SAWCLicious: Braised beef short ribs on Mashed Potatoes

Last December, I ate lunch with a friend in Bonifacio Global Street. We went to aFrench Restaurant who served braised beef short ribs as their specialty. It was really delicious and I thought to myself, I can try it. So I went to do my own research online and created my own version of braised short ribs. It turned out pretty well. I prepared it on our team's Christmas Party and they seem to enjoy this dish!

Thanks to my colleague Kara for taking the pictures.

French Beef Stew on Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients (Serves 4)

• 1 kg beef short ribs (Note: Buy the big short ribs, 1kg would have around 3-4 short ribs. It is good to have a big meat and with the bones.)
• 1/2 cup celery stalk
• 2 carrots diced
• 1 big white onion, sliced
• 8 garlic cloves crushed
• 5 shallots sliced
• 1/8 cup tomato paste
• 3 tbsp. flour
• 1 bottle of red wine preferably Cabernet Sauvignon or Burgundy
• 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 5 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 2 cups of beef stock
• 4 tbsp. corn oil
• 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 stick of butter
• 10-15 peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp. white sugar
• Salt

Procedure

1. Season the short ribs with salt and ground pepper. Use a dutch oven and heat corn oil on medium heat. Brown both sides of the short ribs and set aside. NOTE: I like to use dutch oven for stewing or braising meat.
2. Add the butter and saute onion, garlic, shallots, carrots, and celery. Let it cook for 5-10 minutes. Don't forget to keep on stirring to prevent the vegetables from burning.
3. Add the flour and tomato paste and cook for 1-2 minutes.
4. Add the ribs, wine and stock to the pot. Turn the heat to high and let it simmer for 5 minutes. NOTE: Use only 3/4 of the wine bottle contents for the braised beef and leave the rest to enjoy while waiting for the beef to cook. :)
5. Then add the thyme, bay leaves, and rosemary and simmer in high heat for another 5 minutes.
6. Turn the heat to the lowest range and cook for 3 hours. I would normally check every 30 minutes to ensure nothing is burning and sticking at the bottom of the dutch oven. 
7. Once the ribs are done, set aside the ribs from the sauce. Then strain the sauce into a sauce pan and discard all the strained vegetables.
8. Add olive oil to the strained sauce and let it boil in medium-high heat for about 10 minutes. Pour sauce over ribs.

I served the braised short ribs on top of mashed potato. The mashed potato was a bit extra special. Braised beef are normally oily and also tiring to eat. So, I had to make something to neutralize the braised beef. The potatoes you see in the picture were soaked in iced cold water on a pot for 3 hours. Then using the same pot with the cold water, I bring it to a boil and cooked the potatoes until it was soft. After removing it from the pot and peeling the potatoes, I mashed it together with butter, milk, sour cream, salt and pepper. 

I used a cup of sour cream and 1/2 stick of butter for around 10 potatoes. I added the milk to make it creamy.