Category: Stews

Beef and beer stew, prehistoric style

I so very nearly called this post ‘Prehistoric beef and beer stew’ but then thought at least one person might find that too funny to pass up for a joke.

This is one of the recipes from a book called ‘Prehistoric Cooking’ by Jacqui Wood. I picked this one because I was still experimenting with honey from last month’s article. My sister sent me the book, hopefully because she thought I would find it very interesting.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 500g stewing steak
  • 25g wholemeal flour
  • 25g butter
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 bunch of sorrel (grows wild, I have some cultivated in the garden)
  • 50g honey
  • 1 pint of ale

METHOD:

  • Cut the meat into 2cm cubes, and dust with the flour
  • Fry the meat in the butter until browned. Use a casserole dish with a well-fitting lid.
  • Add salt, chopped sorrel, honey and beer.
  • Put on the lid of the casserole and cook over a low heat for one and a half hours, until the beef is tender.

For authenticity, serve with wholemeal bread rather than potatoes. Carrots are a good side dish. 

Garbure

Garbure is a thick French soup, almost a stew, based on cabbage and beans with some form of meat and other vegetables, often with bread added. It originated in the south-west of France, around Bearn, the Pyrenees, Gascony and Landes. It may vary from household to household and season to season, depending on what is available. The basic principle behind this dish is the lengthy simmering of an assortment of vegetables and meats, generally meats preserved en confit. As far as vegetables go, anything is possible. The cabbage may be accompanied by any kind of beans, potatoes, turnips, celeriac, kohl rabi, nettle tops, borrage, leaf beet, beetroot, in fact just about anything that can be grown in the area.

I started with an enormous home-grown cabbage. I didn’t use all of it; this cabbage weighs more than an average baby, and is about the size of a basket ball. I just shaved off about a quarter of it.One word of warning: this involved a lot of chopping and I used a very large pan.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 small cabbage (or part of a larger one), coarsely shredded
  • 3 tbsp goose fat
  • 2 carrots, diced, or use celeriac
  • 1 turnip, diced, or use kohl rabi
  • 1 large onion, sliced
  • 1 large leek, split lengthways into quarters and then chopped
  • Parsley, thyme, bayleaves
  • 1 stick of celery, finely chopped
  • A good pinch of salt
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2.3 litres of stock or water
  • 1 can of borlotti beans (you could use any sort of bean, especially canellini beans.
  • 350g potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • 250g butternut squash or pumpkin, peeled and cubed.
  • 1 serving of meat per person, for example ham hough, sausage, confit of duck or goose. If you cooked the hough yourself, use the stick in the soup.

    METHOD:
  • Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the cabbage, simmer for ten minutes and then drain well.
  • In a large soup pan, heat the goose fat and add the carrots, celery, turnips, onion and leeks, and stew very slowly for fifteen minutes, stirring from time to time.
  • Add the drained cabbage, and cook for another ten minutes
  • Add herbs, salt, cayenne and the stock, then stir in the beans, potatoes and pumpkin and cook, uncovered, at a very slow simmer for around 40 minutes. You may need to top up with water as required.
  • Submerge the meat in the soup and continue to cook for another thirty minutes.
  • To serve, line each bowl with a slice of home-made bread, ladle the soup over the bread, and top with a portion of meat.

    There are other versions, which include cloves, or garlic, or other ingredients. You can make the base soup, cool before the step where the meat is added. Then, when you need to, reheat what you need.

South Indian Potato and Coconut Curry

I made this using some lovely potatoes from my garden. I have a lot of Charlotte potatoes that are ideal for this sort of curry, they taste very good, and they hold together during the cooking. 

This is a Madhur Jaffrey recipe from Curry Easy, super delicious, one of my most used and reliable recipe books. I made a tweak, I have a thing about not putting olive oil in curries, I don’t think it heats well enough for cooking the spices. I served it with braised kale and dal. It goes well with rice.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 3 tbsp rapeseed oil
  • 1 tsp brown mustard seeds
  • 1/2 tsp yellow split peas
  • 2 birds eye chillies
  • 15-20 fresh basil leaves, torn (should be fresh curry leaves, but these are not available locally)
  • 1/2 medium red onoin, chopped
  • 1 medium tomato, or a tablespoonful of tinned chopped tomatoes
  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1 tsp garam masala
  • 450g potatoes (I used Charlotte potatoes)
  • 1 level tsp salt
  • 120ml coconut milk
  • 4 tbsp chopped coriander

METHOD:

  • Pour the oil into a medium saucepan over a medium to high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds, yellow split peas and the chillies. As soon as the seeds begin to pop, add the basil leaves and the onion, lower the heat a bit and fry for around three minutes. Don’t let the onion start to brown.
  • Add the tomato, ground coriander, cayenne pepper and garam masala, stir them in until the tomato is hot, and then add the potatoes and 250ml water and the salt. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. 
  • Add the coconut milk and fresh coriander, stir and heat through. 

Organic Lamb Casserole with Ras el Hanout, Mint and Chickpeas

Here is another recipe for organic shoulder of lamb. These local lambs have a lot of shoulders! We have just finished eating this, and it was tender and delicious. We adapted it from Two Fat Ladies: Full Throttle and I used herbs and spices from seasoned pioneers.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 shoulder of lamb, about 2kg
  • 1 can of chickpeas, drained
  • 100ml olive oil
  • 2 onions, finely sliced
  • 1 pint of water or stock
  • 1 tsp dried mint
  • 2 tsp Ras el Hanout
  • Salt and pepper
  • 450g local potatoes peeled and chopped into large dice (e.g. Charlotte potatoes)
  • Juice of 1/2 a lemon.

METHOD:

  • Heat the oven to 140C
  • Trim the joint of any superfluous fat
  • Heat the oil in a large casserole and brown the lamb. Set the lamb aside. 
  • Add the onions and cook until they are soft but not brown.
  • Add the chickpeas and water, bring to the boil and then stir in the herbs, spices, salt and pepper, and the lamb. 
  • Put the casserole in the oven for 3 hours
  • Add the potatoes and lemon juice, cover again and cook for a further 45 minutes until the potatoes are cooked. 

Any left-over chickpeas and gravy are excellent as a separate dish. I served this with couscous and a salad. 

Butternut squash and black-eyed beans

I love black-eyed beans. This is a really easy stew that can be frozen in portions, and the flavour improves after cooking. I got the recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s book ‘Curry Easy’. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 350g black-eyed beans, soaked overnight in lots of cold water
  • 3 tbsp rapeseed oil
  • 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1 medium onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 1/2 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
  • 1 hot green chilli, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • a small pinch of cayenne pepper
  • 1 level tsp salt
  • 350g butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cubed in 2cm pieces. 

METHOD:

  • Drain the soaked beans
  • Pour the oil into a heavy pan, and set over a medium heat. When it is hot, add the cumin and fennel, and let them sizzle for 10 seconds
  • Add the onion, and stir to cook, until it is beginning to brown
  • Add the garlic, ginger and chilli and stir in for a  minute. 
  • Add the tomato paste, stir in and then add the beans, salt, cayenne, squash and 1.12 litres of cold water. 
  • Bring to the boil and then turn to a simmer for an hour. 

Serve with nan bread, a yoghurt dressing, pickles. I found that it was good cooked an hour in advance, and then kept warm until the guests arrived. 

Stew peas – red kidney bean and vegetable stew with spinners.

This is a great, tasty and filling stew, from ‘Original Flava‘ by Craig and Shaun McAnuff. It is also vegan, and very tasty. We used tinned beans and tinned tomatoes, but you could use dried beans and fresh tomatoes. As usual, we had to substitute a few things to dried versions; you could use whole allspice berries, fresh thyme, or a scotch bonnet pepper, but these are not readily available. 

The spinners are like long dumplings, but they should be very dense and quite chewy. There is more information about them here: https://www.thespruceeats.com/jamaican-spinners-recipe-2138153 

INGREDIENTS: 

  • 2 cans of red kidney beans, or 500g dried beans soaked overnight
  • 250ml water if using dried beans
  • 4 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely chopped
  • 2 heaped tsp dried thyme
  • 1 tsp ground allspice
  • 2 spring onions, roughly chopped
  • 1 level tsp salt
  • 1 to 3 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 can of coconut milk
  • 2 large waxy potatoes cut into 2cm cubes
  • 400g butternut squash or sweet potato, or a mix of the two, peeled, deseeded and diced into 2cm chunks
  • 3 large carrots, peeled and diced into 2cm chunks
  • 1 can of tomatoes, or 4 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
  • 1/2 tsp scotch bonnet paste
  • For the spinners: 250g plain flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 100ml water

METHOD:

  • Soak the beans overnight if you are using dried beans. Drain and rinse the soaked beans and put in the pan with 250ml water, and bring to the boil.
  • Add garlic, thyme, allspice, spring onions, salt, black pepper and coconut milk. If you are using tinned beans, use this as the base along with the water that is in the tins, rinse out with a little fresh water to get all of the flavour in. If using fresh beans you’ll need to simmer together for 30 minutes. Tinned beans won’t take so long.
  • Once the beans are hot and tender, add a little more water if required, along with the potatoes, carrots, squash, tomatoes and scotch bonnet paste. Cover and simmer for another 30 minutes. 
  • While all of the simmering is going on, start making the spinners. Mix together the salt, flour and water, and make into a stiff dough, kneed this and let it sit for about 15 minutes, before rolling out to make spinners the shape of a pointy sausage, about the size of your little finger. 
  • The beans should be soft. Add a little water if needed, and put the spinners into the stew. Don’t worry too much about stirring them in; they are quite heavy and will tend to sink. Simmer for a further 15 minutes. 

This is quite carb heavy, so we ate it on its own, but it is usually served with rice. It is good with a side dish of a green vegetable such as broccoli. 

 

 

Venison in red wine

This is a recipe from Elizabeth David ‘French Provincial Cooking’. We are making our way through the prodigious quantities of food in the freezer, and this time I hauled out a stew pack of venison. This was easy and tasty, I used the timer function on my oven to cook it slowly through the afternoon. 

INGREDIENTS: 

  • Around 900g to 1kg venison. If it is in one piece, tie it to a sausage shape
  • 4 tbsp full-bodied red wine
  • 4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp flour (I used gluten-free flour)
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 rashers of streaky bacon 
  • 1 onion, sliced

METHOD:

  • Put the venison in a container with a lid, and add the red wine, vinegar and olive oil. Leave to marinade overnight. 
  • Put the meat in a smallish casserole dish with the marinade. In a small cup, mix the flour with a little marinade to make a paste, and stir that in, also add the bay leaves and salt and pepper. 
  • Over the top of the meat, layer slices of onion and then streaky bacon. 
  • Cover, and cook at 150C for four hours. 

We served this with fried mushrooms and potato and celeriac mash. 

Rabbit with prunes and nuts

Another great rabbit recipe, this time from the north east coast of Spain. I cooked this in two stages. Simmering the rabbit slowly helped the meat to fall from the bone. Thank you to the supplier of rabbit. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 rabbit, jointed
  • 6 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 1 large peeled tomatos, finely chopped
  • salt and pepper
  • a pinch of dried thyme
  • 1 bayleaf
  • a glass of red wine
  •  12 ready-to-eat prunes (or soaked prunes)
  • a handful of pine nuts
  • a quarter of a lemon
  • 12 blanched almonds
  •  a large clove of garlic
  • 3 peppercorns
  • 1 tsp seasalt

METHOD:

  • Fry the rabbit in the olive oil, browning them. Set the rabbit aside until later
  • Simmer the finely chopped onion in the same pan, for around ten minutes.
  • Season with salt and pepper and add the chopped tomatoes. Cook slowly for half an hour, crushing the tomatoes to make a thick sauce
  • Add the rabbit back to the pain with thyme, the bayleaf and cover. Cook in a slow oven, around 140C for an hour and a half. Add the glass of red wine to keep the dish moist, about an hour into the cooking. If you are going to do this in two stages, you can pause here and chill until you are ready to finish the dish. 
  • Meanwhile, simmer the prunes in just enough water to cover, along with the pine nuts and the lemon. This should take half an hour.
  • Chop the almonds, and put them in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle, with the salt, and then add the peppercorns, and finally grind in the garlic.
  • Add the almond paste to the stew, stir in and cook for another fifteen minutes. Then, add the stewed prunes and stir well. 

We had this with new potatoes. Any other potato dish would be fine, as well as a small salad or green vegetables. 

Armenian bean and walnut beorijch

This is an unusual combination, very tasty and relatively simple and quick to make, especially if you use tinned beans. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 225g Black eyed beans (or 2 cans of black eyed beans)
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  •  1 clove of garlic, chopped
  • 2 large tomatoes, skinned and finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 125g walnuts (you could add or substitute almonds)
  • 2 tbsp chopped parsley
  • salt and pepper
  • a teaspoon of date molasses or sugar

METHOD:

  • Soak the beans overnight, and then simmer in plenty of fresh water for 30 to 45 minutes. Drain and set aside. 
  • If you are using walnuts bought in the UK, they are probably quite bitter. Soak them overnight in cold water as well, and drain. 
  • In a food processer, chop the notes roughly
  • Use a large pan. Heat the olive oil over a low heat, and cook the onion slowly for ten minutes. 
  • Add the garlic, tomaotes and tomato puree and continue to cook for a further ten minutes. 
  • Add the nuts, parsley and beans, mashing them together slightly. 
  • Season with salt and pepper, and a little date molasses. Continue to cook, stirring, for another ten minutes. 

For a variation, add a pinch of mild chilli flakes, such as Pul Biber, when adding the garlic. 

We served this with brocolli and greek flatbreads and feta cheese. 

Rabbits, apples and cider

We had this tonight, either this was an exceptionally tender rabbit, or the recipe was just fab. I think the latter. As it was midweek, I did my trick of doing the main cooking last night, and then reheating and cooking for another 15 minutes tonight. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 rabbit, jointed
  • seasoned flour
  • 50g butter
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 2 sticks of celery, finely chopped
  • 1 cooking apple, peeled and diced
  • 1 good pinch of dried thyme leaves
  • a good grating of nutmeg
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 200g pancetta or diced smoked streaky bacon
  • 300ml dry cider
  • salt and pepper

METHOD:

  • Heat the butter in a saucepan, and fry the chopped apples, onions, bacon and celery together. When the onion is soft and beginning to brown, set aside, and add the herbs and nutmeg. 
  • Dip the rabbit in the seasoned flour. Add a little more butter to the pan and fry the rabbit until the joints are browned. 
  • Add the cider and the fried onion mixture, bring to a simmer and season to taste. 
  • Cover and put into an oven heated to 150C for around an hour and a half. 

We served this with mashed potatoes and braised cabbage. It would be excellent with parsnips too.