Slow Cooked Beef

Ingredients:

50g Westgold butter
1 kg beef shins (You can also use Beef cheeks, blade steak, chuck steak, cross cut blade steak)
1 large onion
1 carrot
½ celery stick
¼ leek
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 Tablespoon chopped herbs
2 Tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup red wine
1 ½ cup beef stock
Salt and pepper
Chopped parsley
Flour for dusting

Dumplings:
40g Westgold butter – melted
1 cup Ricotta
1/3 cup flour
1 egg – beaten
¼ cup grated parmesan
Handful basil leaves
Salt & pepper

Note: We’ve cooked ours in the oven with an oven proof fry pan/dish with lid. You can also do this in a slow cooker if you’re short on time. 

Method:

Preheat oven to 140 degrees C.Chop the vegetables (onion, carrot, celery, leek) into medium chunks. Heat an oven proof frypan and melt half of (25g) the butter. Add the vegetables and garlic and sauté until starting to brown. Remove from pan and leave to one side. Dust the beef with flour and season with salt and pepper. Add the remaining 25g butter to the same frypan and brown the shins on both sides. Add the wine, stock, tomato paste, herbs and sautéed vegetables. Cover with tight fitting lid and cook in the oven until the meat is very tender, approximately 3 – 3 1/2 hours. 

Dumplings:
Mix together the ricotta, egg, melted butter, parmesan and basil to a smooth dough, stir in flour and salt and pepper. Using a spoon, create large golf ball size dumplings and set aside.

Remove from the oven. Increase the oven temperature to 180 deg C. Place the dumplings into the meat juices between the meat pieces. Cover with the lid and return to the oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven. Sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve straight from the pan or place onto separate plates.