Showing select category

I have a sidebar that I am calling a particular category into and only the most recent 3 posts. Not sure how to modify the code I am working with.

‘<?php
$recent = new WP_Query();
$recent -> query(‘showposts=3’);
while($recent -> have_posts()) : $recent -> the_post();
?>’

I’m am pretty new to this all so any help would be wonderful!