Our pals at Rio Vista Olives sent us the incredible oil that we cook with in this post. Like everything that we recommend on our blog, we use and love their products, and hope that you will too!
The Story
As much as we love a light pasta dish, there is something incomparably comforting about a slow-cooked, thick tomato sauce. It’s been a while since we featured a good old ragu, so this week we’re cooking up a pot of short ribs. Nothing tricky, nothing fancy, just a nice long sit in the oven.
This dish is based on a regular favourite that my Ma would make when I was a kid, a delicious steak and olive ragu. For our take on it, we’ve swapped the steak for short ribs, and stuck those olives into the pasta dough instead of the sauce. Because why not? Make sure you check out our accompanying wild olive pappardelle right here!
Now, get ready for you house to smell the best it has all week: it’s ragu time!
The Sauce
Start off by browning those ribs. Pat them dry with a paper towel first, then rub with salt and pepper, before browning them in a deep enamelled cast iron pot. Use a good glug of olive oil! Remove them once brown, and lower the heat for your soffritto. This is arguably the most important part of the whole thing, so take your time and let those onions sweat it out until they turn translucent. Stir regularly.
Deglaze with the wine and let it cook right down, before adding everything else in, including the ribs. Whack on a lid, stick it in the oven, and enjoy a sit on the couch.
The longer you cook it the better, but keep an eye on moisture levels as you may need to add a bit of water here and there if it becomes too dry. We added about a cup of water to ours as it cooked. After 4-5 hours you’re going to have one primo pot of sauce.
The hard part now is the kitchen mastery required to lift the ribs out without them falling apart and bones sliding all over the place. This time around we served the meat alongside the pasta, but you can of course plate it all up together: just pull those bones out, breaking up the meat up and stirring it through the sauce.
Our pasta of choice this week was our wild olive pappardelle, the perfect complement to this rich, hearty sauce. So if you’re in the mood, jump on over to that recipe for an ideal pasta pairing! We may have also reserved a little spare rib to make a spot of filled pasta, but that’s a story for another week.
As always, enjoy pasta, enjoy life, and buon appetito!
– Al & Al.
Equipment
- Enamelled cast iron pot (or large ovenproof pot)
Ingredients
- 1 kg short ribs bone in, portioned
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cracked black pepper
- 4 tbsp olive oil extra virgin (we used Rio Vista Olives’ Nothin’ But Classic)
- 1 onion diced
- 1 cup carrot diced
- 2 sticks celery diced
- 4 cloves garlic chopped
- 80 g wild boar and fennel salami diced
- 1 cup red wine
- 700 ml passata
- 2 cups beef bone broth or stock
- 1 large sprig rosemary
- 2 tsp paprika
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 cup water, as required
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil into a large enamelled cast iron pot, on a medium-high heat stove. Pat the short ribs dry with a paper towel, and then rub with 1 teaspoon of salt and a crack of pepper, before dropping into the pot. You may need to cook them in small batches to maintain the heat. Remove once browned, and lower the heat.
- Add another 3 tablespoons of oil, along with the salami, onion, carrot, celery, and garlic; cook on a low heat for 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly.
- Once the onion begins to turn translucent and the other ingredients start to brown, add the ribs back in and pour in the wine to deglaze the pot. Allow to cook right down until mostly evaporated, then add the passata, herbs, and stock, seasoning with the paprika, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover the pot, and transfer to the oven. Cook for 4-5 hours, adding small amounts of water if it becomes too dry.
- Remove from the oven, and skim off any visible fat. If serving separately to the pasta, remove the ribs; take care as the meat will be ready to fall apart. Otherwise, just slide out the bones and stir the meat through the sauce, breaking it up as you go.
- Stir freshly cooked pasta into the sauce, and serve with a generous amount of grated hard cheese and a fresh crack of black pepper. If you’re after the ideal pasta to pair with our short-rib ragu, try our wild olive pappardelle!
