Braised Lamb, Veal or Beef Shanks

Warm, hearty shanks usually like a long cook in the oven, these are done in an Instant Pot or pressure cooker and take only a few hours. Sauté the shanks and the vegetables and then set the timer, take a nap or have a glass of wine and relax, let the cooker work its magic. A great dish for any special occasion or holiday.

Braised Lamb, Veal or Beef Shanks

5 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 dried bay leaves
4 lamb, veal or beef shanks (make sure they will fit into your pot or have the butcher cut them for
you
Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
2 - 3 tablespoons sunflower or olive oil
1 medium onion, about the size of your palm cup onion, finely diced
1 garlic clove, minced
3 large stalks celery, finely diced
2 medium carrots finely diced
2 ½ cup dry red wine
2 cups chicken stock
1 large can crushed or peeled and chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste

Place the thyme and bay leaves into a piece of cheesecloth, close by tying the ends of the cheesecloth together. This is your bouquet garni. Set aside.

Set your Instant Pot to sauté and add a little sunflower or olive oil.

Dry the shanks with a cloth or paper towels, season with salt and pepper.

Brown the shanks on all sides, then set aside. Add the onion, garlic, celery and carrots and sauté until the onions start to turn translucent. Add wine, stock tomatoes, tomato paste and bouquet garni. Stir well, snug the shanks into the liquid until they are completely or nearly covered with liquid.

Close and set the vent to seal. Set the Instant Pot to Manual pressure cook high for 50 minutes. Let the pot naturally release pressure, 20 min. or so.

Remove the shanks and set them aside on a plate and keep warm by covering with foil.

Strain the liquid squeezing out as much liquid as possible. Measure liquid and for each cup of liquid, make gravy in the Instant Pot using the following method.

Per 1 cup of liquid:

1 ½ tablespoons of butter or olive oil

1 ½ tablespoons all-purpose flour

Melt butter or oil in the pot on sauté, whisk in flour and let cook, while continuing to whisk until the flour turns slightly browned.

Remove as much fat from the cooking liquid as possible; slowly add the liquid into the flour mixture while whisking. As the liquid begins to thicken add more liquid and whisk until the gravy is thick, taste and season with salt and pepper. If gravy is too thick, add a little stock or water until it’s the consistency you like, it should be on the thinner side for this dish.

Serve atop a good helping of mashed potatoes or polenta.

If you’d like to serve the cooking vegetables, remove bouquet garni and stir the vegetables into the gravy.

Beef & Barley Soup

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Beef Barley Soup

The flavor of this soup relies on using a good and flavorful beef stock. Read the label to make sure it’s not over salted. Or you could try making a batch of your own!

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 pound beef stew meat or
1 ½ cups leftover beef, chopped or shredded
Sea Salt and ground pepper
1 cup pearl barley, cooked*
1 small leek, diced
1 large carrot, peeled and diced into bite sized pieces
1 medium stalk celery, peeled and diced as you did the carrots
1 medium onion, diced similar size to carrot and celery
4 cups good beef stock

Heat the olive oil and butter in a Dutch oven or pressure cooker**.

Season the meat with salt and pepper and brown in batches, don’t crowd the meat or it will steam and not brown. Remove the meat and set aside. If using already cooked meat skip this step and jump ahead.

Add a little more olive oil to the pan if necessary, add the vegetables and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables soften, about 5 minutes.

Add the stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 1 hour.

Add the barley and the reserved meat; simmer the soup for another 15 or 20 minutes, until the barley is tender. Season with a little salt and pepper if needed and enjoy.

To cook barley, bring 4 cups of water to a boil and add the barley. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, drain, and set aside.

**To pressure cook the soup: After browning the meat, add the stock and barley to the pan, place the lid on the pressure cooker, bring to full pressure and cook for 10 min. I let the pressure cooker naturally release pressure before continuing.

Add vegetables and return to pressure over high heat. Cook 15 minutes and let pressure release. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Barley photo credit, Fine Cooking. To read about barley follow this link, Fine Cooking-Barley

Braised Short Ribs

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Easy Braised Short Ribs

Braising a tough cut of meat over a long period of time makes the meat deep, rich and delicious. With a small amount of preparation and a long cooking time these are easy to make and warms you up on those cold winter days. Make extra! You’ll want them for leftovers, you can make a ragu out of them, a pot pie or even a Shepherds pie for quick weeknight dinners. You’ll get more flavor out of the short ribs if they are on the bone, they will fall right off the bone after their long slow cooking so they’ll be easy to remove.

Serves 4

Olive oil
1/3 cup flour (or more as needed)
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
4 pounds short ribs on the bone
1 brown onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, roughly chopped
2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste (double concentrate from a tube-found in the ‘Italian’ section
2 tablespoons flour
¼ cup dry red wine
1 qt. beef stock, may use chicken stock
1 bouquet garni (1 bay leaf, 1 sprig thyme, 2 sprigs Italian parsley tied together in cheesecloth

Heat oven to 350°.

Mix flour, salt and pepper together in a shallow bowl or on a plate.

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium high heat; add enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan.

Dry short ribs well and dredge in the flour mixture, shake off the excess and place the meaty side into the hot oil. Do not crowd the meat in the pan or it will not brown properly. This is the most important step in braising so take your time. Remove the ribs, set aside and continue until all ribs are browned.

In the same pan, add more oil as necessary, add onions, carrots, celery to the pan and sauté until lightly browned.

Add tomato paste and stir to coat all the vegetables and cook the paste a little, about 2 minutes.

Add flour and stirring constantly cook for another 5 minutes without burning. The flour may turn a little dark but that’s fine.

Add the dry red wine to the pan and scrape the bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan. Let reduce and thicken slightly. Remove from the heat.

Return the ribs to the pan, cover with stock and add the bouquet garni. Put the lid on the Dutch oven and bake for 3 hours. Remove bouquet garni.

Juices may be thickened into gravy with a beurre maníe, roux or cornstarch slurry.

Beurre Manie, Roux, Cornstarch Slurry

Beurre Manie

Mix together equal parts softened butter and flour until it looks like thick butter and all the flour is incorporated.

Roux

Melt 2 Tb. butter in a pan, add 2 Tb. flour, whisk together and cook until lightly browned

Cornstarch Slurry

2 parts cold water mixed with 1 part cornstarch

Whisk any of these into your hot liquid, stirring until thickened. Don't over-cook the cornstarch slurry or it will start to break down and become thin again.