Oven BBQ Short Ribs- Flanken Cut

I’ve made flanken many many times in my life, but usually as part of a stew or soup and I wanted to make them along the lines of barbecue spareribs/short ribs. I was looking for the consistency of super soft whilst not quite falling off the bone.

Do not mistake these for Korean style flanken which is cut very thin. These ribs are cut thick and long with bone in or boneless. These are cooked long and low till almost falling off the bone. The flanken, which any kosher butcher carries, should look like this (these are boneless). Otherwise, you can ask a butcher to cut the ribs thick in this fashion.

I was looking for a super simple recipe and a meal in one but didn’t want to drown my side dish in sauce. The answer? Oven roasting bags. I have found in the past that they keep both meat and chicken moist and delish but in this case it would also keep the meat burbling in the sauce and the potatoes (yes, yes, a meat and potato dinner) sauce free so that it could crisp and brown. This is all done on a rimmed baking sheet and you get tender saucy ribs and crispy baked potatoes in one sheet pan!

The length of time of cooking is 2 and 1/2 hours at 300 F which produces browned and succulent beef. The best part is, due to the roasting bag, you don’t turn the flanken over, in fact you do nothing more than lay it in the cooking bag and leave it to do it’s thing. No tending to it at all. Great, no? So line your rimmed baking sheet with aluminium foil, and take a large roasting bag and plunk the sauce ingredients right into the bag, ketchup, chili sauce, coffee, soy sauce, ginger, jam and vinegar.

Squash it up with your hands from the outside of the bag.

and take your washed and excess water shaken off flanken and lay in a row in the sauce. This is important since they won’t cook properly if they are one atop the other.

Wiggle the bag a bit so the sauce coats the whole lot and secure with the tie (comes with the bag, usually) and place on one side of the baking pan.

Then, take your potatoes and scrub them and pat dry (for crispiness sake), cut in half and oil them and sprinkle with salt and a little thyme and place them cut side up in the pan next to the flanken, like so.

I have about 7 pieces of flanken in the bag, around a kilo (2.2 pounds) of meat. They are lying side by side, a bit squished but still 🙂 . You put this whole shebang into a preheated (very important, takes about 15 minutes to come to temp) 300 F oven and bake approximately 2 1/2 hours or till the meat is very tender and the potatoes lovely and browned.

Even though the oven was on a lower temp, the potatoes crisped beautifully, because they had enough time and because they were halved. Don’t leave them whole or they may not be sufficiently cooked and they won’t have the lovely browning.

I made this for during the week when I had a hankering for a meat dinner but this is so delicious that it is eminently suitable for holiday and Shabbat meals. Break out plenty of paper napkins (serviettes to my English friends).

Oven Bbq Short Ribs- Flanken Cut

1 kilo or 2.2 pounds of flanken cut short ribs about 1 inch thick bone in or boneless
1/3-1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
1/3 cup coffee- (1 tablespoon granulated coffee with 1/3 cup hot water )
1/2 cup jam- apricot or orange, orange marmalade is good too
3 tablespoons soy sauce (skip for Passover)
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh or frozen ginger
1 tablespoon vinegar

Oven slow roasted potatoes

3-4 medium sized or 3 large potatoes, scrubbed well and patted dry and cut in half
2-3 tablespoons oil
sprinkling of salt
sprinkling of thyme

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 F. Take a rimmed baking sheet and line completely with aluminium foil. Take a large (or 2 medium ) oven roaster bags, large enough to lay the flanken down side by side in one layer, this is important since they will cook properly this way. Wash and shake off the excess water from the flanken ribs. Take all the sauce ingredients and put into the roasting bag and squish the mixture together. Place on one side of the pan carefully so sauce doesn’t escape and lay flanken down in bag, side by side. Seal the roasting bag with a tie. At this point, if you wish you can place them in fridge to marinate if you have time. It adds flavor. Then you would remove from the fridge and let come to room temperature before putting ribs into oven. If you don’t marinate them (this time I did not) you will just put right into the preheated oven, but first do the potatoes.

Take the halved potatoes and coat with oil all over. Sprinkle with salt and thyme. Place potatoes on the other side of the baking sheet next to the bagged flanken ribs (see pic). Roast the ribs and the potatoes for 2 1/2 hours or till meat is very tender/almost falling off the bones and the potatoes are browned and fully cooked. Serve and spoon sauce generously over beef. Wear an apron for this deliciously messy.