Slow-cooking meat is a popular and convenient way of cooking cheaper cuts. It guarantees melt-in-the-mouth meat and dishes with superb depth of flavour every time.
Here are our tips for slow-cooking beef including advice on the best cuts to use.
Which cuts are best for slow-cooking?
SHIN and LEG
Inexpensive cuts with bags of flavour, made up of very lean muscle.
CHUCK and BLADE
The best-known type of braising steak, and what most recipes mean when they call for this. A very tasty cut of beef that can be sliced or diced.
MIDDLE RIBS
When boned and rolled, this is a beautiful joint for pot-roasting. It can also be sliced or diced for use in casseroles.
BRISKET
Because this comes from the belly of the animal it can sometimes be fatty, but this is what adds to the flavour of the stock during cooking. A cylindrical joint that gives nice neat slices when carved.
SHORT RIBS
Traditionally an American cut that is often called ‘oven-busters’ over here, short ribs are becoming quite trendy. Slowly braised in wine or beer with vegetables and lots of aromatics, they become very tender and almost velvety in texture, with a fantastic flavour.
MINCED NECK and FLANK
Mince made from the tougher cuts of meat is best used in dishes requiring slow cooking. Mince from a prime cut, such as tail of the fillet, is usually reserved for serving raw in dishes such as steak tartare.
SKIRT
Usually reserved for slow cooking in either steak and kidney pudding or Cornish pasties.
SILVERSIDE
Neat, cylindrical joint, ideally suited to braising or pot-roasting.
OXTAIL
Tough off-cut of beef that requires long, slow cooking to become tender. Because it is a cut of meat still on the bone – and also comes with quite a lot of fat, cartilage and marrow – it contains a staggering amount of flavour. The cut to use for osso bucco.
TIPS FOR SLOW COOKING
Check out these slow-cooked beef recipes:
Malaysian slow-cooked beef curry
Vic’s slow-cooked beef stew
Slow-cooked beef shin in ale
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