Slow Cooked Beef With Soffrito

I'm sure whatever part of the world you live, you each have your own favourite food stores or farmers markets. Living in the UK one of my favourites is Waitrose. I always find the staff so helpful, the stores are clean and the standard is very good. The only downside (if it can be called a downside) is it can be more expensive than some of our other UK outlets, but then I guess if you are among the fortunate few who can afford to shop in the wonderful Harrod's food hall or perhaps Fortnum and Mason, Waitrose is a breeze! Now hold on - before you say it - yes, I'm sure there are some very good and reasonably priced food items in all these stores ...
As with anything we each have our choice of how we want to shop, where we want to shop, taking our needs, wallets and food choices into account.

Now enough blurb! On with the recipe ...
Do you know:
What soffritto is? I didn't, not until I saw and researched more. In this 'Waitrose' menu it is a ready mix of diced white onion, carrots and celery - so of course you could make your own 50% onion and 25% each of carrots and celery to make up the 400g needed to serve four.
The casserole vegetables are a mix of carrot, swede, leeks & onions, so you can easily mix these to get the required 550g.
The beef shank is the shank (or leg) portion of a steer or heifer. In Britain the corresponding cuts of beef are the shin (the fore-shank), and the leg (the hind-shank).

Here we go (to Serve Four) you will need:
Ingredients
2 x packs (or equivalent) British beef shank joint (each pack about 750g, 1.5kg total)
1 tbsp oil
400g pack Cooks’ Ingredients Soffritto Mix (or equivalent)
77g pack Cooks’ Ingredients Diced Beechwood Smoked Pancetta (or equivalent)
550g pack Cooks’ Ingredients Casserole Vegetables (or equivalent)
1 tbsp sun-dried tomato paste
400g can chopped tomatoes
200ml beef stock

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170˚C, gas mark 3. Cut the meat into large chunks. Heat the oil in a frying pan and brown the beef including the bone then transfer to a casserole dish.

2. Add the soffritto mix and pancetta to the frying pan and fry for 3 minutes then add the casserole vegetables and continue to cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, tomatoes and stock, bring to the boil then pour into the casserole dish. Season then cover and cook for 3 hours or until tender.

It is the slow cooking that makes this meal, I would serve mine with some cabbage, (not the bread as photographed) - but what may you choose?

Nutritional Information - per serving:

Fat 21.5g Carbohydrate 17.1g Protein 58.4g

Original recipe idea here

All the best Jan