Beef Short Rib Pesto Tomato Stew

For my mid March 2018 Bowen Weekend, I spent Saturday afternoon making a beef short rib stew.

The short ribs were two packages of frozen organic beef short ribs from Famous Foods. One package had bones, the other was giant chunks of mostly meat. I put some olive oil and salt and pepper on them, and stuck them in a 400F oven on roast.

While the ribs browned I prepped my mise.

A chopped onion and three cloves of garlic. Frozen tomatoes picked last summer in Lillooet by my mom. A couple of green peppers. A couple of zucchini. A half bag of spinach. A handful of mushrooms. A plan to put in a couple of spoons of pesto.

Browned! About 15 minutes or so. Since they started frozen, I pulled them apart and flipped the non-browned bits down. Another 10 minutes in the oven.

Next I set the meat aside, leaving the beef fat and oil in the pan. I sautéed onions & garlic, added two fresh Bay leaves, and two Tablespoons of pesto. I let that simmer on low heat for 10 minutes then added the tomatoes.

Worked the tomatoes around until coated in oil and pesto and then put the lid on and let it simmer and thaw for a bit.

Then the spinach, mushrooms, and green peppers. I wanted the spinach to melt, but the zucchini would be too mushy so I left it until later.

Also 2 cups of red wine and salt and pepper.

I put the lid on and stirred it occasionally on the stove top until everything was mixed and melted. Very technical, I know! I added a Tablespoon of tomato paste to get the umami to bring out the beef flavour.

I put the browned ribs back in at this point and put the whole thing in the oven, covered, at 300F. After 30 minutes, here’s what it looked like.

Going for our afternoon walk, I left this covered on the stove top, then came back and cooked for an additional 2 hours at 300F, covered. I put the zucchini in for the last 30 minutes.

No pictures of the final production! Served with rice in deep plates, and some baguette to dip into the sauce as well. The meat was super tender. There was a little salt missing, and the pesto flavour didn’t really come through at all. Next time I would skip the pesto completely.