Beef Shin with Pears

[minesamojito]

The wonderful Beef Shin from Partridge Farm in the previous post, was crying out for a dark sticky autumnal braise, and with plentiful pears from our wizened pear tree this year, I felt a few slices of pear would sweeten and lighten this rich dark sticky meat. Kept whole the slices of shin when slow cooked were so soft to be able to be cut with a spoon into wonderful moist flakes.

Brown off slices of beef shin, half to one slice per person in a wide casserole dish with a knob of butter, once browned on both sides remove the meat to a plate.

Soften the following diced vegetables, 2 onions, a stick o celery, 4 cloves of garlic and 2 carrots in the pan with a little butter for 10 minutes. Add 2 bay leaves and a sprig each of thyme and rosemary.

Deglaze the pan with half a bottle of good red wine, add the slices of shin and 4 quartered and cored pears, top up with a litre of beef stock. Leave to cook with the lid on at 160 deg C for 4 hours until the beef is starting to soften, then remove the lid and cook for another hour, the sauce should start to thicken a little. Remove from the oven and swirl in a couple of tablespoons of sour cream, a teaspoon of mustard and sprinkle over some finely chopped flat leaf parsley.

Serve ladled generously over mashed potato, making sure everyone gets some of the soft meat and sweet pear.

Cheers
Marcus

[cannyfradock]

Marcus

Your photography is excellent but behind this brilliance always lies a super dish. More often than not you also include your method of cooking along with full recipe ingredients. You also cook with meat which is ready available to us ...like the "shin of beef" in this recipe.

I often use "shin of beef"...or "chuck steak" in ragout's or stews as these cuts of meat are very friendly on the pocket. Your inclusion of pears make perfect sense.......I can almost taste your dish from the picture!!

Here's me trying to be clever now.......I think the fore shin of beef is more best suited to this type of dish than the hind quarter shin as the fore shin has a lot more sinew between the muscle and therefore gives more gelatinous consistency to the finished dish. Also apart from the half bottle of red wine for de-glazing I might just be tempted to add a glass of Masala at this point in the cooking process.

I very rarely comment on your posts Marcus....as I have not much more to say than Wow.....hope you don't mind my comments. there nothing to do with your dish........just comments.

As always....#thanksforsharing

Terry

[rivergirl]

Fantastic photo as usual !! It's the gelatinous quality that I actually don't like so I usually use brisket or like terry some chuck. My loss I know!! LOL

[minesamojito]

Thank you so much for your comments guys I love it when people share their ideas on how they cook similar meals, I love the sticky bits of shin too, but also a cut like blade is good in these sort of dishes.
Glad you like the photos, I try to get across a sense of the taste of the meal in the photo
Cheers
Marcus