Recipe Tomato sauce question..

I have a catering event next month, and one of the menu items is a pasta in an Italian Sunday type sauce loaded with meat (served family style). What I typically do is take veal bones some spicy sausage and other cuts and simmer them in the tomato sauce until they basically fall apart. The sauce is incredibly flavourful and has that made by grandma type taste.

The challenge though is my customer has told me that I can absolutely not use veal. Normally I use Osso bucco in a nice 2-3 inch thickness for this recipe because it has lots of meat and the bones are there as well for flavour.

Will beef shanks work just as well here? Or another cut of beef? I was thinks no maybe short ribs or something....

Looking for advice.

 

The beef will probably be fine, and since the customer hasn't tasted the venison version they won't know the difference.

Note--Per the instructions I've read here & there, I add some sugar to my tomato sauce recipes because it supposedly cuts some of the acidity.

 

I use shredded carrots rather than sugar.

 

I hadn't heard of that.

 

Actually, beef works quite well. You might try using a little lamb if you want to up the meaty depth of the sauce. I sometimes use beef short ribs and some lean lamb stew in tomato sauce. The lamb cooks pretty quickly-- half an hour or so-- and the beef short rib is quite flavorful, as long as you brown it well first to cook off some of the fat, since it's relatively fatty.

 

If they have an objection to veal, they may not be too cool with lamb, either. Just putting that out there. I'd go with the beef or the mushrooms.