The beef has been slowly cooked and the sauce is very flavoursome. The parsnip and kumara mash and green beans balance and finish off the dish really well. Very tasty and satisfying dinner for a cold winter’s evening.
You can of course vary the mash and cook a straight potato mash or kumara without the parsnips if you don’t like parsnips! Alternatively a purée with your favourite vegetable.
Ingredients
1.5 kgs stewing beef such as blade, chuck, brisket or cheeks – I use chuck cut into large 5 cm pieces
Seasoned flour
3 tbs olive oil
2 onions roughly diced
3 sticks celery, diced
2 carrots, roughly diced
2 leeks, white part only, sliced
3 cloves garlic, peeled
200 gms pancetta lardons finely diced or 250 gms streaky bacon finely sliced
375 mls red wine
375 mls beef stock
6 large sprigs thyme
3-4 bay leaves
Handful of parsley, chopped for garnish
1 kg parsnips, cut into 3-4 cm pieces
1kg kumara – I prefer the orange kumaras but up to you! Cut into 3-4 cm pieces
3 packets green beans
Cooking instructions
- Dust the beef with some seasoned flour
- Heat 2tbs of the olive oil in a large frypan on med-high heat, add the beef and brown the meat – this may take more than one batch. Remove and put in large casserole dish
- Add remaining tbs of the olive oil, reduce heat to med, add the onions, garlic, leeks, celery, carrots and pancetta/bacon and cook until just starting to brown. Remove and mix in well with the beef
- Pour wine and stock into the frypan with the herbs and bring to the boil. Pour over the beef and vegetables ensuring the beef is covered
- Put lid on and cook on the stove, bringing to the boil and then reducing to low heat and cook for 2 to 2.5 hours until beef is tender
- With about half an hour of the beef cooking time left, bring a pot of salted water to the boil and boil the kumara and parsnips for about 15 mins. Drain and mash with milk and some butter and finally season
- Just before the beef has finished cooking, steam/blanch the beans for 3-5 minutes subject to how crunchy you like them
- Remove the beef from the pot and discard the thyme sprigs and bay leaves
- Using a hand held stick blender, puree the braising liquid, put in saucepan on low heat until sauce thickens to a gravy consistency. When done, add the sauce and beef back to the casserole dish or a serving dish if you want to serve at the dining table
- Sprinkle the chopped parsley and serve the beef with the veg mash and beans
Serves 6