Beef Shanks

Last night I scored a good deal on beef shanks - lots of beef shanks. Lots and lots of beef shanks.

Other than soup, what can I use tehse for??

JL:

There's a little Mexican grocery and carniceria a couple of blocks from us on Western (between Taylor and Polk) called "El Becerrito" that regularly offers 'chamorro', that is, beef shanks, at laughably low prices. The ones they sell are for the most part extremely meaty.

Last Sunday I made a "ragù" with them as follows:
- brown the shanks in a Dutch oven with olive oil
- remove shanks, fry a little tomato paste, add minced aromatics (a "battuto" of all or some of the following: garlic, onion,carrot, celery, parsley)
- add a shot of red wine to finish deglazing
- add peeled tomatoes
- adjust with salt, pepper and sugar (if needed)
- let simmer for a few hours until meat starts to falls apart
- skim off as much fat as possible during the cooking
- a little fresh basil for the last few minutes before serving can be added.

Serve as follows:

1) First course: use tomato sauce to dress pasta (fettucine or other long broad noodles are good, as are large tubular shapes such paccheri, rigatoni, etc.)
2) Second course: shank meat served with salad and fresh Italian bread.

An old fashioned, Sunday meal for the poor that's hard to beat with more expensive ingredients.

Antonius

That sounds really great. Now, I am hungry and it is still early (g).

At 0.89/lb and the fact that they were SO meaty, I just could not pass it up.

jlawrence01 wrote:At 0.89/lb and the fact that they were SO meaty, I just could not pass it up.

Wow, that's an unbelievable price! I thought I was getting a good deal... Where did you get them?

A

P.S. I was thinking of making beef shanks next time just braised with a large amount of onions; I'm not sure yet what else I'd add, maybe bay leaf, a little marjoram... I'm still mulling it over...

Woodman's - Carpentersville in the discount meat bin.

Other recent deals included:

ground sirloin 0.99/lb
ground chuck 0.99/lb
loin lamb chops 2.99/lb
chicken wings 0.99/1.5lb
chicken legs 0.99/2lb
pork loin roast 2.99/2lb

The good news is that the prices are cheap. The bad news is that you never know what you'll find from day to day. I go down there 2-3 times a week (as I don't have a life), buy what is cheap, and see what I can do with it. For me, it is a personal challenge.

There are two close by.

One is in Carpentersville on Randall Rd. just south of Huntley Rd. and north of I-90.

The other is in Kenosha off of I-94 on WI-50.

ANtonius -

Followed your recipe last night. I think that the only things that I added to your suggestion was a couple of bay leaves. And used a nice port as that was the ONLY wine in the house.

Turned out real nice. I cooked the shanks 3 hours last night an dthey were still a bit tough so I finished them up with an additional 90 minutes this afternoon.

A nice comfort dish with some great gravy.

Thanks for your ideas.

JL:

I'm very happy to hear you liked it. Bay leaves and port sound like fine variations on the theme.

A

P.S. Did you make it to Tenuta's?

Decided to wait until after the Thanksgiving holiday. I received a surprise turkey this week and have a refrigerator filled with food. I have to work it down before I get any more. Unfortunately, I have very limited refrigerator/freezer space ...

jlawrence01 wrote:Woodman's - Carpentersville in the discount meat bin.

Other recent deals included:

ground sirloin 0.99/lb
ground chuck 0.99/lb
loin lamb chops 2.99/lb
chicken wings 0.99/1.5lb
chicken legs 0.99/2lb
pork loin roast 2.99/2lb

The good news is that the prices are cheap. The bad news is that you never know what you'll find from day to day. I go down there 2-3 times a week (as I don't have a life), buy what is cheap, and see what I can do with it. For me, it is a personal challenge.

I've never been to the Carpentersville Woodman's, though my visits to the Kenosha store are often in the evening. Since you mentioned these prices, I have been keeping my eye open and found nothing. This evening I finally found a restocking person who advised only the meat manager is allowed to mark down meat. If you are there during his working time from 7 AM, then you can find the marked down meat. Before there was a wider authority to mark down meat.

The international section at the Kenosha store is now two aisles including a freezer section.

Regards,

Not quite as cheap, but Andy's Fruit Market on Kedzie is running a special on beef shanks for $1.19/lb; they try to make you take a smaller shank with the meatier center cut, but if you hold firm, you can get by.

Lamb necks seem in season too on Kedzie, both Andy's and Al-Khayam had them on sale, although Andy's looked a little gross. Of course, I've never cooked a lamb neck before, so I do not know what to expect, but I've heard of Grant Achatz doing it, so I'd like to try. Al-Khayam also had whole veal shoulders that intrigued. Still, with so many beef shanks, we decided to forgo the necks and shoulders for another time.

Also, for Antonious, if Guts and Such needs to stock up, both of these places are where to shop. Pretty much every part of a lamb, pig or calf could be found, although if you wanted calves heads (with teeth!), it was Andy's, if you wanted lamb's head, it was Al-Khayam.

Both places are just south of Lawrence on Kedzie, Andy's on the east, Al-Khayam on the west.

Never done the lamb necks.

However, the farmer's daughter just brought home 15# of beef soup bones only one day after lecturing me about not cramming the freezer full. Must be "side of beef" season and some of her co-workers don't know what to do with the "less tender" cuts.

If you have to take "all the parts", many of which the average person really doesn't want, have you REALLY saved any money??

I've used lamb necks to make an astounding stew-like creation. Brown them as much as possible--you might even singe them a bit over charcoal/grill (which I've done with success)--then simmer for a long time with the usual suspects: onions, carrots, canned whole tomatoes chopped, and, this is important!, a diced turnip.

Wine and water and tomato juice are the working fluids.

When the meat starts to fall from the bone, either help it to fall and serve the stew de-boned; or, if you're among friends, serve it mit Knochen and let your pals have the pleasure of doing the de-boning.

I use pork neckbones analogously, with an appropriate change in veggies and using enchilada sauce as the working fluid.

Geo

This is a classic Chinese dish. Boneless whole beef shanks are ordinarily slow-braised in 5-spice powder and dark soy and then cold-sliced against the grain to be served in appetizer platters w/ cold jellyfish, assorted cold pork and roast duck or eaten sandwiched w/ cilantro, hoisin and scallions between a sesame seeded flour cake as recently mentioned by kafein in the Mandarin Kitchen post. We have a Kuhn Rikon Pressure cooker which I use to "braise" boneless whole beef shanks I buy at Chicago Foods (up until your posts, I thought I was paying good prices at $2.39/lb for boneless whole shanks). I use 5-spice powder, garlic, ginger, green onion, sometimes Asian green chives, chili paste, dark soy, hoisin and sesame oil, sometimes teriyaki sauce and pressure cook at 15 minutes per pound. This results in a very soft, melt in your mouth beef shank which have nice glutinous bits of tendon. Ordinarily when it's eaten cold-sliced it's considerably more "hard," thus my family likes to eat it warm and soft, sometimes re-heated in a wok w/ some oil, diced scallions, minced ginger and oyster sauce. It's also very good cold-sliced w/ a sauce of chili paste and hoisin sauce. The reduced broth which remains after cooking can be used in an excellent noodle soup w/ baby bok choy, slices of the shank and cilantro.

Are the shanks you're buying boneless and whole? If so, they're great deals.

Sounds totally yummy, Jay! I'm taking notes. I saw this earlier this morning at the LA Times, a recipe for La Daube Provencal by Anne Willan, at http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-daube4jan04,0,5924698.story?coll=la-home-food, which calls for beef shanks.

Oh yeah, the 5-spice powder I'm using currently is a mix that's sold in individual-size tea bags; I forgot to mention you'll need to put about 1-2cm of water to boil w/ the spice tea bags to start. You should brown the shanks in a pan prior to placing into the pressure cooker. The 5-spice powder tea bags are sold ~6 to a bag and are more convenient than assembling all 5-spices yourself. Also, you don't have the "grit" left behind in the broth since the spices are ground and in the tea bags. Available in most Chinese markets. I store the shanks and broth separate. I let the broth sit overnight in the fridge so that you can easily separate the fat.

You can replace veal shanks with the discounted beef shanks to make Osso Buco. If it's still on the bone... even better b/c the marrow is the prized portion. Simply braise the beef shanks with any kind of red wine, carrots/onions/celery, thyme, bay leaf and whole peeled tomatoes from a can. After 1.5 hours, the shanks will be tender.

dealinhoz wrote:You can replace veal shanks with the discounted beef shanks to make Osso Buco.

I can vouch for the beef shanks because this is how I prefer to make osso buco - I guess it's also due to me being hesitant to try veal/lamb (something I hope to overcome this year.)

It's wonderfully tender and great over rice.