Braised Short Ribs with Soy Sauce (Galbi-jim)

My mom usually cooks Galbi-jim (Korean briased short ribs) for special days. Although grilled BBQ style Galbi is better known in the US, Galbi-jim is more often cooked and served for important guests or family members on special days in Korea. The short ribs are cooked in water first, then braised at low temperature with soy sauce-based liquid with various vegetables and garnishes including carrots, chestnuts, pyogo mushrooms (a.k.a. shitake), and gingko nuts.

The dish is somewhat similar to beef bourguignon where we use red wine instead of soy sauce. It is funny that I, a Korean, have cooked beef bourguignon several times but never cooked Galbi-jim, and am not sure how to cook Galbi-jim properly. So I just cooked in a way that I think it would work, a mix of Korean and French cooking methods and garnishes... and it turned out to be pretty delicious!

(Oh! By the way, unlike traditional French braising method, that usually includes searing with oil before the braising, I only used water (I mean liquid) to cook all the ingredients.... no additional oil/fat involved at all. Obviously, it is not French.)

Braised Short Ribs with Soy Sauce (Galbi-jim)
(Yield: 4 servings / Cooking time: Three hours)

Ingredients:

Braised short ribs
+ 8 short ribs (eight pieces from four meaty English-cuts*)
+ 1 leek
+ 1 onion
+ 6 cloves of garlic
+ 1/2 Tbsp grated ginger
+ 1 Tbsp black pepper corns
+ 2 Asian pears (or 2 d'anjou pears)
+ 3 Tbsp soy sauce
+ salt & pepper

* There are many kinds of short rib cuts, but flanken-cut and English-cut are the most common cuts. In the US, I found English-cut in more places. English-cut is a cut parallel to the bones, while flanken-cut is a cut across the bones. For this recipe, I asked the butcher to cut an English-cut short rib into two pieces, cut into bones... so you can have smaller English-cuts. Please refer to the pictures.

Garnishes
+ 1 cup quinoa
+ 6-8 cherry tomatoes
+ 8 cipollini onions
+ 6-8 chanterelle mushrooms
+ 6-8 chestnuts
+ 1-2 radishes
+ 8 baby bok choys
+ some scallions
+ salt & pepper
+ water
+ butter


Procedures:

Braised short ribs

1. First, we need to remove blood and impurities from short ribs. Leave short ribs in cold water for an hour, and wash the short ribs in cold running water for 10minutes.


2. Next, we are going to boil the cleaned short ribs lightly with aromatics to remove undesirable flavors and also to get beef broth for braising. We are going to use a leek green, onion and black pepper corns for aromatics.

- Leek green: cut leek into two parts, bottom white part and top green part. We are going to use only the green part, but please keep the white part which will be used for marinade later. Cut the leek lengthwise and wash thoroughly to remove any dirt between the leaves. Tie with twine.


- Garlic and black pepper corns: Crush three cloves of garlics and make a small sachet* with one table spoon of black pepper corn.

* Make a small bundle of spices(sachet) with cheese clothes. It is easy to take the spices out from the broth after cooking.


- Onion: we are using only half for this step. Please reserve the other half which will also be used for marinade.

Before prep	After prep

3. Place cleaned short ribs, prepared aromatics, and water just enough to cover all the ingredients in a pot, and bring to boil. When the water starts boiling, lower the heat to medium-low and boil for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and take out the lightly boiled short rib and keep it loosely covered with cooking foil. Strain the broth through a fine strainer and cool the broth and keep it for braising (later step). Remove any fat on top of the liquid as much as possible.


4. Marinade: I used Asian pears, white leek, onion, garlic, and ginger. Put everything in a mixer and purée it. Season with soy sauce (3 Tbsp) and freshly grounded pepper.

- Two Asian pears (or d'anjou pears): peel and cut into pieces (without seed or any peel)
- White part of leek: cut into large pieces
- Half onion: cut into large pieces
- Three garlic cloves: crush and mince coarsely
- Ginger: grated


5. Place the short ribs in a pan with marinade and pour beef broth from #3 just enough to cover the short ribs. Cover the short ribs with a parchment paper with a hole in the center (cartouche). Bring the liquid to boil and turn the heat to medium-low to simmer the short ribs for 2 hours to 2.5 hours or until the meat is tender enough. If the liquid from short ribs evaporates too fast, add more broth to the short ribs to make sure the short ribs stay in liquid. You can also place the pot in the oven preheated at 375°F (190°C) with cartouche and lid covered when braising liquid start boiling. Leave the pot in the oven for 2 hours to 2.5 hours or until when meat is tender enough.

Covered with cartouche	After two hours

* While the short ribs are braised, prepare the garnishes.

6. Take out braised short ribs and cover with cooking foil.


7. Strain braising liquid through a fine strainer. Skim off all the fat on top of the liquid. Reduce the braising liquid to half. This is going to be sauce for the dish.




Garnishes

1. Quinoa: Clean your quinoa with cold water and drain the water. Boil two and a half cup of water in a pot. When the water is rapidly boiling, pour a cup of quinoa with about a teaspoon of salt. Lower the heat to medium and cook about 20 minutes covered with a lid. As quinoa cooks, a little white spiral tail forms around the grain.


2. Chestnut: Place chestnuts in a pot with cold water enough to cover chestnuts. Bring to a boil, and boil for about 20 minutes. If a tip of paring knife can slide into the chestnut without any resistance, chestnuts are cooked through. Cool them a little bit for easier handling and peel the skin with a sharp paring knife.


3. Cherry tomatoes: Boil a pot of water. Cut a very small (1mm) X on the bottom of the tomato.

Cut a small X	Blanch for five seconds
Shock in ice water immediately	Peel the skin off

4. Cipollini onions: You can either roast or blanch cipollini onions. If you want to roast the cipollioni onions, coat them with little bit of vegetable oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast in 420°F preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until the onions have nice caramelized colors. Or, you can just blanch the onion in salted boiling water.

5. Radishes: Wash the radish well and slice the radish into 1/4 inch round slice. Blanch in salted boiling water until the radish is slightly crunchy but cooked, and shock in ice water immediately.


6. Baby bok choys: Wash well and blanch in salted boiling water for a few seconds, and shock in ice water immediately.

7. Chanterelle mushrooms: Pan roast the mushrooms with little bit of butter, and season with salt and pepper.


All the garnishes are prepared!



Final plating

1. Reheat the garnishes with sauce.


2. Trim fat and bone out from the short rib and coat it with sauce.

3. Place the quinoa on the center of the plate and place two short ribs over it. Plate garnishes around the short ribs and sprinkle some chopped scallions. Spoon some sauce over the braised short ribs as well.



Enjoy~