ISO Beef Shank Recipes

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mmyap

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I bought some beef shanks at Wholefoods today. I've never even seen beef shanks in the normal grocery stores so I'm excited to try something new. I have a Osso Bucco recipe and a Red Wine Braised recipe that sound good. Both pressure cooker options which rock my world.

I'm wondering if anyone has a recipe you would recommend.

I've searched and there are some lamb shank recipe's but was not sure if it's a good idea to substitute beef for lamb.

Thanks much.
 
I have a beef barley soup with mushrooms recipe that uses beef shanks. It's really delicious.
 
I haven't seen beef shanks since I was a kid and my Dad had his meat market. I know they are very tough but loaded with lots of gelatinous flavor, not to mention the flavor of the bone marrow. Sounds perfect for the pressure cooker and I bet that soup Andy mentioned is spectacular. I'm drooling...
 
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I made beef barley soup in the CP with my beef shanks, best ever! I browned the heck out of them first.

Then I would use whatever beef soup recipe you like. Go light on the barley, unless you want a solid mass.
 
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Andy, I would love your beef barley soup recipe. That sounds like it would hit the spot. Thanks much.
 
Beef Barley Soup with Mushrooms

2 Tb Oil
2-3 Ea Beef Shanks
1 Tb Oil
1 Carrot, diced
1 Onion, diced
1 Celery rib, diced
TT S&P
1 Tb Tomato Paste
5 C Beef Broth
5 C Chicken Broth
½ tsp Thyme, dry
1 C Barley, rinsed
1 C Canned Tomato
3 Tb Butter
1 Tb Oil
¾ Lb Mushrooms, quartered


Heat a 7¼-quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat; add 2 tablespoons of the oil. Season the meat generously with salt and pepper. Sear the meat on all sides until well browned. Remove to a plate.

Lower the heat to medium, add the tablespoon oil to the pan. Add the carrot, onion and celery and sauté for 10 minutes.

Add the tomato paste to the pan and sauté for another 3-5 minutes.

Return the meat to the pan. Add the broths and bring it to a boil.

Simmer, covered, 1½ hours.

Add the thyme, barley, and tomato, continue to simmer covered, for 1¼ - 1½ hours or until the barley is tender.

Remove the shanks, cut the meat into small pieces and discard the bone.

Meanwhile, in a large sauté pan, heat the butter over medium-high heat, add the mushrooms and sauté until golden, about 10 minutes. Season the mushrooms with salt and pepper and add them to the soup, and simmer for 15 minutes more.

Season the soup with salt and pepper.
 
Andy's beef and barley soup is tailor made for beef shanks. Shanks are indeed tough, but full of flavor. They pair spectacularly with onion, and braising. Beef shanks are also used to make Espagnole Sauce. But before you can make epagnole sauce, you must first make a beef stock. This is where the shanks come in. Here are the ingredients:

4 lbs. meaty beef shanks
3 carrots (peeled and cut into 3 inch lengths (appoximate)
2 yellow cooking onions (peeled, quartered)
3 stalks celery (cut into 1 inch chunks)
2 leeks (cleaned and cut into chunks)
1 sprig thyme
2 fresh bay leaves
2 garlic cloves (peeled and crushed
2 whole cloves
8 peppercorns

Place the shanks into a stock pot, or large pressure cooker, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to medium, and in the stock pot, simmer for four hours. In the pressure cooker, cook at 11 to 15 lbs for two hours. Remove the pressure according to your pressure cooker directions.

While the shanks are cooking, wrap the garlic, peppercorns, thyme, and cloves into a square of cheesecloth and tie it into a sachet. When the shanks have cooked, add the sachets annd bay leaves to the pot. Cover and simmer for another hour. Remove the sachet's and correct the seasoning with salt.

A classic espagnole sauce recipe can be found here - Espagnole Sauce Recipe | Epicurious.com

Simply use your stock in the recipe.

Beef shanks are wonderful for making soups, stews, and espcially sauces broths, and stocks. They have sufficient meat on them to make a meal, while the marro cartilage, and connecting tissues, form a wonderfully rich texture and add important minerals and proteins to the meal as well. Taht onion and celery, well they create a lightly acidic PH that helps leach the calcium and other nutrients from the bones. In fact, as the calcium is given up to the broth, the bones become soft. You could chew them without damaging your teeth. Of course it would taste bad and have a really bad mouth feel. So go ahead and just throw the bones away. Yeh, I know, I'm pretty strange:wacko:. But the food info is good anyways. Enjoy your beef shanks, whatever you do with them.

Seeeeeeya' Chief Longwind of the NOrth
 
I haven't cooked with them but I know they need a long slow braise and have a wonderful flavor and a lot of great tasting meatiness if done properly.

If I recall correctly, Chef Anne Burrell did a recipe on Food Network using them and it looked great. I'm not a fan of TV food shows UNLESS the chef's are ral (few are). Maybe check her site, I've made a few of her braised recipes and they were instant hits here.

Please let us know what you make, I'd like to give them a try also.
 
I like to brown them and toss them into a pot of Sunday gravy.

I fish them out of the sauce, chop them up and freeze them with a cup or so of the tomato sauce in a one pound cottage cheese container.

When I want to make vegetable beef with barley soup I pull out a container and make a quick version of the soup described above, using whatever I find in the vegetable crisper. I simmer it 30-45 minutes until the barley and vegetables are cooked. It is good on day one and great on day two!
 
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Fantastic! I have over 3 and a half lbs so I'm going to take half and make Aunt Bea sunday gravy today and freeze the other half for beef barley soup next weekend.

I needed to use some defrosted tortellini I have in the frig so the sunday gravy will work great for that, plus I have all the ingredients on hand for it. I found a recipe for the pressure cooker for that so I can adapt it easily. Next weekend we will have everything ready to go for the beef barley soup.

Thanks again.
 
If I'm correct and your beef shanks are the same as our beef shin then my grandmother always said that it was the best cut for any casserole or stew. I've used it for everything from everyday beef stew to dinner party boeuf bourguignon via meat and potato pie. Yummy.
 
This is what the shanks I buy look like. I look for more meat and less bone.
 

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This is what the shanks I buy look like. I look for more meat and less bone.

Same here, when we were kids we called them individual pot roasts.

We used to have them for an inexpensive Sunday dinner instead of a large chuck roast.

I wonder what people will think was inexpensive 40 or 50 years from now! :ermm::ohmy::LOL:
 
I bought some beef shanks at Wholefoods today. I've never even seen beef shanks in the normal grocery stores so I'm excited to try something new. I have a Osso Bucco recipe and a Red Wine Braised recipe that sound good. Both pressure cooker options which rock my world.

I'm wondering if anyone has a recipe you would recommend.

I've searched and there are some lamb shank recipe's but was not sure if it's a good idea to substitute beef for lamb.

Thanks much.
I don't see why not if you tweak the seasonings and other ingredients and possibly the cooking time. Beef shanks. shin needs l-o-n-g, slow cooking. I usually do mine in the slow cooker or in the oven at 275-300F/140-150C (gas mark 1 or 2 in UK) after bringing it up to temp on the hob. I usually brown mine first to add flavour but you don't have to if you prefer not to.
 
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This is what the shanks I buy look like. I look for more meat and less bone.
Yes, the very thing, although ours usually comes boned and if you want it bone-in you usually have to order it in advance. (I think that stems from the "mad cow" scare a few years back.)
 
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mm, you need to post that picture from last night's dinner here too. Yumm Ymmm Ymmm.


Here we go.



As you can see the meat has literally melted into the sauce. The flavor was so nice and rich. You could really taste that beef. The pressure cooker method works wonderfully with this meat. My shanks looked like those with the marrow bone in the middle. I'm definitely a fan of the beef shank.

BTW, I was so lazy I just cooked the tortellini right in the sauce. A one pan wonder meal. Thanks for everyone's input.
 
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