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Rodeo Beef Shanks

Jon Town, Afternoon Announcer, Local "Performance Today" host:

"Rodeo" Beef Shanks

 This is a simple recipe but if you are a beef lover one of the
tastiest dishes I´ve found. What you´ll need:

6-8 beef shanks  1-2 inches thick. You may have to shop around to find
shanks but get the best quality ones you can find.
6cups beef stock. Homemade is best but canned is ok too.
1 tsp. ground coriander
1tbsp. dried marjoram
2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. black pepper corns
1 medium lemon
2 tbsp. corn starch

Place shanks in a 9X13 baking pan (metal seems to work best) and bake
shanks at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Turn them over and bake another 20
minutes.

Remove from oven and add beef stock, coriander, marjoram, red wine
vinegar and pepper corns. Thinly slice the lemon and place slices on top
of the shanks. Cover the pan tightly with foil and put back in the oven
for about 90 minutes.

When they are done remove the shanks from the pan and keep warm. Add
water to corn starch and slowly add to remaining broth mixture from the
shanks. Supplement with more stock or a bit of water if you need to.
Stir until thick enough for gravy to serve over the shanks. That´s it.

A good side dish is roasted new potatoes tossed in olive oil and ground
pepper and baked in the oven for about an hour at the same time as the shanks.

The meat will literally fall off the bone and is so tender you can cut it with a sharp look! If you have a dog give the bones as treats. You´ll have a friend for life.

Serve warm and just for good measure put on
Copland´s  "Rodeo" while you eat.

Recommended CD: Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic,  Copland: Appalachian Spring, Rodeo.  Sony.

"Aaron Copland was born on November 14, 1900 in New York City. His musical works ranged from ballet and orchestral music to choral music and movie scores. For the better part of four decades Aaron Copland was considered the premier American composer.

Copland´s growth as a composer mirrored important trends of his time. After his return from Paris he worked with jazz rhythms in his "Piano Concerto" (1926). His "Piano Variations" (1930) was strongly influenced by Igor Stravinsky´s Neoclassicism. In 1936 he changed his orientation toward a simpler style. He felt this made his music more meaningful to the large music-loving audience being created by radio and the movies. His most important works during this period were based on American folk lore including "Billy the Kid" (1938) and "Rodeo" (1942). Other works during this period were a series of movie scores including "Of Mice and Men" (1938) and "The Heiress" (1948)." –(Robin Chew, Lucidcafe.com)