Foodie Googlie

Custom Search

Sunday, May 18, 2008

It Begins with Sugar Free Stew

Firstly, lets be clear about one thing. Normally, I remember everything thats meant to go into my cooking. Being sent home sick from work on Friday, I have to admit I wasn't really on form on Saturday when I started on one of my famous stews. To put that in perspective, I rarely work off actual recipes anyway, but there are certain things that must be done. So it was rather unfortunate that with Uncle K coming to dinner, I missed out the critical dosage of brown sugar necessary to balance the balsamic vinegar that gives the beef its melty texture.

On top of that, I thought that rather than my tried and true dumplings, modified only slightly from the classic Edmonds Cookbook recipe, I'd have a go at Yorkshire pudding. Well, there's some work needing to be done to get those right. I'm sure that its not meant to form a dark crust on the underside that tastes more like burnt toast than either Yorkshire or pudding. I'll give them another go at some point, maybe doing it in muffin tins like C has suggested. Until then, it'll be dumplings all the way.

Luckily, the homemade bread came out perfectly, but you get that after about 6 years practice. Thanks to L for the extra cheese in the fridge.

Despite the hiccups (no pun intended), everything got eaten and was well enjoyed by all, even the obligatory steamed broccoli and cauli. Dinner was followed by Celtic beer and the David Fincher mini-epic Zodiac, which was longer than it needed to be, but nicely shot, before discussions about building fences and gates.

Sugar Free Stew (with optional recommended Sugar) - Serves 3 (plus one 1-yr old)

600g Topside Beef - cube and season with freshly ground nutmeg, salt & pepper, olive oil, worcester sauce, balsamic vinegar, dried tarragon, carraway seeds, 2 bay leaves, flour to coat. This is also where, if you remember, you should add the brown sugar. Leave to stand for at least 15 minutes. Chop 2 onions, 2 carrots, and a bulb of garlic.

Preheat the oven to 200c.


Brown meat in hot oil in batches. Place browned meat in an ovenproof dish with a lid, and put the onions, carrots and garlic into the hot pan. Wilt lightly, then add a good splash of soy sauce. Simmer that for a few minutes. Remove to the dish with the meat, and heat the pan before adding:
1/2 cup of red cooking wine, 1 1/2 cups of beef stock with about 2 T of condensed tomato paste. Deglaze the pan, scraping all the sticky good stuff off the bottom. If you have forgotten the brown sugar before this point, this is also a good time to add it. When the gravy has reduced by about 1/3, drain it off into the oven dish. Add hot water to cover the stew, stir everything together, and place in the centre of the oven.

Cook for as long as possible, preferably about 3 hours.

Serve with fresh bread and dumplings. Watch this space for that recipe at a later date. Good with a bold red wine, such as a Shiraz.

D

7 comments:

Morgan Davie said...

woo!

Anonymous said...

The stew was good anyway :)

Anonymous said...

Sounds delicious Dan, have you tried to make the dumplings with gluten- free flour? I know you have adapted other recipes to take this into account with a great deal of success, perhaps you would like to share these?

Dan said...

It'd be something to try. Any problem with Baking powder and semolina flour?

Karen said...

Semolina is a wheat product I think, so not gluten-free? Buckwheat (strangely not wheat), rice, cornflour/meal are ok... rye not good, not sure about barley, and some people can't have oats either (which must super-suck).

How much brown sugar?

I wouldn't have thought of putting tarragon with red meat... must try...

Dan said...

For the 600g of beef, I'd use probably about 2 heaped T of Brown Sugar, enough to make the meat glisten a bit.

I also have a gluten-free baking mix that I use as a flour substitute which is pretty good. The trick is finding something that will rise nicely to use in dumplings. I'll have to research it and try a few things out.

lbs said...

This is a very tasty stew. Even my husband agrees, and he thinks his stew is the best. I did remember to add the sugar, but I didn't use tarragon (don't like it) or cardamom (don't have any). I found the gravy didn't thicken very much, perhaps because there were no potatoes to add their starch? Did mine in the slow-cooker, just because I could.... I do like the flavour of this stew, very smooth and almost creamy. Yum!