Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup with Short Ribs

Ingredients:

2 pounds Short Ribs
Sea Salt
Fresh Cracked Pepper
1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil
½ White Onion, diced
1 can (35 oz) Tomatoes (diced, stewed, whatever you have)
I small head of Cabbage, shredded
1 ½ to 2 quarts of Water
4 oz Unsweetened Applesauce
3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
¼ Cup Lemon Juice

Instructions:

Sprinkle meat with salt and pepper and place in pot over medium-high heat. Sear until browned on both sides. Remove meat. Add oil and sliced onion to hot pot. Sauté until onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes to onions and stir a few minutes until juices start to boil. Add half of the cabbage. Place meat on top of cabbage. Add remaining cabbage, applesauce, brown sugar, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Add water to the top of the veggies. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer, cover and let cook about 2 to 2 ½ hours. Remove meat with a slotted spoon. It should be falling off the bone. Let the meat cool. Adjust seasoning by adding a little brown sugar or lemon juice depending on if you like it more sweet or more sour. When the meat is cool, remove the bones and pull the meat off of the cartilage (I just roll it between my fingers). Discard cartilage and return the meat to the pot.

The three yellow cubes at the top of the pot are frozen lemon cubes. My lemon tree is still in the process of producing lemons so those are frozen lemon cubes I made over the summer by juicing lemons and freezing the juice in ice cube trays. I still have a big ziploc bag of frozen lemon cubes which work great in recipes.

Look how the meat just falls right off the bone.


I think it’s actually better the next day. It also freezes well.

Source: I searched high and low for a recipe and ended up doing my own thing. Some call for beef broth, some add raisins, some use regular sugar for sweetness and vinegar for sour. I wanted to cut the sugar content so I used part unsweetened applesauce and part brown sugar. You can use white sugar but I prefer the maple-y flavor of brown sugar. Personally I like it more sour than sweet. I also prefer it less soupy and more like the consistancy of stew. If you like it soupy you can add more water.