Slow Cooked Beef Shin on the Bone

This was the first time I have cooked with beef shin on the bone.  I prepped the night before and left the slow cooker insert in the fridge marinating over night and put it on at breakfast time the next morning.  I think it would have been fine to just prepare and cook straight away.

The liquid I used to braise the beef in was a mixture of beer (just a small bottle of lager I happened to have on hand), beef stock (made with stock cubes) and a small amount of sherry vinegar.  To flavour this I added soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, chilli oil, garlic oil, bay leaf, a squirt of tomato paste, 1 teaspoon of sugar and salt and pepper.  Not too much salt because of the salt in the stock cubes.

The beef went into the liquid along with 2 carrots – which I topped and tailed but did not peel.  I cut the carrot up into largish chunks so that they wouldn't fall apart.

Because my slow cooker is really too big I had to top up with water to ensure the beef and carrots were covered.

I slow cooked this on low for about 9 hours.  Because of the extra liquid I had to faff about a bit to reduce the sauce at the end.  The meat had fallen off the bone so I removed the bones (but not the marrow).

I took out the meat and carrots with a perforated spoon and then poured the liquid into a pot and boiled it vigorously for at least 20 minutes until it had reduced by about a third.  I also added 2 teaspoons of a light brown gravy mix.  Right at the end I added a splash of cream and a knob of butter – naughty but great flavour.

Then I put everything together again in the slow cooker to keep it warm until needed.

The end result was a warming casserole – and it was even better the next day – as is so often the case.  I wonder why that is?