Jools's Favourite Beef Stew

I have totally lost track on the cookbook challenge. I'm being too busy during weekends and recently very poorly organised. Plus all the extra time travelling to work doesn't help at all. I'm so behind that I'm not sure should I still continue or skip the themes I miss. Plus I will be away for 7 weeks in 3 months time. Definitely don't see myself stepping into the kitchen during the 7 weeks other than helping mum to do some cooking or washing. But I did mention to Mr. I'm thinking of documenting our vacation journey as I didn't manage to do it last year. Even suggested to split the load. I can concentrate on food and he on diving + places we travel. Should we? Good idea? Hope with IPhone + IPad + Macbook we won't have any more excuses :P

Back to food, last month we already experienced some cold weather in Melbourne. During such weather, I always hope to have a hearty meal and stew will pop into my mind. It's easy to  cook, minimum preparation, just dump everything into a big pot, slide into the oven.

Found this recipe from 1 of the Jamie Oliver's cookbook that I owned. I was wondering which to try as there are two very similar recipes in this book. In the end, chosen this because I had never cooked parsnip or even tasted them before. A good chance to give it a go.



Cookbook : Jamie's Dinners
Author : Jamie Oliver

Jools's Favourite Beef Stew
serve 4

Olive oil
A knob of butter (skipped it, don't think it makes too much different)
1 onion,peeled and chopped
A handful of fresh sage leaves (got it from my herb garden)
800g stewing steak or beef skirt,cut into 5cm pieces
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flour, to dust
2 parsnips, peeled and quartered (might had cut it too small )
4 carrots, peeled and halved
1/2 a butternut squash, halved, deseeded and roughly diced
Optional: a handful of Jerusalerm artichokes, peeled and halved (skipped this as well)
500g small potatoes
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1/2 bottle of red wine
285ml beef or vegetable stock (does beef cube count?)
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated (ran out of lemon at home)
A handful of rosemary, leaves picked (got this from my herd garden as well)
1 clove of garlic,peeled and finely chopped (Australian garlic which I love!!!)

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Put a little oil and your knob of butter into an appropriate sized pot or casserole pan. Add your onion and all the sage leaves and fry for 3 or 4 minutes.



Toss the meat in a little seasoned flour,then add it to the pan with all the vegetables, the tomato puree, wine and stock, and gently stir together.











Season generously with freshly ground black pepper and just a little salt. Bring to boil, place a lid on top, then cook in a preheated oven until the meat is tender. Sometimes this takes 3 hours, sometimes 4 - it depends on what cut of meat you're using and how fresh it is. The only way to test is to mash up a piece of meat and if it falls apart easily it's ready. Once it's cooked, you can turn the oven down to about 110 degrees and just hold it there until you're ready to eat.

Think I overcooked it, left it in the oven for too long. It was a bit too dry when I pulled it out from the oven. Both of us prefer to have more gravy for our bread. Plus most of the vegetable were all mashed up. Can't find any pumpkin, can only see pretty small chunks of carrot and parsnips if you notice on the 1st photo. It's still a nice and hearty stew regardless. Will try experience more stew recipes this winter :-)