Cottage pie

The line up for the stew, brown the shins, remove, then soften onion and carrot, deglaze with the red wine, add bay leaves, mustard Worcestershire sauce, paprika and thyme. Cook until done, you could do this in a slow cooker, oven, stove or pressure cooker.

Prepare the vege, I used some pickling onions just simply peeled, small mushrooms and a large dice of carrot.

Once the meat is falling off the bone tender, pull the meat out on to a board and pull in to large chucks. Make sure to push the marrow out of the bones (discard the bone). Strain the liquid, and start reducing it, make sure to taste it so you don't over reduce and can adjust the seasoning. Add the vege and meat to the liquid and cook till it's almost a glaze.


Pile the mixture in to a dish.


Spoon over some pea purée (which you'd obviously make while the above part is cooking), A dash of lemon, cooked peas, salt and pepper with a small amount of garlic whizzed up.


Mash potatoes with some butter and milk, season well.


Spread it on top of the peas and score with a fork.


Grate some cheese on top.


And either place under a grill until golden, or you could prepare the dish the day before and then bake until hot and golden.

Shin & Stout

Another meal for one, tonight beef cooked in stout, rich and tasty. The ingredients used are thyme, mustard, stout, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, shallots, onions, beef shin, worcestershire sauce; and mashed potatoes made from sour cream, butter and potatoes(obviously).

Dice up the onion, garlic, and one of the carrots.


Brown the shin on both sides. Remove from the pot. Add the diced carrot and onion and cook until soft and beginning to colour.


Test that the beer is of a suitable quality.


Pour the quality tested beer in to the pot along with a spoon of mustard, the thyme and bay leaves. Reduce. Once it has reduced by half put the beef back in and cook on high pressure for about 20 minutes (or I guess a slow simmer for about 60? if conventional).

While it's cooking, chop the remaining carrot in to bite size pieces, and peel the shallots. Cook the potatoes.

After 20 minutes, and 10 minutes on natural pressure release (or about 5-10 min before the 60 is up) remove the beef and strain the liquid discarding the vegetables. Reduce the liquid (if needed). Add the carrots, shallots and beef back to the pot with the liquid and cook for 4 minutes under pressure.

While it's cooking, mash the potatoes with butter and sour cream, season well.


Serve.


My favorite bit of the shin is the marrow.