Tonight's recipe: Slow-Cooked Beef in Ale with Stilton Dumplings

[chrishansenhome]

Decided that I needed to make something beefy, warm, and filling, but I'm tired of my usual beef stew.

For the beef in ale:
3 tbsp olive oil
900g beef chuck steak—cut into 3–4cm pieces
2 onions—roughly chopped (I used 1 onion and 1 leek, sliced)
1 tbsp plain flour
500ml Guinness (or some dark ale)
1 tsp English mustard
2 carrots—chopped into large chunks
2 parsnips—chopped into large chunks
400g canned chopped tomatoes (I added 1/2 tube of tomato paste)
2 bay leaves
For the dumplings:
200g self-raising flour (USans can use Bisquick)
100g beef or vegetable suet
50g Stilton cheese
1 tbsp fresh parsley—finely chopped, plus extra to serve
1 tbsp hot horseradish sauce

For the beef in ale: Preheat the oven to 160C/140C fan/gas mark 3. Heat the oil in a large, heavy based, flameproof casserole dish that has a lid and brown the beef pieces for 3–4 minutes in batches. Once the meat is well browned, transfer to a bowl. (I used a metal stew pot that's oven safe).

Add the onions to the pan and cook gently for about 10 minutes until soft and transparent, adding a little more oil and a splash of water if the pan seems dry. Once the onions have softened, add the flour and stir well. After a couple of minutes, pour in the Guinness or dark ale, scraping off any bits from the base of the pan as these give a good flavour to your stew. Stir in the mustard before dropping in the carrots, parsnips, tomatoes and bay leaves.

Return the browned beef and any juices that may have collected to the pan and season with a few pinches of salt and some black pepper. Bring everything to simmering point then cover with the lid and cook in the oven for 1 ½–2 hours or until the beef is lovely and tender and the sauce has thickened. Feel free to cook it on a low heat on the stove if you prefer.

For the dumplings: In a bowl, mix together the flour, suet and ½ teaspoon of salt using your fingertips to break up the suet – you can do this in a food processor too, of course. Next add the crumbled Stilton and the parsley to the bowl (remove the mixture from the processor if you’ve used one). Combine the hot horseradish with 150ml water and mix this into the dry ingredients, bringing it together with your hands until you’ve got a good dough consistency. Using your hands, roll the dough into 8–10 balls and set aside, covered, to prevent them drying out. (I just dropped tablespoonfuls of the batter into the stew.)

When the beef is soft and tender, taste the stew and check it for seasoning as it’s going to be hard to do this once the dumplings are on top. Once you’re happy with the flavour, drop the dumplings on top, cover with the lid and return to the oven or set on a low heat on the stove for 30 minutes.

After this time, the dumplings will have puffed up, so remove the lid and raise the temperature of the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4. (If you’ve been cooking on the stove until now you need to do the next bit in the oven or under a grill.)

Cook again until the dumplings have developed a crust on top. Scatter some chopped parsley over and serve in bowls with creamy mashed potato.
------------------------------
HWMBO said that the beef, even though it had cooked for 3 hours by the time it was finished, was a bit grainy. I, on the other hand, found that it melted in my mouth. I had never had dumplings that had anything other than flour and milk in them, so these were marvellously flavoured, having both Stilton and horseradish flavour. I would recommend washing the utensils and bowls as you go along, since you'll have a awful lot of dirty dishes to wash if you don't.

Apologies for the long entry, but I thought it might be useful.

Comments

[maxauburn.livejournal.com]

That looks wonderful!

[mango-king.livejournal.com]

Yum! I'm going to jot this day and make one of these Winter days. I root veggies, and I have my mother to thank for that - she was always cooking rutabagas when we were kids, beets, parsnips. The first time I made rutabagas for Roberto who looked up from his plate with a "WTF" look on his face. He does like them now though, along with black-eyed peas, so we are making progress. :-)