I am not a big fan of pork or beef, I find it rather heavy. But I found the perfect way to eat them: slow cook them together for few good hours. It almost melts and I have to admit that it makes the digestion so much more easier. And you got to love the way the pulled meat looks!
I avoided cooking it for a long time because I thought you can’t do it without a slow cooker. But then I got inspired by Laura Vitale’s “Slow cooked shredded beef ragu” where she uses a normal pot (http://www.laurainthekitchen.com/recipes/slow-cooked-shredded-beef-ragu/). It’s true that it takes a long time, but it’s not work intensive and it will last you for multiple days and you can use it for multiple meals: with pasta, cous cous, polenta, sandwiches, anything really. Including any low carb side dish!
Slow cooked shredded beef and pork ragu
Servings: 8 (1 eur/portion)
Time: 5 hours
Difficulty: surprisingly easy
Ingredients
- 3-4 tbsp olive oil
- 500g of pork (I used chopped sirloin) (3 eur)
- 500g of beef (I used chopped chuck) (4 eur)
- 1 onion (0.1 eur)
- 2 celery sticks (0.1 eur)
- 3 medium carrots (0.1 eur)
- 150 ml of red dry wine (0.5 eur)
- 30 ml of chicken stock (I used chicken cubes)
- 150 ml tomato paste (0.3 eur)
- fresh rosemary and thyme
- salt and pepper
Directions
- Season the meat with salt and pepper.
- In the preheated pan add half of the oil and sear the meat until it gets a bit of color and set it aside.
- Blend the onion, celery and carrots until they are almost a paste and sear them in the same pan with the rest of the oil for approximately 5 min.
- Add the tomato paste, rosemary, thyme and the red wine.
- Mix well and add the meat together with the stock.
- Bring the mixture to a boil and then place a lid on the pot and let it simmer for 4-5 hours on low fire – I use setting 2 out of 10.
- I occasionally mixed in every half an hour.
- Shred the meat, while cleaning any fat, decide how much sauce to keep and put back the meat in the sauce. Serve it with any side dish you like! It is great in a sandwich with some pickles, goes great with cous-cous, pasta, but also in a warm pita served with some sour cream and barbecue sauce or also in a poke bowl style with rice:
