winter

A hearty bowl of beef goulash is ready to eat.

There is no hiding behind tomato paste, vegetables or other flavours. This is a purists’ goulash where all of the rich colour and flavour come from beautifully seared beef, caramelized onions, plus Paprika, and that’s it. This classic recipe is incredibly simple and requires only a few ingredients. I’ll get into the secret to mastering the very dark, rich gravy below.

First, we begin with onions. LOTS of them! Don’t be shy, it looks like a lot but they really cook down and lend a deep, caramelized flavour to the stew. It is important to cook them in animal fat for the best caramelization (like lard) over medium – medium high heat for some time (usually about 25 minutes or so) to ensure they get dark enough and caramelize to the point of almost looking black. Golden simply won’t due if you want a rich, dark gravy. Be patient and wait for them to look like the image below:

Once the onions are done, you’ll need to brown the meat. Remove the onions from the pan and set aside; add about a tablespoon of oil. Add the beef in batches, making sure not to overcrowd the pot. Drop the meat in and don’t touch it for about 3–4 minutes. This will help get you the very deep, dark areas of searing as shown in the image below. If you start to flip the meat and it’s not brown yet, continue to leave it until it is. If too much water evaporates from the meat and you find it’s steaming instead of browning, turn up the heat until the water cooks off. Then the meat will be able to brown. Pressing your meat with a paper towel before browning can help if you find it is holding too much moisture. If the pan starts to look dry, add a bit more oil.

Once the meat is nicely browned, it’s time to add the spices. I use the Paprika shown below (LOTS!) About two tablespoons sweet (or more), and one tablespoon hot).

Hot and Sweet Paprika are the key to the flavours of this dish

You want to add the Paprika to the pot and stir it around with the meat to heat it up in the oil to bring out all of the smokey spice’s flavour.

Then place the reserved onions back in the pot and add water and salt, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Simmer, covered, over medium-low heat for about two hours. You can pretty much ignore it, just checking occasionally to make sure it’s neither bubbling too profusely nor standing still with no bubbling at all. You want just a very slow, gentle bubble here and there to gently and slowly cook the meat to keep it tender.

Tender, meaty beef is lifted from the rich gravy

Once the meat is tender, add more water and bring to a simmer. Add a mixture of cornstarch and flour dissolved in cold water to thicken the sauce, simmer for a few more minutes, and it’s ready! Serve over spaetzle style noodles, potato dumplings, or potatoes.

Beef Goulash

A hearty, dark beef stew with onions and Paprika. No tomato paste, carrots or other stuff—this is a purists’ beef goulash that needs nothing extra added. Serve over noodles, dumplings or potatoes. Trying to resist a second helping is futile.

Course Main Course

Cuisine Hungarian

Keyword beef, comfort, goulash, gravy, hungarian, onions, paprika, sauce, stew, szeged

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 3 hours 20 minutes

Total Time 2 hours 35 minutes

Servings 8

Ingredients

1/4 cup lard Tenderflake works well
4-6 onions, roughly chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2.5 lbs stewing beef
2 tbsp Sweet Hungarian Paprika or more if desired
1 tbsp Hot Hungarian Paprika substitute 1/2 tsp cayenne if you can’t find hot Paprika
1 tsp salt
4 1/2 cups water, divided 3 ways possibly more
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
spaetzle noodles, dumplings or potatoes for serving

Instructions

In a large pot, heat lard on medium-high heat. Add onions. Cook, stirring until they just start to brown, and turn down the heat slightly to avoid burning. Continue cooking until very dark and caramelized—they should be almost but not quite black. Once they reach the right colour, remove the onions to a side plate and reserve.
Add 1 tbsp oil, turn up the heat to medium-high, and then add some of the beef, ensuring the pot isn’t overcrowded. Don’t touch the beef for about 3 minutes; check to see if dark brown areas have developed. If so, flip the meat until browned on all sides. If not, continue to heat until the right colour is there. Turn up heat if the meat isn’t browning enough. Brown the beef in batches, usually two batches does the trick in my pot. Once all of the meat is browned, add both Paprikas and stir over the sizzling heat for about one minute to bring out the flavour of the spices.
Add the onions back into the pot along with the salt and two cups of water (or enough to just cover the meat). Scrape up any bits from the bottom of the pot. Simmer on low for about 1.5 – 2 hours, until meat is tender.
Combine flour and cornstarch with 1/2 cup cold water; stir well to dissolve, pressing out any lumps. Add to the pot with an additional two cups water. Bring to a boil and simmer for about five minutes until sauce is bubbling and thickened.
Serve over spaetzle style noodles, dumplings or potatoes.

Melt-in-your-mouth, fall-off-the-bone, rich and delicious, these short ribs will warm the coldest winter night. Braised with Cabernet Franc and parsnips, the gravy develops a rich flavour with a subtle peppery depth. Even better the next day, this is a perfect make-ahead meal elegant enough to serve at a dinner party, yet equally suited to a casual family dinner.

To begin, the short-ribs need to be cut parallel to the bone, also known as “English style”, so that there is one bone per piece. Avoid flanken “Korean style” cut ribs for this recipe, as the meat is cut much thinner and wouldn’t work as well with the long braising time. Below are the ribs straight from the butcher, I had them cut the ribs which were originally closer to 5″ long in half, into more manageable 2.5″ pieces as shown below. All together I had about 6 lbs of meaty ribs—this is pretty much the max amount my generous dutch oven would hold.

You can see from the photo below that the meat is well-marbled with fat. The braising process slowly and gently cooks this fat so that it renders down leaving silky soft meat that falls right off the bone. I highly recommend making this a day in advance so that you can easily remove all the fat from the gravy—when you chill the broth in the fridge all the fat floats to the top and hardens so that you can just lift it out in a large piece. The remaining broth will be wonderfully enhanced by natural collagens from the bones giving your gravy natural body and thickness.

To build the flavour profile of your braise, it is critical to get a good sear on the ribs. I had to do mine in two batches to avoid overcrowding. Go with high heat and make sure they sizzle when they hit the pot. You want a deep brown colour on the seared areas, and also look for some browned bits of meat to begin to stick to the bottom of the pot—you’ll scrape up all those bits later and they form the flavour base for your broth.

Once all the ribs are well-browned, remove them to a bowl and set aside. Add the onions to the pot and cook until they start to turn golden, about 5–6 minutes. Add the parsnips for another 5–6 minutes, then add garlic and rosemary and cook some more.

Once all the vegetables are golden, it’s time to add red wine and broth. A word on the type of wine: I find Cabernet Franc works really well for this dish. Generally this grape varietal is grown specifically to be blended with other grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. However, it has become popular in areas like Canada’s Niagara region as a varietal to enjoy on its own. It ripens a bit earlier than Cab Sauvignon so tends to fair better in the Canadian climate. I find Cab Francs tend to have a peppery quality with notes of tobacco and cassis that I really enjoy, while it goes lighter on the tannins. These qualities make it perfect to braise the short ribs and delivers a beautiful gravy when paired with the parsnip, rosemary, onion and garlic.

The pot of ribs with wine and broth is placed into a preheated 325° oven where it gently braises for 2.5 hours. Once ready, the meat will have have shrunk considerably (as much of the fat will have melted away into the broth), and if you take a fork to it, the meat will be very soft and fall away in shreds. Often some bones will come loose while it cooks; you’ll find them floating freely in the broth. Once the meat is cooked, I find it is best to remove the ribs, setting them aside in a sealable container, and then transfer the cooled broth into another container to be chilled in the fridge overnight. This way you can easily remove the fat which will harden into a single piece on top of the broth. If you can’t bring yourself to wait and want to eat these immediately (which would be totally understandable!) allow the broth to sit without stirring for 5–10 minutes; you’ll notice the fat will sit on top of the broth (but being clear it is a bit hard to discern from the actual broth). I once skimmed almost two full cups of fat, and I was doubting myself, wondering if I was being over zealous and skimming broth rather than fat. I decided to freeze it to check, and sure enough, it was all solid hardened fat!

Whether you patiently wait overnight or skim off the fat while warm from the oven, the next step is to bring the broth to a simmer and add flour mixed with butter to thicken it into a light gravy, just thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Then the meat is added back into the sauce to be warmed up, ready for serving. Pureeing the parsnips further thickens the sauce.

The short ribs are great served on your favourite mashed potato recipe, or to change things up you can make the parsnip-potato mash to compliment the sauce. Recipe for the parsnip mash is below.

Elegant wine-braised short ribs piled high on fluffy potato parsnip mash

5 from 1 vote

Wine-braised beef short ribs

Melt-in-your-mouth short ribs are delicious and simple to make. Best made the day before to allow for the easiest removal of excess fat from the broth.

Course Main Course

Cuisine French

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 3 hours

Servings 8

Ingredients

Beef short ribs

2 tbsp butter, divided
6 lbs 2.5–3" meaty beef short ribs (about 8) "British cut"
salt
freshly ground pepper
1 large red onion, chopped
1 1/4 cups parsnips, cut into 1/2" pieces
6 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
750 ml Cabernet Franc (1 bottle)
568 ml beef broth (2 regular size cans)
1 tbsp flour

Parsnip Rosemary Potato Mash

3 lbs russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1" pieces
1 lb parsnips, cut into 3/4" pieces
3/4 cup milk
3/4 stick butter (6 tbsp)
salt
pepper

Instructions

Short ribs

Trim large fat from edges of ribs and season with salt and freshly ground pepper. Melt better in an oven-safe dutch oven pot over medium high heat. Add ribs to pot and brown well on all sides (add ribs in at least two batches to ensure proper browning). Remove browned ribs to a large bowl and set aside.
Add onions to pot and cook until golden, about 5 minutes. Add parsnips and cook until golden, another 5 minutes or so. Add garlic and rosemary, cook until garlic has softened slightly.
Add the bottle of red wine and the beef broth. Bring to a simmer, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Return ribs to the pot, cover, and place into a preheated 325° oven. Braise in the oven for 2 1/2 hours.
Remove pot from oven, and transfer the ribs to a bowl. Check for any loose bones that may have come loose and are drifting in the broth, and remove. Using a slotted spoon, remove most of the parsnip pieces and reserve in a bowl. Ideally place the broth, parsnip pieces and meat in separate containers and refrigerate until the next day.
When ready to serve, remove the layer of fat from the broth and discard. Take about 1/4 cup of the broth and add to a small blender with the parsnip pieces, blend until smooth. Add parsnip puree into the broth, and bring the broth to a simmer. Mix 1 tablespoon of butter with the flour and blend into a paste. Add to the simmering pot to thicken the broth into a light gravy. Return meaty ribs to the pot and simmer over low heat until they are warmed through. Plate and serve with mashed potatoes.

Parsnip Rosemary Potato Mash

Fill a large pot with water and add parsnips, potatoes and a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and cook for 15–20 minutes, until the potatoes and parsnips are very soft. Drain.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl or glass measuring cup, microwave milk and butter until the butter has melted and the milk is warm. Add to the cooked, drained potatoes and mash. Test for flavour and add salt if needed. Serve with short ribs and gravy.

This recipe was based on Zinfandel-Braised Short Ribs over at Epicurious.