Stout beef casserole and cottage pie rebrand

Having enjoyed the beef, mushroom, Guinness pies a few weeks ago, I thought I’d push the same idea into a lovely, warm serve of winter heartiness.

This is basically beef bourguignon, but with stout instead of red wine. Serve with creamy mashed potato, and roast broccoli and cauliflower - adding almond slivers is also good, but last night I forgot!

Unlike the pie version, I err on the side of big with the meat pieces. It’s almost like they are little steaks which you’re encouraged to slice and smear with the sauce and mash, rather than just spoon in.

Roast veggie tip: why par boil, when you can par zap? Many roast vegetables benefit from par boiling to soften the centre, so that the outside can be crisped. A couple of minutes in the microwave means less water, less flavour down the drain - and less time wasted. Just saying…

Don't forget the French onions!

For a regular casserole, you pop it covered into the oven for 3 hours. But I use the slow cooker for 8.

As a bachelor dad, I get the recipe to the first stage a night ahead. Then pop it in the fridge.

Next morning, into the slow cooker, and away I go to work. That way, after school when my kids come home, they open the door to that rich and homey smell. They might not be here as often as I’d like, but it’s their home, and their dad loves them. Food can say that.
Serves 4

Ingredients

1kg chuck steak 75g pancetta, roughly chopped 1 cup stout 1 cup beef stock 1 tbsp salt 3 tbsp olive oil 3 tbsp butter 1 brown onion, roughly chopped 2 carrots, roughly chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2 tbsp plain flour 3 bay leaves 8 eschalots, peeled 150g button mushrooms, sliced 2 sprigs thyme

Serve with buttery mashed potato and roast broccoli and cauliflower (with slivered almonds - if you remember... )

Method

1. Cut beef into 4–5 cm pieces.
2. Place the stout in a saucepan and reduce by a third over a medium-high heat, then add beef stock and bring to a boil.
3. In frying pan, heat 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter over a high heat. Season the beef with salt and fry in batches until caramelises as the edges and corners. Set the fried beef aside and add another 1 tbsp oil and 1 tbsp butter to the dish. When the butter is foaming, add the onion and carrot and reduce heat to medium-low . Cook for about 8 minutes, then add the garlic. Cook for a further 4 minutes, then add flour , mix through and gently cook for about 3 minutes.
4. Gradually pour the hot stout and stock mixture over the onion and carrots, stirring to ensure no lumps form. Bring to a gentle boil. Return the beef to the pan with any resting juices and bay leaves. (Stage 1 complete) Cover and cook in oven for 2 ½ hours in oven, or 8 in slow cooker.
5. In a frying pan, heat the remaining oil and butter on a medium-high heat, add pancetta and cook until lightly coloured, about 4 minutes, then remove from the pan. Add the eschalots and cook until they deepen in colour (about 3–4 minutes), then remove. Finally, add the mushrooms and lightly sauté (about 4–5 minutes).
6. Add the pancetta, eschalots, mushrooms and thyme leaves to the braised beef. Cook for a further 15 minutes. Serve with buttery mashed potato, extra thyme and freshly ground pepper, and roast veggies.

Rebrand

Next day, pull out the leftovers from the fridge and cut the beef and veggies into small pieces. Scoop up all the sauce, and place everything into a pie pot.

Take the mash leftover and combine with 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs and 1 tablespoon of grated pecorino cheese.

For best results, as ever, let the whole lot come to room temperature.
Preheat oven to 160º

Top the casserole pie filling with the mash mix, fluffing it up with a fork. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes. If necessary, pump up the heat at the end to get the browny edges happening.

Rendang danging

(Indonesian beef and coconut curry)

One of the things I like about this dish is that it’s like a western casserole in reverse - in western casseroles, you fry first then simmer; in rendang danging you simmer first, then fry.

At the end, you have a rich, dark, semi-dry curry that goes very well with rice, and even better with flat breads such as roti canai or chapatis.

Ingredients

• 1.5kg diced chuck steak
• 1 400ml can coconut cream
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2cm cube fresh ginger, sliced
• 1cm cube fresh galangal, sliced
• 2 coriander root
• 8 birdseye chilli
• 2 onions
• 2 stalks lemongrass, sliced
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp ground coriander seed
• 4 curry leaves
• .5 cup tamarind liquid
• 2 tbsp peanut oil
• palm sugar to taste
• garnish - torn coriander leaves, dry-fried desiccated coconut

Method

This one goes fast slow fast. It works well to do the assembling around lunch time, pop it in the slow cooker for the rest of the day, then back into the frying pan for about half an hour to reduce and finish. So…

Roughly chop one onion, thinly slice the other.

In blender, blitz the chopped onion, garlic, chillies, ginger, galangal, lemongrass, coriander root with just enough enough coconut milk for it to form a paste.

Once done, fry in peanut oil until the oil starts to separate from the liquid. Stir in beef cubes until they are coated, then add remaining coconut cream. Raise temperature to bring to a boil. Add remaining ingredients except the tamarind, sugar and garnish.

Once it has reached a strong boil, drop the temp and simmer, covered for about 2 hours - or, which is how I like to do it, transfer to a slow cooker and cook for 6 hours - in which case you give the frying pan a clean, because you’ll use it again!

After 6 hours in the slow cooker, transfer the mixture to the frying pan, bring the heat up and cook off the liquid until it just clings to the meat. Stir in sugar and tamarind.

Garnish to serve.

Pepper beef pie

Pastry

3 sheets short crust pastry
2 sheets puff pastry
1 lightly beaten egg

Filling

4 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, diced
1 kg chuck steak, cut into 1cm cubes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 cups beef stock
1 portobello mushrooms, chopped - about 2 cups
1 30g can green peppercorns, including brine
1 cup Guinness
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons cornflour
¼ cup water
salt and pepper to taste
Yields - six pies

Method

As with just about all cooking, the key thing is to start well by having everything (including the Guinness - and especially the meat) at room temperature.

In a heavy-based saucepan, fry meat in the oil a handful at a time to brown. You want a little caramelisation to happen. Set cooked meat aside.

Reduce heat and sauté onion and garlic, and then mushrooms, until soft.

Raise heat and add Guinness, bringing it to a strong boil to cook off the alcohol.

Add stock, peppercorns, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, then return meat to pan and simmer uncovered for an hour and a half.

Mix the cornflour in the water, and stir through the pie filling until it thickens. Remove from heat.
Preheat oven to 180º C.

Smere the pie trays with butter, and sprinkle with flour. Line with the shortcrust pastry. Place in the oven for 5–10 minutes. You want them to firm up a little, and just begin to go gold.

Remove, and loosen from the tray using a spoon, or the back of a bread knife. Spoon in mixture. Cut the 2 sheets of puff pastry into four squares each, then place over the top of the pies. Beat the egg, and glaze the puff pastry. Slice up the remaining puff pastry and do something that tries to be creative but isn’t. Glaze that too - you might as well.

Pop them into the oven for 30 minutes, repositioning every 10 minutes so that your pies are evenly golden brown.

Ajvar - the red relish!

In honour of episode 1, season 6 of Game of Thrones - relish for the Red Woman!

This is a version of the wonderful Serbian spread/accompaniment, ajvar.

According to wiki-type sources ajvar means caviar. So it seems this was the peasants’ equivalent of red roe.

You can do this in the oven, but it’s much better with an open flame on the barbecue, allowing for the smoke circulate and extra flavours to develop.

To make the paste, you can use a blender, or chop coarsely. I used my hand-turned meat mincer, which produces a wonderful texture.

So…

Ingredients

• 2 cloves garlic
• 4 hot chillies
• 5 red capsicum
• 1 medium egg plant
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 onion
• .5 can of chopped tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• Salt to taste

Method

Preheat the barbecue.

Peel and top/tail the carrot, and microwave or par-boil for two minutes.

Peel the garlic and onion, leaving enough of the stalk end to hold them together.

Rinse the capsicum, chilli and egg plant. Place everything into a plastic bag, add olive oil, and toss so everything is covered.

Now it all goes on the BBQ. A plate for the chilli, garlic and onion. The grill for the egg plant and capsicum.

For each, you’re looking for blackened on the outside, but soft on the inside.

As they each come to done, take them off the heat an put them into a plastic bag and close with a peg or something similar. When it is all done, let the lot cool enough to be handled.

Once it is cool enough, peel the capsicum, removing stalk, core and seeds. Peel the egg plant also. Cut the root ends off the onion and garlic, and the stalk end off the chilli. Mince the whole lot (or blend or chop), and place in a saucepan with the remaining ingredients.

Add the salt you want gradually, you don’t want all that sweetness and smokiness to be overpowered.

Yields: 750 g of good, red stuff!

Nice and cheesy does it

I’ve had a couple of cracks at this now, and I’m getting better at it. It is a basic fresh cheese that can be used for several different purposes.
I’ve already shared my queso blanco recipe.

The central thing is separating the curds and whey of good quality, full-fat milk: cow, goat, sheep - or a mixture. I like 50:50 cow and goat. For the method, see below.

Once you have separated the curds and whey, there are many options. But here is three: cottage cheese, paneer, and my marinated spreadable cheese.

Cottage cheese

Simply separate, strain through cheese cloth, rinse with cold water, strain again, and stir through a teaspoon of salt. The idea with the extra strain is you remove the bitterness of the remaining whey. A similar style cheese is called chhena in India - but is more crumbly than creamy.

Paneer

This is a common ingredient in Indian food. I use it when I make ghost saagwala. Here, you strain, then add a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of cumin. Once you have mixed through, press the mixture into a rectangular pattern inside the cheese cloth and weigh it down with a couple of plates. This removes most of the moisture, enabling you to cut the cheese into cubes once set. Setting can take a couple hours, or overnight in the fridge - depending on how firm you want your paneer to be.

What makes it such a nice curry ingredient is that it does not melt and go gooey, and its mild flavour complements the big curry sauces - whichever you choose.

Now - the one I like most…

Bachelor Bruce’s marinated, fresh cheese…

You will need

Cooking thermometer
Half a metre of cheese cloth, folded twice
3–4 litre sauce pan
Strainer

Ingredients

1 litre cows milk
1 litre goats milk
.25 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
.25 cup finely chopped herbs (shallots, marjoram, thyme - dill is also good.
Some ground cumin and pepper

Method

Pour the milk into the saucepan. Set the cooktop to about 50%, stirring occasionally to keep the milk from sticking to the bottom. Bring the milk to about 80º C. This is key - less than 80º you get less yield, but if you let it boil - anything over 90º - you get the wrong flavour.

Once the milk has hit 80º, remove the pan from the heat and add the vinegar. Stir. The curds and whey will begin to separate. About five minutes should do, then let it rest for another 10 before giving it one last stir.

Now strain the mixture through a strainer lined with cheesecloth over a mixing bowl. Don’t waste the whey - it is great just to drink chilled, or as a base for a summer smoothie. At the very least, it is good for the garden. No waste!

Transfer the whey back into the saucepan, then place the strained cured in the mixing bowl. Add the chopped herbs, ground spices, salt and olive oil - and gently mix through.

Return this mixture to the cheesecloth, bundle with string and hang for 2 hours in a cool place (my shower is a cool place, for instance. Very cool).

Place the cheese in a bowl - you might want to garnish with some extra herbs and oil - and you are done.
Very spreadable, very snackable - totally yummable!