Ingredient

Beef shin

Shin comes from the lower leg, the hardest-working muscle on the animal, and it is threaded with connective tissue. Cooked long and slow that tissue becomes gelatine, and the result is a stew with body and gloss that no lean cut can produce at any price.

Why cheap beats expensive here

A braise gets its texture from gelatine dissolved in the cooking liquid. Gelatine comes from collagen, and collagen is concentrated in the muscles that work hardest — which are, by the market's logic, the cheap ones.

Braise a fillet steak and you get dry, grainy meat in a thin liquid, because there is almost no collagen to convert. Braise a shin and you get meat that falls into strands and a sauce that sets to a jelly when cold. That jelly is the proof it worked.

This is the clearest case in the kitchen where the expensive ingredient is the wrong one, and it is worth saying plainly because so many people buy stewing steak in a supermarket and get an unlabelled lean cut that does none of this.

How to buy it

On the bone

Cut into thick cross-sections, this is osso buco. The marrow in the centre enriches the sauce and is eaten from the bone.

Off the bone

Sold as shin, leg or occasionally as stewing steak. Cheaper still, and easier.

What to look for

Visible seams of silvery connective tissue running through the meat. These are the point, not a defect.

Cut size

Large chunks — five centimetres or more. Small pieces dry out before the collagen has converted.

Front or hind

Hind shin is generally meatier; front shin has more sinew. Both work.

A shin braise that works every time

1. Cut into large pieces, dry them well and season.
2. Brown in batches in a heavy casserole, giving each piece room. A crowded pan steams instead of browning.
3. Set the meat aside and cook onions, carrot and celery slowly in the same fat until soft and browning at the edges.
4. Add tomato purée and cook it out for a minute, then deglaze with wine, scraping the base.
5. Return the meat with stock to come about two thirds of the way up, a bay leaf and a strip of orange peel if you like.
6. Cover and cook at a low oven temperature for three to four hours. Do not let it boil — a bare tremble is what you want.
7. Rest overnight in the fridge if you can. The flavour improves markedly and the fat lifts off in a sheet.

What to make with it

• Osso buco, on the bone, with white wine and gremolata. Milanese, and among the best braises there is.
• A beef and ale stew, or beef bourguignon, where shin is a better choice than the braising steak usually specified.
• Ragù, cooked whole then shredded, which gives a far better texture than mince.
• Pie filling, where the gelatine keeps the meat moist under pastry.
• Pho or a rich beef broth, where the connective tissue gives the body.
• Shredded for tacos or a filled bun, with the reduced cooking liquid spooned over.
• Cottage pie, made with shredded shin rather than mince, which is a genuine improvement.

Common questions