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Flanken Cut for Short Ribs

post #1 of 4
11/28/07 at 10:07am
Thread Starter 
Later on this fall and probably throughout the winter I'll want to make some hearty "Grandma Bessie" soups, and recently, in another thread, it was noted that adding flanken to such soup may be a nice touch. Having poked around the web a bit, it seems there's a concensus that the meat used is beef short ribs, but there's disagreement about how the ribs are cut as to what constitutes the flanken method. It appears that even some butchers disagree.

Can someone provide the correct way to cut the ribs to make flanken? Also, it was mentioned that only certain ribs are used - rib # 4,5, & 6 if memory serves. Any thoughts on that?

I want to become a "flanken expert" ... but help is needed.

shel - the flanken dunce
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post #2 of 4
11/28/07 at 12:36pm
Shel, it occurs to me that I have no idea what flanken really is. When you and I were kids (ya know, back in the day when there were wolves in Wales and snakes still in Ireland) we just went to the butcher, and he wrapped it up.

But, as I remember the thickness of the meat, it doesn't seem right that it would come from short ribs. While they can be meaty, they don't produce the hunks of meat two & three inches thick that I recall.

I'll likely be seeing my butcher this weekend, and will make a point of asking.
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post #3 of 4
11/28/07 at 2:05pm
Thread Starter 
Thus far, everything I've read says that Flanken is from the short ribs, and since posting my question here, I've found more information about how the ribs are cut and which ribs are used. Not only verbal descriptions, but photos as well. Even found a page in which John Besh, the (well known) New Orleans chef, talks about how his grandmother used short ribs for flanken.

However, I don't recall the bones in Grandma Bessie's soup, but that doesn't mean they weren't in the meat and then removed by the time the soup got to the table. I never really knew what Bessie did in her kitchen, and I don't recall my mom ever making a soup (or any dish) with flanken.
There is one exception to the bones in Bessie' soup, and I have a vague recollection of a singular, round bone, devoid of marrow, that would sometimes appear in the bowl. The meat in this bowl looks like the flanken in Grandma Bessie's soup, and is from the beef short ribs.




What I have discovered is that there are two ways to cut the short ribs. One is called the English cut, in which the ribs are cut lenghtwise, and the other is called ther flanken cut, where the ribs are cut across the bone - this is sometimes called a Korean or Asian cut.

Perhaps a little ore investigation is needed ...

shel - the flanken dunce
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post #4 of 4
11/28/07 at 3:54pm
I do remember there were no bones when Mom made her split pea soup with flanken.

Ah, well. Keep us up to date on what you discover.
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