If you made a rib roast or prime rib for your holiday meal, you might be swimming in leftovers. Although it feels less like swimming and more like trudging through some heavy beef quick sand. Before you get sucked into those leftovers or skirt around them altogether, leaving them to rot in the forbidden forest of the fridge bottom shelf, consider transforming them entirely.
My favorite repurposing of a leftover hunk of meat is ragu… to be served on pasta, of course. Take any hunk of meat and render the fat, cook some shallots, and in this case, hot peppers and ginger in that fat, deglaze the pot and add whatever leftovers will work with that meat. A little bit of liquid and you’re 30 minutes of pressure cooker (or instapot) time away from the most decadent (nearly free) pasta sauce your pappardelle has ever seen. You’ll crush this leftovers game if you have a nearly flat bottle of boozy cider, solidified gravy, and a jar of cranberry sauce just wondering its fate in that same forbidden forest.
If you don’t have a stove top pressure cooker, you’ll use your instant pot on the high pressure setting. If you don’t have either, you can cook this over medium high heat in a dutch oven or heavy saucepan with the lid on. Add more cooking time, perhaps even double it, and check frequently to see if your sauce needs more liquid. Simply add more broth or water as needed.
Cranberry Beef Ragu
Yield: makes 3-4 cups or 8 servings
What You Need:
I like to call this Christmas Ragu
1½ pounds leftover roast beef, like prime rib, rib roast or similar
1-2 shallots, thinly sliced
kosher salt
olive oil, optional
2 jalapeño or serrano peppers, seeds removed, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon ginger, thinly sliced
¾ cup apple cider (the boozy kind) or sparkling wine, red or white wine or apple cider (the not boozy kind)
juice of 1 orange
½ cup gravy, stock or water
1½ cups cranberry compote, chutney or preserves
2-3 teaspoons pomegranate molasses, optional
What You Do:
Trim the fat from the beef. Chop the meat into 1-inch chunks and set aside.
Heat a pressure cooker or dutch oven over medium heat. Add the beef fat and render, about 6-8 minutes.
Add the shallots and a few pinches of salt. [If the bottom of the pot is dry, add a drizzle of olive oil.] Sauté until the shallot is softened. Add the peppers and ginger and a few pinches of salt. Sauté another 2-3 minutes.
Add the cider and stir to scrape up the bits on the bottom of the pot. Add the orange juice and gravy or stock and reduce liquid by half.
Add the chunks of meat and cranberry compote. Cover the pot and bring to pressure. Pressure cook on high pressure for about 25-35 minutes, checking after 15 minutes to ensure the pot has enough liquid and to stir the meat and break it up a little.
You can remove the lid of the pressure cooker when the meat has cooked down into grape-sized bits, is falling off the bones (if any) and is very tender. There should still be some liquid. Cook uncovered over medium high heat until the liquid is reduced to a thick and chunky syrupy gravy. Taste and adjust seasoning. If using, add pomegranate molasses, stir and cook an additional 2-3 minutes.
Serve tossed with pappardelle, orecchiette or another sturdy pasta. Garnish with fresh mint or rosemary and sliced fresh cranberries or pomegranate seeds, if desired.