Beef Shin Ragu

Shin is worked muscle, threaded through with connective tissue, and it is priced accordingly. Cooked fast it is inedible. Cooked for three hours at a bare simmer, that connective tissue turns to gelatine and gives you a sauce with a texture no expensive cut can produce.

Brown it properly or do not bother

In batches, in a hot pan, with the meat dry and the pan not crowded. This is the twenty minutes of the recipe that people skip and it is the twenty minutes that decides whether the finished sauce tastes of beef or of tomato. Deglaze with the wine and scrape everything off the base.

Then it wants a bare tremble on the lowest ring you have, lid slightly ajar, for three hours. Check it twice. If it looks tight, add water rather than more wine.

On the second day

It is better. Make it a day ahead if you can, cool it, and lift the set fat off the top before reheating. The sauce loosens as it warms and the flavour has had a night to settle.