How can I explain to you how good these are? Do the pictures do justice to them? Are you drooling on your keyboard? If so, then I’ve done my job. Though I have a confession to make: I’ve never made short ribs before. I’ve never even had them before, you know, as a separate entity. Sure, I’ve eaten them as part of a larger curry, but not like this.  But hooray for internet, right? I checked my cookbooks and could not find anything for boneless ribs. They all had recipes for bone-in ribs, the type that you braise in a casserole. Balsamic braised. Beer braised. Red wine braised. But then, I found this recipe for easy bbq boneless ribs! And though I was grateful for Sunny Anderson’s (easy) cooking technique, I knew I wanted an Asian BBQ type thing, something rich in soy sauce and garlic with a hint of sesame flavor, but not one that was so authentic I needed to make an extra trip to my local Asian grocery. Na’m sayin?  In keeping with halal guidelines, I’ve never had korean or japanese bbq (I doubt any halal establishments exist in NY). But I knew I really wanted to try Korean BBQ short ribs, or Kalbi. The problem is, you need a special cut of short ribs to prepare in that way – called the flanken cut. And if I had thought a little bit in advance, I could have convinced my friends at Honest Chops to hook it up. But I didn’t. And here we are.  For this post, I took a page out of my research days, when, clueless about coding, I’d have to piece together bits from existing code, tweak it according to my data, and try to make some science! So I took a little from a recipe here, a recipe there, and badda bing badda boom. Definitely feel free to swap out the regular soy sauce for low-sodium. I served it here with rice, but I actually liked it better when it was shredded and wrapped in lettuce leaves. The cool, crisp texture and flavor of the lettuce worked perfectly with the slow cooked, soy sauce spiked flavor of the ribs.   I used Sunny’s cooking technique with an adapted version of the Kalbi recipe below (I didn’t have an asian pear, and I wasn’t about to venture out into this torrential rainfall to get some). And I had to add chili flakes. Had to.  I found by the end of the recommended 3 hours, the meat dried out a bit (that didn’t stop me from inhaling them). I did taste it at 2 hours, and it was tender enough. I would recommend for this amount of meat, 2 to 2 1/2 hours. And there is more than enough sauce. I actually used some of the leftover sauce to season some salmon. You can easily do 4 lbs of ribs in it.

For leftovers: shred the beef, mix with some mayo/lemon juice, and fill a pita or other flatbread with it and some lettuce. So good.

Recipe adapted from Food Network: Kalbi, Easy BBQ Short Ribs.

Ingredients

• About 2 lbs Honest Chops  GRASS FED boneless short ribs
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tbsps garlic and ginger paste
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• a pinch of red chili flakes
• 1 small red onion, quartered
• 4 scallions, chopped at a diagonal in half in slices

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2. Measure out the first 4 ingredients in a large glass measuring cup. Add garlic and ginger paste, sesame oil, black pepper and chili flakes. Stir to combine.
3. Add quartered onion into food processor. Process for a few seconds, then slowly drizzle in soy sauce mixture.
4. Cut the short ribs into 1 1/12 to 2 in thick strips. Lay across a baking dish and drizzle the sauce over all the pieces.
5. Cover with aluminum and bake for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, turning once half way, then once again 15 minutes before removing from the oven. Garnish with chopped scallions.