This was dinner on Wednesday night, because I was looking for something that I could prep and then leave to cook for the afternoon so that X and I could get out of the house for a bit of a shuffle around the suburbs. We had chuck steak in the freezer, and most of the ingredients in the house, and I improvised the herbs and flavourings. It smelled mighty tasty while it was cooking, but it needed a little adjustment once it was out of the oven - a little bit of a flavour boost from some of Decay's not particularly secret ingredients, which might've made some French dudes turn in their graves, but it did let us get dinner on the table not too long after Decay was home from work!
Braised Beef with Carrots
Adapted from recipe at Serious Eats
Preheat oven to 135°C.
Heat some olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of the oven-safe and stovetop-safe pot you're using) on medium-high heat. Season the meat with lots of salt and pepper, then brown the meat in batches, making sure you don't overcrowd the pan. Make sure you brown the meat enough to get some crusty bits. Remove the meat from the pan once it's sufficiently browned, and continue until all the meat is done.
Add a little more oil to the pan, reduce the heat to medium-low, and add the carrots that had been cut into thirds, onions, and garlic. The disked carrots will be added once most of the cooking is done. Add the bay leaves and allspice berries, and saute gently until you can smell the garlic (about 5 minutes).
Add the red wine, and use it to deglaze the bottom of the pan. Let it simmer for a bit (til it doesn't smell so much of the alcohol) - about 2-3 minutes.
Place the meat inbetween all the carrots and onions. Add the chicken stock, and bring to a boil. Put this pot, covered, in the oven for 2.5 hours. This will need to cook for a total of 3 hours.
At the 2.5 hour mark, add in the disked carrots. Put the pot back into the oven for another half an hour.
For the mash, peel and chop the sweet potato, and boil them in some salted water until tender (about 20 minutes). Drain the water, then add some butter, and a bit of milk, and mash.
After 3 hours, take the pot out of the oven. Take out the big chunks of carrot, and any bay leaves/berries/etc you can find. You can do what we did and mash the big chunks of carrot into the sweet potato. Add salt and pepper to the sweet potato (and carrot) mash to taste.
You might need to do a bit of either reduction of the liquid that the beef has been braising in (if you have time!), or add some worcestershire sauce and/or tomato sauce, before thickening (if required) with some beurre manie (equal amounts - a tablespoon or so - of butter and plain flour, mashed together to form a paste), or some cornflour slurry (a spoonful of cornflour mixed with enough cold water to form a drippable paste).
This happily serves one Decay, one Droidy, and one (21 month old) X for two dinners, and lunch for one Droidy. I think at the original proportions this was meant to feed 4.
* I used chuck steak. I would otherwise have used gravy beef. I guess, if I was needing to go to the butcher I'd have gotten short ribs, but anything that counts as long cooking beef for stews will work here.
** I didn't have any pearl onions, so I just used about 4 of our decidedly smaller than usual yellow onions
*** Original recipe asked for beef stock. Now that I've made this I think I'd go with half beef stock and half chicken stock. I went with all chicken stock (home made stuff!) because that's what I had in a quantity that would work.
Adapted from recipe at Serious Eats
- 1kg beef chuck steak, or gravy beef *
- Olive Oil
- 8 carrots - 4 peeled and chopped into thirds, 4 peeled and chopped into disks
- 2-3 onions **
- 2 cloves of garlic, smashed
- 3 bay leaves
- 3 allspice berries
- some dried mixed herbs
- 1/2 cup red wine
- 2-3 cups chicken stock ***
- A couple of sweet potatoes
- some milk
- some butter
- salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 135°C.
Heat some olive oil (enough to coat the bottom of the oven-safe and stovetop-safe pot you're using) on medium-high heat. Season the meat with lots of salt and pepper, then brown the meat in batches, making sure you don't overcrowd the pan. Make sure you brown the meat enough to get some crusty bits. Remove the meat from the pan once it's sufficiently browned, and continue until all the meat is done.
Add a little more oil to the pan, reduce the heat to medium-low, and add the carrots that had been cut into thirds, onions, and garlic. The disked carrots will be added once most of the cooking is done. Add the bay leaves and allspice berries, and saute gently until you can smell the garlic (about 5 minutes).
Add the red wine, and use it to deglaze the bottom of the pan. Let it simmer for a bit (til it doesn't smell so much of the alcohol) - about 2-3 minutes.
Place the meat inbetween all the carrots and onions. Add the chicken stock, and bring to a boil. Put this pot, covered, in the oven for 2.5 hours. This will need to cook for a total of 3 hours.
At the 2.5 hour mark, add in the disked carrots. Put the pot back into the oven for another half an hour.
For the mash, peel and chop the sweet potato, and boil them in some salted water until tender (about 20 minutes). Drain the water, then add some butter, and a bit of milk, and mash.
After 3 hours, take the pot out of the oven. Take out the big chunks of carrot, and any bay leaves/berries/etc you can find. You can do what we did and mash the big chunks of carrot into the sweet potato. Add salt and pepper to the sweet potato (and carrot) mash to taste.
You might need to do a bit of either reduction of the liquid that the beef has been braising in (if you have time!), or add some worcestershire sauce and/or tomato sauce, before thickening (if required) with some beurre manie (equal amounts - a tablespoon or so - of butter and plain flour, mashed together to form a paste), or some cornflour slurry (a spoonful of cornflour mixed with enough cold water to form a drippable paste).
This happily serves one Decay, one Droidy, and one (21 month old) X for two dinners, and lunch for one Droidy. I think at the original proportions this was meant to feed 4.
* I used chuck steak. I would otherwise have used gravy beef. I guess, if I was needing to go to the butcher I'd have gotten short ribs, but anything that counts as long cooking beef for stews will work here.
** I didn't have any pearl onions, so I just used about 4 of our decidedly smaller than usual yellow onions
*** Original recipe asked for beef stock. Now that I've made this I think I'd go with half beef stock and half chicken stock. I went with all chicken stock (home made stuff!) because that's what I had in a quantity that would work.
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