North African Spiced Beef Short Ribs

I was introduced to ras el hanout when I worked at a French bistro in Boston. Like me, the chef there had spent some time in the south of France, and he couldn’t ignore the influence of North African flavors in French cuisine. Just across the Mediterranean Sea from the Moroccan, Algerian, and Tunisian borders, the south of France is filled with expatriates from these countries. And they bring their flavors with them. I was seduced by a complex combination of spices—allspice, cumin, c