Short ribs

By duckieq

Ingredients

• 3.25-5 lbs of boneless short ribs OR 5-6 lbs of bone-in short ribs (I used boneless short ribs from Costco, which is stellar quality. If using bone-in, it will taste exactly the same but make sure they fit in your Instant Pot as the bones take more space)
• Kosher salt & pepper, to season the short ribs
• 1 cup of low sodium beef broth (1 tsp of Reduced Sodium Beef Better Than Bouillon + 1 cup of water)
• 1 cup of a dry red wine (a dry Pinot Noir is great, but don’t use red cooking wine for this as it’s too salty)
• 1/3 cup of oyster sauce (OR 1/3 cup of hoisin sauce if you wish it to be a slightly sweeter sauce)
• 2 tbsp of light brown sugar
• 1 tsp of Chinese five spice
• 1 tbsp of crushed garlic
• 3 whole star anise (not the same thing as anise seed)
• 5 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken into pieces
• 1 large Spanish onion, quartered into four wedges
• 1/4 cup of cornstarch + 1/4 cup of water to form a slurry
• 1/4 cup of honey

Preparation

Step 1

Create the sauce by whisking together the beef broth, red wine, oyster sauce, crushed garlic, Chinese five spice and light brown sugar until well combined. Set aside
Take the Star Anise pods, cloves and broken cinnamon sticks and add them to a metal tea ball or sieved spice bag and also set aside
Rub the short ribs with the kosher salt & pepper on both sides (a few sprinkles of each is fine, but don’t overdo it)
On the Instant Pot, hit “Sauté” and adjust so it’s on the “More” or “High” setting. After 2 minutes of heating up, in batches, sear the short ribs for about 1 minute on each side and then remove and place on a plate
When done searing all the meat, add in about 1/4 cup of the sauce and deglaze (scrape) the bottom of the pot so that any of the kosher salt and pepper that was caked on from searing is now mixed in with the added sauce
Add in the four onion wedges, rounded side-down, as a foundation for the short ribs to rest on and place the metal tea ball with the spices in the center of the four onion wedges. Rest all the short ribs on top of the onion and tea ball in a criss-cross fashion
Pour the remaining sauce all over the short ribs
Secure the lid, hit the “Keep Warm/Cancel” and then hit “Manual” or “Pressure Cook” at High Pressure for 45 minutes. Allow a 15 minute natural release when done followed by a quick release. (Note: This cook time remains the same no matter how many pounds of short ribs you put in your pot)
When done, carefully remove the ribs from the pot using tongs and a spatula (they will be prone to falling apart, as they should because they are going to have cooked to perfection) and place in a serving dish. Hit “Keep Warm/Cancel” followed by “Sauté” and bring the sauce to a bubble. Add in the honey followed by the cornstarch slurry, stir immediately and let bubble for 1 minute before hitting “Keep Warm/Cancel” to turn the pot off. The sauce will thicken as it cools
Pour the sauce over the short ribs and serve with some bread to sop up the sauce as well as a wonderful side dish like my Aligot or Cauliflower Mash!