SHORT RIB AND RICOTTA GNOCCHI

Steps:

• Start the short ribs. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Season the short ribs with salt and pepper. In a heavy oven-proof dutch oven, heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat and sear each side of the short ribs until they a a nice caramelized brown, about 3 minutes per side. Remove from the dutch oven and set aside (do not rinse out).
• Purée celery, carrots and onion in a food processor. Add to the dutch oven along with the minced garlic over medium heat. Sauté until tender, scraping the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Stir in tomato paste and sauté another minute. Add wine and deglaze pan, making sure to incorporate any brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add sage, thyme and bay leaf then beef stock and stir well, cooking until it starts to bubble.
• Add short ribs to the dutch oven and cover. I like to coat the ribs with the braising liquid. Place in preheated oven and cook for about 3-4 hours, until the short ribs are very tender and fall off the bone (I do mine in 3 hours and they’re quite tender). This will still need a seasoning of salt and pepper when it comes out of the oven.
• Start the gnocchi. When the short rib is about 30 minutes from coming out of the oven, start prepping the gnocchi. They can be cooked right before the ribs come out. Stir together the ricotta, eggs, the parmesan cheese, nutmeg, and salt and pepper. Add flour, stirring to form a soft, wet dough. If too sticky to roll out, add a little more flour. Shape the dough on a well-floured surface with lightly floured hands into 2 (1-inch-thick) ropes. Cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces with a lightly floured knife. Put in 1 layer on a lightly floured parchment-lined baking sheet.
• Bring a medium to large pot of salted water (3 tablespoons salt for 6 quarts water) to a boil. Starting with half the batch, add few of the gnocchi at a time to the pot and stirring occasionally until half the gnocchi are in the pot. Cook until cooked through (cut one in half to check), 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain in colander.
• Finish short ribs. Take the short ribs out of the oven and remove them from the sauce. With two forks, pull the meat off the bone, removing the fat/bones and discarding. I like to leave some big chunks of meat along with some shredded meat. Some ribs are more fatty than others. If there is a lot of fat on top of the sauce, use a baster and remove some of the fat. If the sauce is too thin, place on burner over medium- medium-high heat and reduce the liquid until the sauce is thicker. Season with sea salt/pepper to taste after reducing. Put the meat back into the sauce and toss to coat. Spoon sauce/ribs into each bowl or plate and top with gnocchi. I like to add some more sauce to the top. Enjoy!