It’s been raining everyday and the weather’s been quite cold. H must have felt it since he requested for a beef stew (not a stew kinda guy normally). This is adapted from Jamie Oliver’s recipe for beef stew, few tweaks to the ingredients since I just added/omitted what I had ready on-hand.
Beef Stew
Ingredients
• olive oil
• a knob of butter
• 2 onions, peeled and chopped fine
• 800g/1¾lb stewing steak, cut into 5cm/2 inch pieces ( i added 2 rounds of oxtails)
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• flour, to dust
• 2 parsnips, peeled and quartered
• 4 carrots, peeled and halved
• 500g/1lb 2oz small potatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato purée
• ½ a bottle of red wine
• 285ml vegetable stock
To dress:
• zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
• a handful of rosemary, leaves picked
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC/300ºF/gas 2.
2. Put a little oil and your knob of butter into an appropriately sized pot or casserole pan. Add your onion and bay leaves and fry for 3 or 4 minutes.
3. Toss the meat in a little seasoned flour, then add it to the pan with all the vegetables, the tomato purée, wine and stock, and gently stir together. Season generously with freshly ground black pepper and just a little salt.
4. Bring to the boil, place a lid on top, then cook in the preheated oven until the meat is tender. Sometimes this takes 3 hours, sometimes 4 – it depends on what cut of meat you’re using and how fresh it is. The only way to test is to mash up a piece of meat and if it falls apart easily it’s ready. Once it’s cooked, you can turn the oven down to about 110°C/225°F/gas ¼ and just hold it there until you’re ready to eat.
The best way to serve this is by ladling big spoonfuls into bowls, accompanied by a glass of French red wine and some really fresh, warmed bread. Mix the lemon zest, chopped rosemary and garlic together and sprinkle over the stew before eating.
I should have added more stock halfway through, the stew pretty much dried up. But it was very flavourful and H has requested for oxtail stew next!
ababeinthewoods 