Dinner Nightmares: Braised Short Ribs with Tomato, Potato, Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Tart

I love this meal. It was the first for me to make short ribs and have them actually turn out fall-off-the-bone right. The colors are so vibrant and flavors so fresh. The short ribs were a 2 day process, but the actual hands-on cooking time is only a couple of hours and is broken up over two days. They are really quite easy to make. The key step is after the initial slow cooking, to let the ribs cool and then chill overnight in the refrigerator. This makes it much easier to remove the generous amount of excess fat that ends up solidifying in the chilling process. The beef ribs also spend the whole night absorbing the flavor of the stock.
The tart features a buttery basil crust, and fresh garden tomatoes. Who could ask for more?

Chopping basil and garlic to fold into the tart dough.

When making a tart crust or pie crust always mix your dry ingredients first. Then you want to slowly fold in appropriate amounts of COLD water and butter. Using a food processor to pulse ingredients is best. You want your dough to form into a coarse meal, with pea sized pieces at the largest. You can make a simple crust, however I chose to fold in basil and garlic to complement the flavors of the fresh tomatoes.

An entire stick of butter.

And did I mention, it needs to be COLD!

The water also needs to be ice COLD!

Dough ready to be rolled out.

Garden fresh tomatoes, onion and red potatoes for tart.

Roll out dough on a floured surface. A clean kitchen counter always works best for me.

Press dough into a tart pan and trim the edges.

Caramelizing onions with Balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Add a layer of crumbled goat cheese, topped by sliced red potatoes, chopped rosemary and salt & pepper.

Top with caramelized onions, then tomato slices and repeat to desired amount of layers.

Very rarely am I cooking when there is still good light outside. Since I was ahead of schedule on this particular evening, we got a few shots in front of some of our monstrous tomato plants since they are the star of the dish.

I didn't take any pictures of the first step of the short ribs. Apologies. The previous night I had seared them on all sides to lock in the juices and then slow cooked in the oven. They were cooked in beef stock, red wine, chopped tomatoes, herbs, onion and garlic. After cooking for several hours the ribs and sauce were moved to the fridge in a covered bowl. This is where the magic happens. After about 12-24 hours, the excess fat solidifies at the top and can be skimmed off before completing the cooking process.

Looks disgusting, but this is the layer of fat. You will want to carefully skim off and discard of it...

...to reveal this.

Put short ribs and remaining sauce into a baking dish, and continue to cook for an additional hour to hour and a half. This cooling and recooking process will deliver fall off the bone, perfect short ribs.