Braised Beef Shanks

hello this is chef John for food wishes comm with another installment of cooking with grass-fed beef here we have some delicious beef shanks from Steve normanton and I'm going to braise them in an onion broth a three onion broth to be exact so we're going to slice up these onions now one tip here we're going to cut them this way with the grain not against the grain now what am I talking about let me show you if you cut off the top and bottom of an onion and peel it if you cut across see how those lines on the onion if you cut across this way like most people slice onions that's called against the grain if you slice it this direction the same directions as those lines are going the onion will actually stay together a little better when you cook it for a really long time so I'm going to slice those with the grain so I've got three big onions a white a yellow and a red there's our beautiful Steve normanton beef shank look at those and by the way you see the marrow in those bones that's the best part so these are about inch and a half two inches thick you want to season them very well salt and pepper both sides and then what we're going to do is we're going to brown them really well and some just a little bit of vegetable oil on high heat we want to get a beautiful sear now depending on the size of your pan do this in batches do not force that last one in and just you know smoosh it in there and make it fit like I did so do as I say not as I do use a big enough pan or do it in batches but I was stubborn and I decided to just you know force my will upon the meat and I browned them on both sides I remove them to a stockpot because what we have to do here is cook this for a really long time very slowly with liquid that's the secret to a beef shank that is tender and delicious in the pan drippings I'm going to saute and brown well my three onions with a big pinch of salt that's going to take about ten minutes I want to get them really nice and you know soft and sweet and caramelized I'm going to add some garlic some diced celery and carrots some fresh rosemary bay leaf black pepper I'm also going to add a nice bouquet garni which is just a tied-up bundle of thyme stems alright after about 10-15 minutes my onions were nicely browned I'm going to add two cups of beef broth and this is basically going to be the cooking liquid for my shanks now I want to make sure I deglaze the bottom get off all that Brown goodness this is almost beef kind of braised in like a French onion soup mixture which is why it's so delicious pour over the onion broth mixture and this is going to go on the lowest heat you have for about three to four hours until fork tender now I'm talking low you just want to barely barely summary beef shanks whether they're grass-fed or not have tons of connective tissue that has to break down so over this very low flame with just that little bit of broth these are going to slowly soften and sweeten and just get amazingly succulent and after three and a half hours for me it's going to be between three and four like I said this is what you're going to have meat falling off the bone speaking of bones see that beautiful marrow I don't want that to disintegrate in my stock as I reduce this so take out the beef bones there should be one per shank otherwise something fishy is going on after I take the marrow bones out I'm going to turn up the heat to medium-high perfect opportunity to skim off any fat that pulls up at the top and as soon as that reduces down a little you're ready to serve I'm serving this on beautiful polenta this goes on pasta mashed potato rice of course anything you want but plinth is really nice you see I reduced that stock it's not a gravy but it thickened up a little bit I probably boiled that for maybe 10 minutes there's my beautiful beef bones if your marrow bones have cooled too much you can just nuke them for a minute in the microwave just to warm them up that's like beef butter there's nothing like marrow I just threw a little bit of fresh chive on there you can mix that marrow into the broth eat it with the meat a lot of people like to spread that marrow on toast that they would eat with this also amazing beef shank is kind of a two-for-one you get that beautiful tender just succulent meat and you get that marrow bone just so so good if you like French onion soup you're going to love this dish in fact I got this idea from reading a recipe where beef shanks were cooked in a packaged onion soup mix the horror I said hey that sounds pretty good except what I'm gonna make a real French onion soup base so that's the inspiration for this dish all the ingredients are on the site so go check it out and as always enjoy

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 344,834

Keywords: Braised, Beef, Shanks, Recipe, food, cooking, chef, john, foodwishes, Allrecipes, recipe, recipes, Braised Beef Shanks, Beef Shanks, how to, how to make, how to cook, how to braise, make, cook, braise, learn, beef, shank, main dish, dinner, easy, simple, delicious, Home Made, How-to

Id: ph1BTlOFhhA

Length: 5min 7sec (307 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 17 2009