2012 Cooking Club Week 14: Red wine and rosemary beef stew with Yorkshire puddings

A versatile receipt with a lot of room for modification and tinkering. Meat, vegetables, herbs and wine can be adjusted depending on taste. This is my favourite configuration (at the moment ).

Red wine and rosemary beef stew with Yorkshire puddings, 4 portions.

Ingredients: (in order of appearance)

3 tbsp. vegetable oil
500g beef, I use braising steak from M&S
1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic
~150ml-250ml cups red wine
1 tin whole peeled tomatoes (400g)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1.5-2 beef stock cubes
a few sprigs of rosemary
500g small carrots (or ~5 large carrots chopped into smaller pieces)
250g brown mushrooms
2 Bay leaves

3 eggs
~200g milk
~200g flour
vegetable oil

Method:
Chop the beef into equal sized bits and coat with vegetable oil, salt and pepper.
Heat a skillet or frying pan to a high heat and brown the meat in small batches until all the meat is browned.
Move the meat to a large pot and add finely chopped onion and minced garlic to the skillet. Brown the onion for a few minutes then add it to the meat in the pot.
Deglaze the skillet with 150ml of the red wine, then add the wine from the skillet to the pot.
Add the juice of the tomatoes to the pot, remove any skin from the tomatoes and finely chop the tomatoes and add to the pot.
Add the soy sauce, 1.5 beef stock cubes, finely chopped rosemary a half a cup of water. Bring the pot to boil and let it gently simmer for at least 90 mins (the time to cook will vary depending on temperatures and meat used, I usually let it cook for at least 2 hours). Stir every once and a while and add some water if nearly all the liquid has evaporated.

Start the Yorkshire puddings while the stew is cooking. Gently whisk the 3 eggs in a bowl. Add an equal amount of milk (probably around 200g, but it depends on the size of the eggs). Finally add an equal amount of flour, adding a little bit of flour at the time while whisking. Put the batter in the fridge.

When the meat seems cooked add the carrots, chopped brown mushrooms the bay leaves and a little bit of water if necessary. Add some more beef, stock, wine and/or chopped rosemary if necessary and let the stew continue to simmer. Put on the oven to 230 and add 1 tsp vegetable oil to each hole in a 12 hole muffin tin and put the tin in the oven until the oil is very hot.
Add 2 tsp water to the Workshire pudding batter and give it a good whisk. Then fill each hole in the tin just below half full and return the tin to the oven.
Leave to cook for 15-20 mins until they puddings are golden brown.

When they are cooked remove them from the oven and serve them with the stew.

Photos:



Searing the meat.



Chopped Tomatoes, I have been told that I'm a bit obsessive compulsive about my hatred of tomato skin and hard bits, but they do not add anything taste-wise and have an unsuitable texture.



Making the batter.



I usually don't use a thickener (like flour). I prefer to cook the stew until most of the water has evaporated and you get a fairly thick sauce (like in the image above). However if you prefer more sauce you can coat the meat in flour before you fry it.




Maybe not as perfectly shaped as store bought ones, but they are very tasty!



The final dish, not lit very well but I didn't get any complaints when it came to its taste.