BBQ110/17: Beef Shin Mac n Cheese
A friend of mine sent me a link to a recipe for Hawksmoor Beef Shin Macaroni Cheese. As soon as I saw the picture I knew I had to cook it!
This is the picture in their version:
The Meat:
I was placing an order with Turner and George so I added “Bone in Shin” to the list. £15 for 2kg.
The Prep:
The recipe calls for 1kg of beef shin so I trimmed the top part to bring the weight down from 2kg and kept the trimmed parts for a stew.
I put the beef in a large pan with onions, carrots and a muslin bag containing thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, black peppercorns, fennel seeds and star anise. I poured a bottle of red wine into the pan and left it in the fridge with a lid on overnight.
The next day I removed everything bar the liquid from the pan and simmered it until the red wine was reduced in volume by half at which point I added beef stock and chicken stock.
The Cook:
I lit half a chimney of lumpwood and when fully lit I poured it into the smoker which had a base of lumpwood laid out. I left this to get up to temperature (300F) whilst I got the food ready.
A tablespoon of beef dripping was melted in a large frying pan and the shin was browned on all sides then added to the pan with the red wine in. The veg was fried in the same pan with some chopped streaky bacon then all added with the beef along with the bag of herbs and spices.
Once the smoker was up to temperature I put the pan on the top shelf and dropped a chunk of Oak in to add a bit of smoke. After an hour I put the lid on the pan. After 4 hours the meat was starting to fall apart so I took the pan off the heat.
The beef, veg and bacon were removed from the pan then the pan was put on the hob to reduce the liquid by half. I cooked the macaroni then put the meat and bacon back in a large dish and spooned the macaroni in along with bone marrow and Parmesan cheese.
This was mixed together then seasoned with salt and pepper and more Parmesan cheese was added on top.
This dish went back on the smoker for 20 minutes with a bit more Oak smoke to try and hit the cheese layer.
I gave it a couple of minutes under the grill at the end to try and brown it up a bit.
Time to Eat:
With the cheese browned up a bit it was time to eat.
Summary:
I was actually quite disappointed with this dish. I like a nice strong, beefy taste but this was a bit much even for me! The mac n cheese wasn’t very cheesy it was quite greasy maybe from the bone marrow and stock? Maybe it needed more cheese and/or a different cheese? The beef was ok, maybe needed cooking more to get it softer.
The recipe could be sound, I may have made some mistakes along the way but I was really looking forward to it and didn’t end up eating a lot of it.
You have to try different things or you just end up eating the same stuff so sometimes you don’t like it or it doesn’t work out. That’s fine, move on to the next one!
| Cook Equipment: | Weber Smokey Mountain |
| Cook Method: | Low and Slow |
| Charcoal: | Lumpwood |
| Smoking Wood: | Oak |
| Cook temperature: | 300F |
| Cook time: | 5h30m |
| Internal temperature: | N/A |
| Notes: | Don’t do this one again! |