Red cooked shin of beef

The weather has definitely changed. The winds are getting stronger and I have started to wear a coat to travel to work.

It been raining a lot as well and when I look out of the window of my office at work I can see waves being whipped up on the lake.

Even the ducks, swans, geese and the heron are all in hiding.

You can see the trees are being bent over in the strong winds. The rain is splattering against the window and the skies are getting more grey.

What we need is something warm and sustaining. I want meat… I want tasty meat. I want something to fill me and make me smile.

So I decided upon shin of beef which is a British, inexpensive cut of meat from the front legs of cattle. Just over 500g costs  just over £3. That’s enough to easily feed four people. Shin needs long and slow cooking which transforms it from incredibly tough to  the most melt in the mouth meat ever, with a real depth of flavour.   If this cut isn’t familiar to you, look at the link  which shows you the difference between American and British cuts of beef.

When you look at shin of beef you can see the tendons and the fat running through it. This has to be cooked slowly and the meat becomes transformed into the most tender morsels imagineable. The gravy served with it reduces and becomes intensely rich and flavoursome. It is perfect in a beef stew with dumplings  and that, I have to say, is how I normally cook it.

Except this time I wanted something different. I wanted something with a bit of a zing to it…and I had a fancy for some kind of Chinese flavouring. I have always adored the taste of star anise flavoured sauces and I remembered that when I was a poor student and wanted a treat I would order fried rice with a drizzle of Chinese barbecue rib sauce on it. That would be it. Just rice with some sauce… I think the takeaway was used to poverty stricken students asking for the bare minimum. (Mind you, there was an Italian restaurant in town that once served a group of us a side dish of peas between us because that was all we could afford and one of our friends fancied someone working there…)

Anyway. Here I was, years later, with enough money to actually buy some meat and I was going to make the most of it. I didn’t have a classic Red Cooked Beef recipe but I could make a fair attempt at it. No doubt the purists will think this isn’t the way to do it but this works for us. The flavour at the end is amazing and that’s good all we are concerned with.

Slow cooked meat is the easiest thing in the world. All it needs is time. You really do very little to it.

First of all, sear the outside of the beef as this gives it a good colour and a better taste.

Chop an onion into pieces. There’s no need to worry about making it neat – after a few hours in the slow cooker this will jsut disappear into a lovely rich sauce.

Put the onion in the bottom of the slow cooker (or casserole dish if you are using that) and lay the browned meat on top of it.

Add some oil to the pan juices (yes, I know that using sesame oil might seem extravagant, but once oil is opened you must use it as it will go off. You might as well use it in an appropriate dish rather than waste it. The delicious smell will disappear, I know, but you know the mantra, waste not, want not!) Use vegetable oil if you have it. What you are doing is getting the rich caramelised bits of meat from the pan.

Stir in a good teaspoon of minced ginger, the smae of garlic and half a teaspoon of  chilli – here I am using the tubes of freshly minced herbs and spices a) because I have them and b) my chillies have failed this year and my ginger is dried up and horrid. They are great to keep in the fridge, ready for an emergency. Add a good splash of soy sauce to add a salty, savoury element.

And star anise. Aren’t they beautiful?

Pour the oil and meat juice mix over the meat and onions and add the star anise.

Normally I’d add Chinese rice wine but we had none left… we did have sherry though and that is a good compromise. Half a cup of sherry adds an extra layer of aromatics to the dish.

A cup of water is added to bring the liquid content up to almost the top of the onion and meat. Don’t cover it, though as that will boil it and toughen the meat. You are aiming for a lovely gravy that will cosset the meat until it relaxes into tender submission.

And that’s it. Five minutes to prepare.

All you have to do now is to start the slow cooker, or put your casserole in the oven on a low heat and then just walk away for a few hours. Relax and enjoy the sense of anticipation.

Four hours later, the apartment smells of delicious, fragrant, spicy meat.

The meat is so tender it just falls apart when I lift it out with a spoon. The long, slow cooking has turned the tough meat into soft and delicious morsels.

Served in a bowl on top of some noodles with a few snipped chives over the top of it and we had the perfect supper. Delicious, tasty, spicily aromatic beef piled on top of soft and filling noodles… heaven in a bowl.

It made the grey day go away and we felt warm and happy.

What more could you ask for? A meal that tasted delicious and cost £1 per serving. That’s pretty good going.

Noodles and Prawns

As part of the Bear’s training process ( in order to be truly omnivorous, he must learn to eat everything… and that includes shellfish) I am trying out various prawn recipes on him. He used to  get a very stubborn look on his face when I suggested shellfish and shake his head fiercely but he is getting used to me insisting he tries a mouthful, at least. These tactics are beginning to pay off. 

He not only ate his salt and pepper prawns but actively enjoyed them and would have eaten more but for the fact I insisted I had my fair share. I moved onto the next step in my plan….

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I knew he had liked the savouriness of the salt and pepper prawns and I wanted to give a hint of that when cooking this next lot. I decided that a marinade would boost things up, so I mixed a bowl, using Chinese cooking wine, some sweet soy sauce, some sweet chilli sauce and some sunflower oil. A squeeze of lemon would sharpen up what would be a sweetly savoury spicy marinade.

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 In went the prawns and I got on with other stuff. I thought noodles and vegetables would be good to go with it

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I had an orange pepper, some spring onions, a carrot, some garlic and ginger and some Chinese leaves. They would give a lovely crunch to the dish and be a good contrast to the softness of the noodles. I got some ready (because this is so quick to do, you need to have everything ready before you start cooking)

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With some hot oil in my largest frying pan (I really should get a wok, you know, but our kitchen is tiny and there isn’t another square inch of space to put anything and the benches are full already)

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I started by frying some garlic and ginger with a splash of sweet soy

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and then started frying the pepper, carrot and spring onion

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then the shredded bits of chinese leaves

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Put the noodles in and stir fry quickly.

Next step….prawns. By now they will have been doused in the marinade

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Squeeze a lime – roll it first to get the juice going .. you will need that to squeeze over the cooking prawns

 and then take out the noodles and vegetables – you are going to need that pan for the prawns

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Pour in the marinade as well – there is oil in there… just look how quickly they go from grey to pink….

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And serve. Some finely chopped spring onions scattered over the top just sets things off.

And was it eaten? Yes it was, by a person who says he hates shellfish. Well that’s two lots he has eaten now…. and it’s not as if he left any. Was it enjoyed? Draw your own conclusions.