Asian Beef Short Ribs

When I was at the grocery store the other day I spotted a sale on beef short ribs. I quickly wondered 1.) Why have I never bought these before and 2.) I wonder how they would cook up in the crock pot? So I bit the bullet and put them in the buggy.
Not really wanting to buy anything extra to make a complete recipe that I could follow exactly I decided that I would use what I had at home to make some Asian style crock pot beef short ribs. Man, am I glad I decided to do that! They turned out great. Here’s how I did it:

• 3 lbs beef short ribs, seasoned with salt & ground black pepper
• 1 pack of dried onion soup mix
• 2 Tablespoons of dried chopped onions
• 1 Tablespoon of dried minced garlic
• 2 cups of water
• 1 1/2 cups of red wine
• 2 1/2 cups of lemon-lime soda (I used sprite)
• 1 ” piece of ginger root, peeled and grated
• 1 celery heart
• 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch

I start by mixing the pack of onion soup mix, the dried onions, dried garlic and 2 cups of water together. This will allow the dried onions and garlic to reconstitute.

In a microwave safe dish cook the seasoned short ribs, in small batches for 8 – 10 minutes. This will help render some fat off of them and brown them (I just didn’t want to turn on the stove and dirty a pan I would have to handwash and a lid, but you could do it on the stove top if you wanted to).
Once the short ribs have been browned place them into the crock pot.Place the celery heart and grate the ginger root over the short ribs.Now is where you will pour the wine, onion soup mix and lemon-lime soda into the crock pot.

Cook on low for 8 – 10 hours or on high for 5 – 6 hours. Once the ribs are done remove them from the crock pot. I placed them on a plate and wrapped them aluminum foil. Now pour the liquid into a bowl, but make sure you drain it through a seive to catch all of the big solid pieces of celery heart, onions, garlic and ginger. Some will fall through the sieve and that’s ok.
Add the strained liquid to a medium sized pot and place on high heat on top of the stove. Bring to a boil. In the meantime mix the cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of water until completely dissolved. Add this to the hot liquid. Boil for a couple of minutes then reduce the heat to a simmer. This will begin to thicken and make a nice, loose gravy.
My family is a bunch of vultures at supper time lately, so I didn’t get anymore pictures. I did serve this with mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. The entire meal was delicious, but I am going to start buying short ribs on more of a regular basis now that I know how good they are braising in the crock pot all day.
*NOTES*

1. If you don’t have dry onion soup mix or dried chopped onions you could substitute 1 medium onion chopped and 2 cups of beef broth in place of that.
2. If you don’t have dried garlic you can substitute 1 minced garlic clove for that.
3. The lemon-lime soda acts as an acid and sweetener. You could substiture a grated pear and teaspoon of lemon juice in it’s place and get close to the same results. However, if you choose to do this, you may want to add a couple of cups of additional liquid–maybe chicken broth.
4. The leftover short rib meat is perfect as taco filling or made into shredded beef barbecue.

This recipe shared at Potluck Sunday.