Category: beef

Categories
beef chilli coriander cumin food onion oregano tomato

11 minute chilli

11 minute chilli con carne

I’m a big fan of chilli, I’ve probably cooked it more than anything else. I particularly like ones that sit there and blip away under their own steam for hours. I was looking forward to cooking a chilli tonight.

But I’d had a rotten evening. Little Miss Spud was rotten sick and was in no mood for going to bed. There were many changes of clothes (for me and her), things to wash, bottles to fetch… Eventually she dozed off, and it was time to cook. I reached for the takeaway menus… but didn’t. I had planned on doing a chilli and gosh darnit, a chilli I was going to make.

I floated the idea on Twitter about cooking a chilli in 10 minutes. “Not enough time”, scoffed Gary Dickenson. “It can’t be done!” wailed Food Urchin. “Keep us posted” urged Simon Loves Food. Well, that was that – no turning back now. I had to do it.

The problem is to develop those flavours does take time. There needed to be some sneaky shortcuts in there to amp it up and cut down the cooking time, hence the ingredients list is fairly long – but generally full of store cupboard stuff. The hard bit is that it’s one of those dishes where you keep adding stuff but by bit and each part needs to come back to the simmer. So I drew together some ideas that I’ve flirted with before: frying mince to release the oils and then add the onion to that, and creating a thick tomato paste packed with flavourings to form a flavour base. So I cooked these parts separately and combined them at the end.

And I have to say it was really tasty, and really worth it. Of course it’s not the same as a slow-simmered chilli ticking away for hours, and it would’ve been nice to stick some kidney beans in there (I just didn’t have any to hand) to nod back to the ‘usual’ recipe. But it’s a good alternative and great for busy weekday evenings. Oh, and it came out at 11 minutes rather than 10, but I can live with that.

11 minute chilli (serves 2):

400g beef mince

Two cloves of garlic, crushed

1 tin of tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato puree

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 onion, peeled and sliced into half-moons

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon coriander

1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

1/2 teaspoon oregano

A large handful of tortilla chips

150ml boiling hot beef stock

Mushroom ketchup

Frank’s Red Hot Sauce (or other chilli sauce you like)

  1. Preheat your oven to top whack, and get two frying pans over a high heat.
  2. Add a splash of oil to both pans. Pop the mince in one of them and let sizzle and stir occasionally to colour all over. Meanwhile in the other pan crush in the garlic and 10 seconds later throw in the tomatoes, puree, and paprika. Keep stirring this too when you have a minute. Both pans should be bubbling fairly furiously.
  3. When the mince is coloured all over it will probably have released some fat. Throw the onions into this along with the cumin, coriander, chilli powder and oregano. Add a pinch of salt and keep stirring.
  4. Scatter the tortilla chips in one layer and pop in the oven for a couple of minutes to warm through and become really brittle.
  5. Now add the beef stock to the mince and again keep stirring and shaking. By now the tomato paste should be quite thick and pulpy, so add this to the mince mixture.
  6. Keep the heat high as you bring it all together and allow it to reduce naturally. Add a shake or two of both mushroom ketchup and hot sauce and check for seasoning. When you’re happy with it serve with the tortillas, grated cheese, soured cream, guacamole, etc. etc. whatever things you like to serve with chilli.
Categories
beef food worcestershire sauce

worcestershire sauce brisket

I’m crazy about brisket recipes. Just leaving that juicy, flavour-packed meat to simmer away until it pulls apart into those flakes is just irresistible. I just had to give this recipe a go when I saw it in Jamie’s Great Britain.

…And what a disappointment. The texture was beautiful, really tender, but the flavour was frankly medicinal. Definitely a case of too much of a good thing.

Jamie serves his in a sandwich with pickled cucumber, I served mine more as a traditional roast.

Worcestershire sauce-marinated brisket (serves 6 – 8):

1kg beef brisket

2 onions, sliced

1 x 150ml bottle of Worcestershire sauce

1 stick of celery, sliced

  1. Chuck everything in a large casserole dish. Bring to the boil, turn the heat down and simmer for 4 hours until the meat pulls apart. Allow to cool slightly in the broth before serving.
Categories
bay beef food pearl barley pie rosemary stock

kate & wills jamie oliver beef pie

Y’know when Jamie’s on his thing? Going for it like a nutter and saying this recipe is the best thing ever? Well I got caught up in his craziness and decided to make this, the kitchen sink of beef pies. I made a tiny change in substituting stout for red wine (can’t abide beer / lager etc in pies – beer batter on fish is just vile) but other than that it’s the same.

This recipe from Jamie’s Great Britain is just OK – yes, a decent beef stew with a pastry lid but no more than that. I was quite disappointed all told, I was expecting fireworks but ended up with a perfectly OK pie.

Good, but not worth making again.

PS. A big shout out to Farmer’s Choice for their excellent casserole beef though – meltingly tender and full of flavour.

Kate & Wills’s Wedding Pie (serves 6):

2 sprigs rosemary, leaves picked

2 bay leaves

2 red onions, peeled and sliced

500g casserole beef, diced

1 tablespoon tomato puree

200ml red wine

1 tablespoon flour

750ml beef stock

70g pearl barley

1 teaspoon English mustard

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

50g Cheddar cheese, grated

For the pastry:

150g plain flour

50g suet

50 balt

1 egg, beaten

  1. Put a large casserole pan over a high heat and add some olive oil. Toss in the herbs, onions and meat with a little seasoning. Mix well and cook for 10 minutes.
  2. Add the tomato puree, wine, flour and stock and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down low, stuff the lid on and cook for an hour. Then add the pearl barley and leave for another hour. Remove the lid and simmer for another 30 minutes. Add the mustard, Worcestershire sauce and cheese and check the seasoning. Leave to cool while you make the pastry.
  3. Rub the flour, suet and butter together until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in 60ml cold water and bring it together. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for half an hour.
  4. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Ladle the stew into a deep pie dish. Roll out the pastry to about 1cm thick and cover the pie dish. Brush over the egg wash and bake for about 45 minutes, or until the pastry is golden.
Categories
beef

steak

Few things in food get me more excited than a lovely piece of steak. And this sirloin steak from Farmer’s Choice is an excellent specimen. Based in Fareham Farmer’s Choice have been providing free range meat for over 20 years. They kindly sent me a selection of products to try all individually frozen so it’s really convenient to get as much or as little out as you need for dinner.

You can see how good it is raw; marbled and ruddy brown, with a loose flaking texture. When cooking I added the bare minimum of flavourings so the natural taste of the beef could come through. And it was a really tasty piece of meat, strong and savoury with crispy yellow fat.  Usually I buy rump for economy so to have sirloin was a bit of a treat.

If you struggle with steak, you can read 1,000 words I wrote about it previously, or distill it to a few simple rules: really high heat, let it rest, and buy really great meat.

Steak (serves 2):

2 x 400g sirloin steaks

¼ beef stock cube

  1. An hour before you want to cook, get the steak out of the fridge. You’re not going to cook the steak for very long even if you like it charred, so allow it to come up to room temperature first.
  2. Fifteen minutes before you want to cook, get your frying pan on super-hot, as high as it will go. You may wish to temporarily remove the battery from your smoke alarm (but don’t forget to put it back in, I’d feel terribly guilty if you didn’t). Also put your oven on 150°C and pop an ovenproof plate in there to warm up.
  3. Crumble up the stock cube and rub liberally all over the meat. Shake over some olive oil and wait for your pan to start shimmering. Lower them in and just leave them be for a few minutes.
  4. Flip them over and cook for a further couple of minutes. Doneness is up to you and the best way to figure it out is to press the meat in the pan with your finger and feel how bouncy it still is. After cooking a few steaks this will become your best guide for how done they are.
  5. When done, turn your oven off and carefully remove the plate and plonk the steaks on that. Leave for about five minutes.
  6. While the steaks rest, add about 100ml of water to your pan and use a wooden spoon to scrape at the crusty bits. After a few minutes’ bubbling this will reduce to a syrupy consistency, at which point serve up your steaks and pour this beefy nirvana over your meat.
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