Tender and delicious slow cooked beef shin in a rich and velvety red wine sauce with mustard mashed potatoes. A perfect recipe for a fantastic winter dinner! What more could you want. This makes a great option for a date night, a dinner party with friends or just a nice night in. This dish takes time but minimal effort and punches way above it’s weight!

Cooking with Beef Shin

I personally love beef shin! It’s a cheap cut that can be elevated to something really special when cooked well. I use this in special recipes like Beef Rendang from Indonesia, or my slow cooked beef shin chilli! Understanding how to do this, however, means we need to have a little science lesson.

Most meat we buy comes from the skeletal muscles of animals. Generally speaking meat follows the rule of the more the muscle is used, the tougher the meat will be. This is because the muscles build longer and thicker muscle fibres and have more connective tissue. Muscle fibres contract when cooked, causing the meat to tighten up and become tough.

This is generally why cuts you would pick for steak or roasting joints are from the middle of the animals body. They move the least and are more tender as a result, allowing them to be cooked medium rare and still be enjoyable. Shin however is a hugely active muscle! This means we need to give it a bit more attention.

Something really interesting happens chemically when the meat is cooked in the presence of water; the collagen in the muscle fibres begins to break down and form gelatin instead! This happens between 50°C and 180°C and is the fundamental basis for slow cooking. The process is faster at higher temperatures, but higher teperatures can still cause some contraction of fibres. There is then a balancing act between time taken and tenderness achieved. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. Chef Steps has a really great article on this too!

This Recipe

I have opted to cook the beef at 130°C for about 5 hours. This delivers a fantastic compromise between time and results. The beef falls apart with a fork and absorbs all the flavour of the sauce! I would highly recommend doing the same.

The sauce starts in the same way as most do in European cooking, develoment of fond in the pan and a solid base of aromatic vegetables. I am using carrot, onions and celery (called soffritto in Italian or mirepoix in French) along with garlic. This is a classic aromatic base in most European cooking, but is very common in French, Italian and British cooking. I have added exta aromatic flavour with a herb bundle (bouquet garni) of thyme, rosemary and bay leaves.

The bulk of the flavour of the sauce comes from the two liquid additions. The first is red wine! This is such a classic choice in European cooking and can really deliver some richness to a sauce. You don’t need to get the nicest wine, somethig cheap will work well. Just avoid oaky wines, such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir. These can give an unpleasant flavour when cooked out.

The bulk of the sauce is beef stock. A good quality beef stock will bring a really punchy, meaty flavour and bind everything together! Finally, I have seasoned this with a bit of nutmeg and allspice. They complement the earthiness of the wine and overall richness of the dish really well!

Serving This Dish

I like to pair this with mashed potatoes. This is a classic option but you will not regret it. I ake the addition of English mustard to mine. Mustard and beef is a timeless pairing, and it elevates the potatoes to something a little more fancy and special. I would then serve this with some grilled or roasted veg too, but I’ll leave that decision up to you!