Tobie Puttock’s Slow Ragu

Slow Ragu 

Ingredients

Step one
600g beef shoulder or other muscly part of the beast
3 onions
3 carrots
5 sticks celery
2 bay leaves
Celery stalks, one bunch

Step two
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely slice
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
3 sticks celery, washed and finely chopped
Tablespoon roughly chopped rosemary
1 red chili, halved horizontally
Olive oil
250ml Chianti classico or other good red wine
2 small tins of tomato
Extra virgin olive oil

Method
Put all the ingredients in the first part of the recipe into a large pot, cover with water and bring to the boil, then cover with a lid and reduce the heat to a light simmer.
Check the meat every ten minutes and make sure the pot doesn’t dry out, add more water if it does.
The water should never be lower than half way up the meat, use some tongs to turn the meat every half hour so all the meat remains moist.
After a couple of hours, the meat should be tender and almost falling apart, if it isn’t keep cooking until it does.
Once the meat is ready remove the pot from the heat and all it to cool almost to room temperature.
While the meat is cooling in its stock you can get the second stage of the sauce on the go.
Put the garlic, onion, carrots, celery, rosemary, red chili and four tablespoons of olive oil into a clean pot and cook over a gentle heat for about fifteen minutes so the vegetables are soft and without color.
Remove the meat from the pot, put it into a bowl and set it aside. Strain the stock and left-over vegetables into a clean pot, discard the vegetables.
Pour the strained stock in with the second batch of cooking vegetables, turn up the heat and reduce the liquid, once it’s reduced by half add the tinned tomato and reduce it so it’s the same volume as the cooked meat. Remove the pot from the heat
Tear the meat into little shreds and add it to the cooling sauce, splash in some extra virgin olive oil and allow it to cool completely.