Beer Stew with Braised Beef Short Ribs

Great news everyone, I am in the medias! It has nothing to do with my food blog, but my work as a scientific researcher. Ever since I came back from my trip to Cuba, I have been keeping myself busy with new research projects, training the new student in my research group, and organizing cooking sessions. The past months, I have been doing extra work for La Science Prend le Métro (which translates to Science Takes The Subway), an organization which recruits students in the area of science to talk about their life story, passion and contribution to science. Each month, an article is written about that person in the Metro newspaper and a picture of them will appear in the big screens of the Montreal subway as you can see in the pictures below. 

Many students in high school are indecisive of their career path, so this organization has the goal to inspire and promote these students to go into science. When they sent the e-mail about this concept, I did not hesitate and accepted their offer. It was not only their incentive that pushes me to do it; I feel that each one of us has something to give to our society. It is like sharing my culinary knowledge with my cooking groups as I share my love of food with you. Here I share my love for science to high school students hopefully one day they love science as much as I do. Click on either pictures below. The first will lead you to the article on Metro newspaper and the second, about my life story, passion and contribution. Unfortunately, it is written in French. Do use Google Translate, it does pretty good job in translating. Courtesy to Emile Aragon, my photographer for all these pictures.

Stock is a must when making soup, sauce and stew, it provides way more flavors to the dish than just adding water. I recently discovered that simply beer can also be used as a stock. Here the short ribs are cooked in its fat along with aromatics. Afterwards, the ribs and vegetables are simmered in a pool of beer. The beer provides terrific flavor to these unctuous ribs. This will sure please your beer-loving friends. Don’t worry your friends won’t get drunk eating this stew as all the alcohol has evaporated during the cooking process. I'm not too sure which is the best beer for stew, I use the cheapest brown ale in store.

Serves 6

Preparation Time: 10 mins

Cooking Time: 1 h 15 mins

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

800g short ribs, separated into individuals

1 medium onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

4 Yukon gold potatoes, cut into cubes

4 carrots, chopped

about 750 mL brown ale

salt and pepper

Procedure

1. Heat a large pot over medium heat. Cook short ribs until brown on all sides, but still undercooked. Set aside.

2. In the same pot, add in onions, garlic, potatoes, and carrots. Cook onions until transparent, about 5 mins.

3. Bring back short ribs to the pot and pour in the beer. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 45 mins to 1 hour until the vegetables are tender and the meat falls off the bones. Remove the oil layer from stew. Serve.