as the most elegant, grown-up, and subtle jello shots you’ll ever eat.  Or, if you’re not a jello shot person (how could you not be a jello shot person?!), think of them as your favorite sore-throat treat but boozy and sophisticated.  Both the jellies and the syllabub – basically a loose whipped cream – contain port, giving the whole dessert a heady, musky, flavor, which contrasts perfectly with the fresh bursts of the sweet-sour frosted cranberries (use way more than pictured here, they really bring the dish together).  This dish takes planning ahead – 6 hours for the jellies to set, 1-2 hours for the cranberries to dry – but it’s well worth it.  The actual work that goes into making and assembling these is minimal.  And with only 1/2 c. of sugar added to the jellies, they’re a relatively light dessert, especially for this  book.  Worth trying.  And, overall, the book is worth checking out, especially if you’re in a cozy-cooking sort of mood.

Port and Cranberry Jellies with Frosted Cranberries

Recipe from Roast Figs Sugar Snow, by Diana Henry.  Serves 8

For the jellies:

• 2 c. cranberry juice
• 1 3/4 c. ruby port
• peel of 1 orange (white pith removed to the best of your ability)
• juice of 1 orange
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 TBS powdered gelatin (about 2 of the packets they sell in most US grocery stores)

For the berries:

• 2 c. fresh cranberries
• 1 egg white
• 1-2 c. sugar (you won’t use it all but need volume for process to work)

For the syllabub:

• 2/3 c. heavy whipping cream
• pinch cream of tartar
• 1 TBS confectioner’s sugar
• 2 TBS ruby port

1. Make the jellies: combine the cranberry juice, port, orange peel, orange juice, cinnamon, and sugar in a saucepan and heat over medium heat until it comes to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.  Reduce heat to low, and simmer for 5-10 minutes to infuse flavors.  While juice is simmering, sprinkle gelatin over 1/4 c. cold water in a small bowl, and leave for a minute to firm up.  Add 1/2 c. of warm (not too hot! let it cool for a minute out of the pot before adding) juice mixture to the gelatin, and stir to dissolve, then pour whole mixture back into pot and stir well.  Remove from heat, and pour into 8 glasses.  Cover and refrigerate for 6 hours, or until firm.
2. 1-2 hours before serving, briefly whisk the egg white in a medium bowl, until slightly frothy.  Add the cranberries and stir gently to coat with egg white.  Let cranberries drip over bowl for a minute, then transfer in batches to a plate with the sugar.  If the cranberries are too wet when moved or there is not enough sugar on the plate, the sugar will simply dissolve.  Roll the cranberries in the sugar until well coated, then set aside on a plate or tray to dry for 1 to 2 hours.
3. Just before serving, whip heavy cream until beginning to grow in volume, then sprinkle with cream of tartar and sugar, and whip until it is thick and very slightly holds it’s shape.  It should not be too stiff, but should fall in folds when poured from spoon.  Gently whisk in port.  Spoon syllabub over jellies, then sprinkle with frosted cranberries.  Leftovers will keep refrigerated for a few days, although syllabub will lose some of it’s structure.

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