Autumn
Recipes
Meat
3 hour beef shin with fennel and gremolata
This 3 hour beef shin recipe includes lovage, a strong-tasting herb, with a flavour similar to celery. It pairs beautifully with beef, but if you can’t get hold of it, use celery leaves or even celeriac leaves.
The fennel and the gremolata (chopped parsley, garlic and lemon zest) lift the flavours of the rich meat, so it’s unctuous but fresh too.
Serve with creamy mashed potato and mustard.
Serves 6.
This recipe originally appeared in the April 2021 edition of House and Garden magazine. Photograph courtesy of Emma Lee.
Ingredients
FOR THE BEEF
- 1.5kg beef shin (250g meat per person)
- 4tbsp olive oil
- 300ml red wine
- 500g carrots, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 350g celery, diced
- 1 tin whole plum tomatoes
- 3 fennel bulbs, cut into wedges
- Bouquet garni (bundle of thyme, parsley stalks and rosemary)
- Small bunch lovage (about 20g), roughly chopped
- 500ml fresh chicken or beef stock
FOR THE GREMOLATA
- Large bunch parsley, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 1 lemon, finely grated zest
Instructions
- Season the meat generously with salt – preferably 1 hour before cooking – and allow to come up to room temperature.
- Heat the oven to 160°C/fan oven 140°C/mark 3. Heat 2tbsp olive oil in a large, lidded casserole dish and brown the meat well on both sides. (You may need to do this in batches.) Remove the meat to a bowl when browned and deglaze the pan with the wine, then pour it over the meat.
- Using the same casserole dish, heat the remaining 2tbsp olive oil. Add the carrots, onion and celery, with ½tsp salt, to make a soffrito. Cook this, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes.
- Sieve the tomatoes, rinsing off the can juices, then tear roughly and add to the pan with the fennel, bouquet garni and lovage. Allow this to fry for another few minutes.
- Return the meat to the pan and add the stock. Cover with a lid and cook in the oven for 3 hours. Remove the bouquet garni.
- To make the gremolata, mix together the parsley, garlic and lemon zest. Serve the meat with mashed potatoes and a dollop of mustard, and with the gremolata sprinkled over.
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