Beef ribs need long slow cooking so all the gelatinous connective tissue can become soft and melt, they are best done for 6 to 8 hours. They often have quite a lot of fat on them a lot of which can be cut off before cooking. 

This is about 1.5 Kg of organic grass fed beef short ribs raised by my friends David and Sarah in Golden Bay, New Zealand. Sometimes ribs come in one long piece, if so I like to cut them into smaller pieces containing 1 to 2 bones. I also cut off any large amounts of fat on the outside of each piece.

Next sprinkle with a couple of teaspoons of salt, cover  and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

About 6 to 8 hours before you want to eat put the ribs into a roasting tray and cover tightly with foil. Set the oven to 180C Fan and roast for one hour then turn the oven down to 110C Fan and continue to roast for another 5 to 7 hours depending on how much time you have. Longer is better.

While the ribs are roasting prepare the sauce.

ingredients

• 1 tablespoon of strong English mustard.
• 1 tablespoon of Lea & Perrins sauce.
• 25ml apple cider vinegar.
• 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds.
• 1/2 cup of tomato puree concentrate, mine is homemade from long slow roasting tomatoes from my garden.
• a large glug of good olive oil, I am using Weka Olive produced in Nelson.

Grind the fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar or spice grinder and mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.

When the roasting time is up turn the oven up to 180C Fan, remove the foil and turn the ribs over so the fatty side is uppermost then brush on some of the sauce. Return to the oven and roast without a cover for 10 to 15 minutes, keep an eye on it as the tomato in the sauce can burn if your oven is too hot.

Then turn the ribs one more time and brush the other side with some of the sauce, retain about a third of the sauce. Return the roasting tray to the oven one last time for another 10 to 15 minutes until they are golden and beginning to caramelise.

Remove the ribs to a serving plate. There will be a lot of fat in the roasting tray, pour this into a bowl, you can store this in the refrigerator and use for roasting vegetables if you are so inclined.

Once the fat is poured off there will be lots of caramelised yummy bits in the bottom of the tray, add the remaining sauce plus a bit of water to this and heat gently on the stove top.

These ribs are wonderful served with just about any vegetables or salads, here we are having them with green beans and the sauce on the side. This is very low carb as I do not use any sweetener in the sauce but they are very good with just the sweetness from the tomato.