Why our short rib takes thirty-six hours

The short rib has been on our menu since the second week we opened. It is the dish, more than any other, that I will get stopped about — in the room, at the market on a Tuesday morning, once on a tube platform at Bond Street. People want to know how it gets the way it gets. The honest answer is: a long time, and some attention. Below is the slightly longer version.

What follows is not exactly a recipe — short rib for forty covers a night is a different sort of project than short rib for four at home. But the principles are the same, and most of what we've learned over nine winters of cooking this dish is transferable.

The Cut

We use bone-in beef short rib from a Dexter cross herd raised by Ed and Polly Davenport at Brimfield Farm in Herefordshire. Dexter is a small, slow-growing native breed; the meat is dark, well-marbled, and has the kind of muscle development you only get from animals that have walked further than the average. The ribs we receive are around 800g a piece, four to five inches across the bone.

The cut itself matters more than people sometimes credit. Short rib is taken from the chuck end of the rib primal — the part of the animal that does the most work, holding the front legs onto the body. That work is why short rib needs cooking long and slow; it's also why, once you do, it tastes the way it does.

If the cut hasn't worked hard, the dish won't taste of anything in particular. The braise is borrowing flavour, not making it.

The Brine, Briefly

The ribs come into the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon. By Sunday evening they're sitting in a light brine — six per cent salt, two per cent sugar, a few bay leaves, juniper, a little cracked pepper, all in cold water — and they'll stay there for eighteen hours.

The brine does two things. It seasons the meat from the inside out, more evenly than salting just the surface can. And it draws out a small amount of liquid that we don't want in the eventual braise — blood-water that goes cloudy and tannic if left to sit in the sauce.

People want to know how it gets the way it gets. The honest answer is: a long time, and some attention.

The Sear

On Monday morning the ribs come out of the brine, get patted dry — properly dry, on paper, twice — and are seared in two large cast-iron pans over high heat. We use beef dripping rather than oil; it has a higher smoke point and adds something on top of what's already there. You want the meat almost too dark before you take it out. Maillard reactions are slow, and the flavour they produce is one of the main things a braise relies on.

The Braise

The braise itself is unremarkable, and that's the point. Onion, carrot, celery, leek — sweated in the same pan, on the fond. A bottle of Côtes du Rhône, reduced almost completely. Brown chicken stock, a generous pour. Bay, thyme, a single piece of dried orange peel. The ribs go back in and the whole thing goes into a 95°C oven for the next ten hours.

There is no secret ingredient — really, none — and I get asked about that a lot. The dish is almost entirely a function of: a good piece of meat, a long, gentle cook, and a sauce that's been reduced properly.

A Few Things We've Learned

— Lower than you think. 95°C is well below a simmer. The meat collagen breaks down slowly; the meat itself doesn't tighten. A higher temperature will shave time off but produces a slightly stringier result.

— Don't drown the ribs. Liquid should come about halfway up the meat. Any more and you're poaching, not braising.

— Take them out before they fall apart. We want the meat to release from the bone with a gentle push of the finger — not to slide off on its own.

The Pause

This is the small but significant thing. After ten hours in the oven, the ribs come out and rest in their liquid, in the same vessel, for a full eighteen hours in the walk-in. The meat reabsorbs the liquid it lost during cooking. The sauce, separated overnight, lets us lift off a clean layer of beef fat from the top and use it elsewhere. And the flavour rounds out in a way that an hour or two simply can't replicate.

The Sauce, In the End

On the evening of service the ribs are warmed through in their reduced sauce — never simmered hard at this point, just held at 80°C until plated. The sauce gets a final reduction in a separate pan, finished with a small knob of cold butter and a drop of red wine vinegar to lift it. Plate up with garlic mash, smoked bone marrow, and a piece of charred shallot. Done.

None of this is clever. It is, almost entirely, just doing each step carefully and not rushing the middle. Which is, in the end, what nine winters of cooking this dish has taught us — and what we'd happily share over a glass of something at the bar, any night you'd like to come and see how it's done.

— E.M.