Coca-Cola Braised Short Ribs (The Bear-Inspired Family Meal)
The Bear has finally concluded.😭
If you’re new to the blog, this is not the first time we’ve attempted to recreate a dish from FX’s The Bear. We’ve tackled Chicago style hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches (plus a ton of other content from Matty Matheson, an actor and executive producer for the show).
Since Season 5 was the final season, we decided to mark the occasion by recreating one of the dishes from the show that brought everything full circle — Coca Cola braised short ribs.
(Or, you know, any other generic cola product. But Sydney specifically uses Coca Cola, so we did too. Please don’t sue us.)
We used red wine vinegar because we couldn’t find sherry vinegar.
We opted to go for the fancy version used in Season 5, complete with side polenta and Brussels sprouts appetizer.
🍿Mediocre Tip: If you somehow stumbled upon this post and have not watched The Bear yet you absolutely should! Binge all 5 seasons now and be stressed about this dysfunctional restaurant family instead of stressed about real life.
“I need to find a sweeper for my heart.”
Tina’s Brussels Sprouts
Here’s a fun fact — both of us actually don’t hate Brussels sprouts… we just hated eating poorly cooked Brussels sprouts. Turns out, when you roast them with salt, pepper, and oil, and then toss them with a mint dressing, they end up tasting absolutely delicious.
Hot tip: roast your Brussels sprouts cut side up. This lets the steam escape so they actually brown instead of steaming themselves into sadness.
You'll also want to broil them at the end to really crisp them up. We didn’t do this because we put them on a non-stick sheet pan that is not supposed to be broiled. So, you know, don’t be like us.
The thing that really makes this dish stand out is the addition of fried Brussels sprouts leaves. When you’re cutting the sprouts, find a few outer leaves that are good, and set them aside. Then fry them in a small pan with a thin layer of oil.
It doesn’t take long for them to cook up. When you finish frying them, let them dry on a piece of paper towel and season with salt before they cool. They are DELICIOUS.
The plating for this is super simple. Place three (or an odd number) of roasted Brussels sprouts on a plate, pour some dressing around them, and then place a fried leaf on top of each sprout.
We made this mint dressing because after both watching the show we couldn’t figure out WTF they put under the sprouts. When they serve the dish they mention mint, so we did a mint dressing. Tina’s appears to be more of a cream based sauce? Let us know what you think it is in the comments!
“We’re going to be pimps forever.”
Cheesy Polenta
On the show they only have one cup of polenta left (gasp!) Did they manage to stretch that single cup into that much polenta? We’ll suspend belief for the sake of the drama.
That being said, we’re Mediocre Chefs™️and thought that we should follow the cooking instructions on the package instead of the recipe. Was this a mistake? Maybe. As we were cooking we realized that ours was looking pretty goopy and not so creamy, so we continued to add more liquid. Brittany at this point was also so hungry that she just dumped all of the cornmeal in at once instead of gradually sprinkling it into the pan so that might also have been part of the issue. Probably. Again, don’t be like us.
At the end of the day though, this tasted delicious. You can’t go wrong with parmesan and polenta.
We did not top with chopped fresh rosemary and parsley because that’s not how they plated it in The Bear and we were trying to be as authentic as possible.
We don’t have an excuse to add this gif, so we’re just adding it.
Coca Cola Braised Beef Short Ribs
This is not the first time we’ve made braised meat for a blog post. This IS the first time we’ve ever used Coca Cola as part of the braising liquid however.
Since we’ve never used pop as a braising liquid (though we have used beer in Beer & Chicken Stew with Buttermilk Biscuits) we decided to not wing it and follow this recipe.
Good things are cookin’.
The recipe is super easy to follow — the hardest part was waiting nearly 3 hours for the ribs to be done braising. 🤤 Oh and then waiting like another 20 minutes for the sauce to reduce.
Overall, both of us really enjoyed this recipe, though we have some Thoughts™️.
First, we’d like to see what happens when you use more Coca-Cola. Maybe swap one cup of wine for an extra cup of cola?
Second, we should have reduced the sauce more than we did.
Third, we did not achieve the sticky glaze on the top of the short rib. We did more research after making the recipe and saw that a few people who tried to copy the dish reduced the sauce, and then basted the short ribs in the pan with the sauce reduction to get that sticky glaze on the short rib. We’ll try that next time to see how well it works. Again, we can not stress enough: don’t be like us.
We really enjoyed the microchives on top. That’s not in the above recipe — to make it we simply combined chives, finely chopped parsley (because it looks like more than just microchives on top in the show), olive oil, salt, and pepper. Delish!
The guy she tells you not to worry about.
You.
Not too shabby for some Mediocre Chefs.
Mediocre Thoughts
🧑🍳 Trevor: Yeah man, this dish fucks. I have saved all the recipes and will be keeping them in my back pocket for if I ever need to cook someone something and make it look really impressive. Especially the Brussels sprouts.
🧑🍳 Brittany: If I could, I would make this family meal once a week. It’s so good! Alas, the price of beef is too damn high. *shakes fist* It also takes a shit ton of time to make. But it is a great Sunday night meal that’s not hard to make (there is a lot of down time while you’re braising and reducing). I loved everything about these two dishes, even though we didn’t make them perfectly. 10/10 would make again and improve upon it next time!
Our Rating
We usually rate the dish based on taste, presentation, and affordability.
This time though, we’re just going to leave you with this quote:
“Are you going to look at me and tell me it’s not fuck town?”
Conclusion
Mediocre Rant
Alright folks, here’s a short and sweet rant to cap off a short and sweet blog post.
Listen, we know that they’re called Brussels sprouts because they were heavily cultivated near Brussels, Belgium. But like. Who actually pronounces that last “s”? We don’t. And yeah, Brussels is a proper noun and should be capitalized, we know. We both passed English.
However, we think this is dumb. It should be brussel sprouts. Thank you for coming to our TED talk.