Shredded Beef Ragu - like grandma used to make! (sort of)

I promise this won't be a long story. As briefly as possible:

My grandma made spaghetti we all loved. We kids begged for it to be the meal every time we came over. She joked she would only leave us the recipe in her will. She passed away, we have three slightly different versions of a recipe she hand-wrote, and literally none of them have ever tasted like her spaghetti when prepared as written.

After many attempts to doctor it up to try to make it taste right, no manner of tweaks helped. It just tasted like brown ground beef in tomato sauce (excuse me, the recipe called for "chop meat"!). The closest I ever got was when I took a big extra step and made the braciole, which she always made but I didn't eat as a kid, and have no recipe for. I tried several times making recipes for braciole FROM THE INTERWEBS, and the braciole was always delicious, and the sauce was the closest it ever came to tasting like hers. "Chop meat" and meatballs were always in her sauce. Was ground meat all that different back in her day, I wondered? It is still a question that lingers, but...

Skip ahead about 15 years and I find this recipe from Sam The Cooking Guy for an Instant Pot short rib ragu. I whipped it up and...my eyes nearly popped out of my head. THIS tasted like grandma's spaghetti sauce! Or at least as close as I have ever come, and pretty far from my last memory of actually eating it. I realized then and there the base sauce was pretty blah, it was in fact the seared beef (from the braciole, and in this case the ribs) that brought all the flavor. And while I love braciole, it is a Whole Process to make. So to figure out I can just use certain cuts of beef (*more on that in a second), and cook the hell out of it until it is tender and releases all the beefy flavor into the sauce...I'm in heaven.

Instant Pot means I don't have to cook it all day long. *And I discovered that I can use bone-in beef shank instead of short ribs to cut the cost 75%, and get MORE meat.
3 lbs Beef short ribs=$10/lb, a large part of that is bone = $30
2 lbs Bone-in beef shank=$5/lb, only one big center bone = $10

The shank still has some bone in there, and I am certain that some of that marrow getting into the sauce also contributes to flavor and mouthfeel. There is less fat on the shank that the ribs, but I find that to be a positive in this case. The flavor was not really changed, and I did way less skimming of the fat from the surface of the sauce at the end. I included the ingredients/instructions for both.

So without further ado:

INGREDIENTS

2 lbs beef shank or 3lbs pounds bone-in short ribs (if ribs, look for ones with lots of meat – I know this seems obvious, but if you don’t really scope them out, you'll wish you had more meat later)

Kosher & pepper

1 tablespoon oil

1/2 cup each diced carrot, celery, yellow onion

3 large cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup tomato paste

1/2- 3/4 cup red wine, (and I don’t care what any says, even a less expensive one will be perfect)

1 28 oz can chopped San Marzano style tomatoes

1 tablespoon beef stock paste, or a beef bouillon cube

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1 tablespoon dried oregano

Good pinch kosher salt & pepper

DIRECTIONS
Turn instant pot on to the sauté setting

Season the ribs with salt & pepper, add oil to the pot, and when hot sear the ribs in batches until brown on all sides – remove & set aside

Add the carrot, onion, celery and garlic - sauté until softened 3-4 minutes

Add tomato paste, mix well and let cook a few minutes, then stir in wine, scraping along the bottom as you go to release anything stuck on – 2 minutes

Then in go the tomatoes, the beef stock or cube, the red pepper, the oregano and salt/pepper

Stir well to combine then put back in the ribs

Lock, turn to sealing position, select high pressure and cook 45 minutes

When it’s done, let the steam release naturally

Remove the short ribs, turn pot to saute, and let the liquid simmer to thicken

Shred, the beef and return to the pot when it’s thickened, 5-7 minutes

Check salt & pepper, adding if necessary and serve, on pasta, on polenta, on almost anything – maybe adding some parmesan to garnish