When you are passionate about something, you keep trying things over and over again until you achieve perfection! These wine braised short ribs are no exception. In my life, I have created, modified, adapted, invented over 100 or so dishes. Probably more. But there are only about a dozen that are my pride and joy. Dishes that people know me by and dishes that I’m proud to call “mine!” When friends and family insert the word “your” in front of whatever they want me to cook for them, that’s a sign that a dish has risen to the top of the list. “When are you going to make your crab cakes with the lemon zabaglione sauce” or “You haven’t made your veal Bolognese in a while, hint-hint.”

So, In my own little world, wine braised short ribs have now been promoted to the top of my signature dishes!

Note from the Editors: Be sure to allow for 5 hours braising time in the oven. This dish is lovely served with mashed potatoes and sauteed chanterelle mushrooms.

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The secrets here are twofold: first, we cut our vegetables into beautiful “gems” using a faux-tourné dice. A regular tourné cut involves taking a vegetable such as a carrot or potato and using a knife to basically carve it into what looks like a tiny football. It looks pretty, but it’s unnecessarily complicated, and also wastes an awful lot of vegetable. The faux-tourné, on the other hand, couldn’t be simpler: you just take your vegetable (in our case parsnips and carrots) and cut about an inch off at a 45-degree angle. Then you rotate the veg, cut off another inch-long segment at a 45-degree angle, rotate it again, and keep going until it’s all cut up. The end result are, at least in my eyes, gem-like chunks with clean, flat sides, that cook evenly and look beautiful.

The other secret is that we fortify this stew with a roux, which is a paste of flour fried in fat. A lot of stew recipes simply call for dredging your stew meat in flour before you brown it, but this can make the meat gummy and leave you with little flour deposits sprinkled throughout your finished dish. The better option by far is to make the roux, which enhances the nutty, savory characteristics of the flour while helping to thicken it.

The other two things I do aren’t secrets, and were pioneered by food writer J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at Serious Eats. First, instead of buying “stew meat” or pre-cubing your meat, you brown whole steaks, and cut them up after the browning is done. This significantly cuts down on moisture in the pan while you brown, which makes it far easier to brown your meat. Secondly, you brown your cut up vegetables before they go in the stew, remove them, and then add them again in the final stages of cooking. This adds flavor via the browning, gives them a jump start on cooking, and means that they’ll retain their shape when you finally go to serve your dish.

The end result is lovely, a savory mix of tender, flavorful beef, beautiful, firm vegetables, and a hearty perfectly thickened base packed with flavor. You can make this even prettier by using a mix of multi-colored carrots (commonly available in many grocery stores), and a shower of finely chopped parsley on the surface right before serving never hurt anyone either.

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I love the fresh veggies and herbs that summer brings. I had a bounty of zucchini and wanted a different way to incorporate it. I usually prefer the smaller to medium sizes, as I think the flavor and texture is better. Looking at the ones I had I thought they were too small for the spiralizer. I initially thought about making a layered pasta dish like a lasagna, but wanted more texture from the zucchini, so that’s when I hatched the idea to make it into “pappardelle.” Is it as good as the real thing?? Heck no! Nothing beats fresh pasta.

But this dinner felt decadent with the rich fresh ricotta, bright fragrant tangy pesto, and spicy sauce. As an added bonus, it kept my carb intake down, so I could save for a later indulgence. I’m mostly low carb. My guys aren’t, so I often make low carb items they will like or have quick and easy substitutions.  For this dinner, the kiddo at home with us now isn’t a fan of zucchini.  He whipped up some penne pasta as his substitute, so I recommend something like that for those that have a finicky eater to accommodate too.

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