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Do not follow this recipe, it makes a bland and insipid stew

Acquire a quantity of beef bones from the butcher. Roast them in the oven for about half an hour, then stick them in a large saucepan with 2pts water, one onion quartered, one carrot roughly chopped. Ignore on low heat for four hours, turn off and leave overnight. Discard the bones, strain the stock.

Take one pack of Asda casserole beef; roll the bits in seasoned flour (flour + two sprinkles mixed herbs + a bit of ground pepper) and fry them in olive oil until brown on both sides. Put them in a casserole.

Chop five medium boiling-potatoes into bits about the size of the beef bits, chop four normal carrots into bits which are carrot-cylindrical and as long as they are wide. Put them in the casserole

Chop one onion into small bits, fry them in the pan you fried the beef in until well-fried. Deglaze the pan with a bottle of beer (I used Hobgoblin), transfer the beef-with-onion-in to the casserole. Add about half the stock.

Stick in the oven at 180C for an hour and a half, notice that the liquid is still very watery, add two tablespoons of cornflour mixed up with water, stick in the oven for 45 more minutes. Eat with peas and complain about the bland insiptitude. The texture's good, the meat lumps look right, but the flavour has escaped the meat and somehow not ended up in the gravy.

Date: 2008-06-11 10:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] j4.livejournal.com
This may not be the problem you were looking for,, but IMHO there is a catastrophic lack of dumplings in/on the stew as described. :-}

Date: 2008-06-11 10:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fivemack.livejournal.com
I was already feeling fairly daft making Stodgy Winter Stew on a beautiful summer's evening (but I'd bought the stewing-beef, and I couldn't think of anything cool and summery to be made with stewing beef); dumplings would just be taking the suet.

Besides, I don't have any suet.

Summery beef

Date: 2008-06-12 10:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] j4.livejournal.com
Owen made a rather surprisingly marvellous beef salad the other day, though that was sandwich beef rather than stewing beef. It had apple and yoghurt and mustard in and was quite unlike any salad I'd ever eaten. I will prod him to post the recipe, if I remember.

Stew and dumplings is nice (are nice?) at any time of year. Can you make dumplings without suet? It's just generic fat, innit?

Re: Summery beef

Date: 2008-06-12 11:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] papersky.livejournal.com
You need suet for proper dumplings.

However, vegetarian suet (Broadlands, available in any Sainsbury's) is actually better than real suet, and has the advantage of keeping forever.

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