Beef and Guinness stew

Happy New Year! Ohhhh, so many things to look forward to this year such as new dishes, new places, new experiences! I can’t wait!

I’m just back from a few days in Ireland, at home with me Mammy (hello Mammy!). Before I left, I made beef casserole for the family, something I haven’t eaten since Mammy made it every week or so when I was growing up.  I have to admit, I prefer mine to Mam’s (sorry Mam), and I’d no problem convincing SD to eat it. One thing puzzled me though. Mam’s beef casserole was pale brown while all the recipe’s I found included some tomato puree. I asked Mammy about this and she said that she simply dismissed the idea of putting tomato puree in! Anyway, it was yum, and it will be made again.

On my return to Belgium, I decided to make some beef and Guinness casserole, something that Mammy never made for us.

Beef and Guinness stew

I used another recipe from the RTE website for the casserole, and used some steak that was going for half nothing in the supermarket. There were only two of us for dinner last night, and we got two helping each, plus some left over for lunch for one today.

400g beef

1 tablespoon flour

a dribble of olive oil

2 carrots, chopped into rings

1 chopped onion

2 leeks, chopped into pieces about 2cm long

two cloves garlic, crushed

330ml Guinness (one bottle)

a dribble of water

1 teaspoon of Oxo/Bovril or beef stock

1 teaspoon of brown sugar

a few shakes of dried thyme, rosemary and savory (about a teaspoon of each)

170g lardons

2 small potatoes per person, or as many as you’d eat yourself

Chop the beef into bite-sized chunks and brown them in the olive oil in a hot, heavy-based pot. Once they’re all browned, remove them and cook the onion and crushed garlic for about five minutes in the remaining oil, then add the carrots and cook these for a few minutes.

Pop the meat back in and coat the whole lot in the tablespoon of flour, stirring well to coat the whole lot. Slowly pour in the bottle of Guinness and stir it through. I added a dribble of water, say about 30ml, and a teaspoon of Oxo together with a little salt and pepper and the herbs. Cover with a lid and simmer on a gentle heat for 40 minutes.

We both tested the sauce at this stage and thought it quite bitter, so we added a teaspoon of brown sugar to soften it. When you’re making yours, test it to see and season as you like.

Add the leeks and the potatoes, nestling them into sauce and scatter the lardons over the lot. Cover with the lid and cook until the potatoes are done – about another 20 minutes or so. The lardons really added to the dish, mellowing it out a lot. 

Pork and fennel tray roast with lemon and coriander

I’ve made this three times now, and this is the first time I’ve been quick enough to get a photo before it’s devoured! It’s really simple, and the kind of dish you can pretty much prepare, pop in the oven and leave there while you potter around. From fridge to table, it takes an hour.

Roast pork and fennel with lemon and coriander

The recipe comes from the May 2012 edition of delicious magazine.

For four people:

2 large red-skinned potatoes cut into chunks (new potatoes are in, so I used 3-4 per person)

2 fennel bulbs, sliced into eights

3 red onions, quartered

Olive oil

2 pork fillets (I used 600g), trimmed and cut into 8

Paste

2 preserved lemons, rinsed and dried and cut into pieces

A dribble of olive oil

Garlic cloves (I love garlic, so I use lots)

Chili – whatever amount you like, either flakes, dried or fresh

1 teaspoon of smoked paprika

1 tablespoon of honey

chopped coriander

Heat your oven to 180°.

Put the potatoes and fennel into a pot of salted water, bring to the boil and boil for 2 minutes. Drain well and put into a roasting tin together with the onions and the olive oil. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes.

While all that’s going on, either blitz all the paste ingredients in a blender or chop up finely and mix together (second option = less washing up). I always add a crumbled stock cube too, and of course a little salt and pepper.

Rub the paste all over the pork pieces and leave aside.

When your veg have hit the 20 minute mark in the oven, tumble the pork pieces on top and return the lot to the oven for another 20-25 minutes, until the pork is cooked through and the vegetables are soft.

As I’d some parsnips in the fridge this week I used these too. I just boiled them with the potatoes and fennel first. Yum.

Photos are en route (probably tonight).

Friday favourites - easy chicken tagine

This is from Nigel Slater, via the BBC, and I could find all of the ingredients in the supermarket. I used preserved lemons – I got these in the Carrefour at the Dreve Rochelle in Waterloo, in the ‘foreign foods’ section. You can also get them in any North African corner shops, should you have one nearby.

For the spice paste

2-3 large, juicy garlic cloves, peeled, roughly chopped

pinch sea salt flakes

2-3 good pinches smoked paprika

2-3 good pinches ground turmeric

1 tsp cumin seeds

glug olive or groundnut oil

For the casserole

6 large chicken thighs, bone in and skin on (I used chicken three breasts cut into about 5 pieces each to feed four of us)

good glug of olive oil

2 onions, peeled, roughly chopped

1 lemon, cut in half, thinly sliced (I used a preserved lemon - make sure you rince it first)

pinch of saffron strands (I had none, so I just left this out)

handful green olives, pits removed

small handful fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Preparation

For the spice paste, crush the garlic cloves and sea salt with a pestle in a mortar. Add the smoked paprika, turmeric and cumin seeds and grind to a paste. Add just enough olive or groundnut oil to make the paste runny enough to pour, but thick enough to coat the chicken.

Put the chicken into a bowl, pour the spice paste over them and toss well to coat all of the meat. Cover with cling film and leave to marinate in the fridge for as long as time allows, overnight if possible.

The paste, not pourable but thick

Heat the olive oil in a large shallow pan, then cook the onions until softened. Add the chicken thighs and cook until coloured lightly on both sides. Add the lemon slices and pour in enough water to come halfway up the chicken pieces. Stir in the saffron, if you're using it, then season well, cover with a lid and simmer for about 25 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and tender. Add the olives and fresh coriander and serve.

Chicken tagine

Bulgur with green beans

Bulgur wheat from Delhaize

I served this with some bulgur, made with lots of chopped green beans cooked off a bit first in water. 

For St Patrick's Day... Coddle

This is a dish that divides people; you either love it or hate it. Thankfully, everyone chez nous loves it, so in honour of St. Patrick’s day today I made it this during the week.

It is a very cheap and satisfying, warming dish. It’s also very simple to make.

You will need:

3-4 sausages per person (I only ever have used the ordinary, plain pork ones, no fancy ‘flavoured’ sausages for this dinner)

one smallish onion per person

A large potato per person

After experimenting with several types of spud, I find the more solid ‘frites’ style potatoes are wrong for this dish. I can't remember the best type, but once I do I'll post it here. I've tried lots of sorts of sausages from various places in Belgium - supermarkets, local butchers etc, but the best I've found are the breakfast sausages from Jack O'Sheas butchers. Husband encourages me to experiment with the ingredients, but no. Coddle is a traditional Dublin dish, from the poorest parts of the city, so none of your fancy garlic or parsley. 

You will need a pot or casserole dish with a lid.

Put the whole sausages into the casserole and cover with water. Over a medium heat, bring them to the boil. While your sausages are cooking, peel and chop the onions, and peel and slice the potatoes to about half a centimetre thick. Once at boiling point, take the sausages off the heat and discard up any foam.

The boiled sausages with a first layer of onions

Sprinkle a layer of the onions onto the sausages, followed by a layer of potatoes. Keep doing this till you use all the onions and potatoes. Add enough water to just cover the last layer of potatoes and finish with a generous layer of salt and pepper.

Put the lid on and pop the pot back onto the heat, turning it right down to low. Cook for about an hour or an hour and a half, until the potatoes are tender. Coddle is a very 'pale' dish - it has little colour - so don't worry if it looks anemic. 

Serve in bowls, with pints of milk (if you can get any decent tasting milk in Belgium!) or pints of Guinness.

A steaming bowl of coddle. And yes, I know what the sausage looks like...