I made this gem from the November ’13 issue of Food & Wine way back in January on a cold night. I didn’t realize I’d never posted this one! It was phenomenal. I have been a little obsessed with short ribs lately. I’ve been making this soup somewhat regularly, and I have two other great short rib recipes to post soon. Of course I’ve made Bourguignon before, but never with short ribs, and I may never make it any other way from this day forward until the end of days. It was that good. But the original recipe does have mushrooms, which are a no-go in this house, so I just skipped that step.
Side note: when I searched here for all of my short rib recipe attempts, I came across this one from 2008 that I’d completely forgotten about. I was such a rookie with “fancy cooking.” It’s kind of adorable how bad the photos are. Good notes on that cookbook, though.
5 pounds trimmed boneless beef short ribs, cut into 2 1/2-inch pieces
9 carrots—5 cut into 2-inch pieces, 4 cut into 1-inch rounds
5 celery ribs, cut into 2-inch pieces
5 medium onions, quartered
10 garlic cloves
One 750-milliliter bottle dry red wine
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
6 cups beef stock
1 pound meaty slab bacon—half cut into 1/4-inch-thick lardons, half cut into 2-inch pieces
3 bay leaves tied with 15 thyme sprigs
2 pounds stemmed button mushrooms
Chopped flat-leaf parsley, for garnish