Beef Shanks...No Thanks

I recently watched an episode of “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” on the Food Network and was truly inspired by the “Leg of the Beast” dinner served at Incanto by Chef Chris Consentino.  This dinner looked simply amazing and I knew that I had to try and adapt it to the smoker like I attempted with Chef Novelli’s Pork Belly recipe.

When I attended the Winter Fancy Food Show I got a chance to visit with the people from Johnny’s Fine Foods.  I’ve used their French Dip Au Jus Sauce concentrate for years for a variety of different cooking  uses.

I was able to come away from the show with a bottle of their new French Onion flavored Au Jus Sauce.  The main purpose of this product is to make French Onion Soup but I knew immediately when I saw it that it was going to end up as a brisket injection.

The thought of having a different type of injection flavor for my brisket was something I’ve wanted to try for quite some time.  But it wasn’t brisket that ended up getting the French Onion injection.  It was beef shank.  And as you’ll see this may have been the highlight of this meal.

Beef shank is part of the leg of a heifer or steer.  Because of the nature of this cut of beef it is very sinewy and tough.  It’s very lean and hard to cook.  This may be the hardest to cook cut of beef on the entire cow.  And it’s pretty darn ugly too.

There was a lot of trimming that needed to be done.  The shank has more of the consistency of muscle than meat and it had a layer of “skin” and fat that needed to be trimmed off.

I mixed up 2 cups of the the French Onion au jus and injected the shank. What was interesting was how much liquid went into this small 6 pound shank. Because of the muscle I was injecting into at times it was like the injection was under pressure. Instead of just running back out it would shoot liquid up in the air a foot or two. It made for some exciting prep time.

Because the shank is so tough the only way I was going to get it tender was to braise it.  But since this is blog is all about BBQ I had to put it on the smoker for a couple of hours after the injection.  225 degrees for three hours gave it just the right amount of smoke flavor.

You can see the nice color the hickory and cherry wood gave the shank.   Even after three hours in the heat and with 2 cups of injection the shank released  very little liquid.  I was really surprised at this.

After smoking the shank went into a braising liquid of beef broth, onions, carrots, parsnips and turnips for four more hours. You can see in the picture how much the meat pulled back from the bone.

Parsnips, turnips and carrots with the beef shank ready to put on the table.

And plated with the Smoked Brisket Risotto

So here’s the story.  The shank meat was just okay.  You’d think that after so long in the whole cooking process that it would just be falling off the bone but it wasn’t.  It was still a little tough.  The flavor wasn’t all that appealing either.  It had a very gamey flavor to it.  To be honest this may have been the first and last beef shank I  ever cook.