Lois's lemony beef

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking for a new idea for a slow-cooked beef casserole.  I had some cross-cut blade beef in the freezer, but I didn't want to make the basic recipe, nor did I want anything using tomato, such as my go-to Italian classic, stufato alla romana - I use canned tomatoes a lot, but this time I fancied something different.
            So I turned first to Lois Daish.  There was nothing quite right in Dinner at Home, so I tried A Good Year - I remember going to the launch with Harvey in 2005.  Sure enough, I found exactly what I was after: Slow-cooked Beef, Carrots, Garlic and Lemon. It sounded both easy and different. The other thing I really liked was that it didn't use any unusual ingredients - I had everything I needed to hand. Although Lois wrote it for slow cooking in the oven at a low temperature, I thought it would work just as well in a slow cooker, and it did.
              I've reproduced Lois's recipe here as she wrote it, with my added notes for using a slow cooker instead. She always seems to include useful instructions that teach me something, such as "Brown the meat on at least two sides" - in other words, you don't need to ensure every side of each chunk is browned. And her introduction to the book's section on "Slow Beef" explains why it's important to allow a stew to cool down for a few minutes before you serve it:

            "This is because as the stew cools the pieces of meat, which always dry out as they cook, start to soak up the gravy (something like a sponge that has been squeezed dry and then put back in the water). This explains why a second helping of stew often seems more succulent than the first. To make up for the heat lost while the meat relaxes, always serve stews on very hot plates."

              Her dish was such a success that I made it again the next week for my neighbour Frances.  The fresh, lemony flavour is unusual with beef, but it worked extremely well. I served it with broccoli and mashed potato one week, and a green salad and baked potato the next.

Slow-cooked beef, carrots, garlic and lemon
(Lois Daish, A Good Year, 2005)
Serves 4

 750g beef blade or cross-cut blade steak
6 medium carrots
2 tablespoons mild oil
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, peeled and finely diced
6 cloves garlic, peeled and finely diced
fresh thyme and parsley leaves, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups beef stock, home-made, canned [or boxed] or packaged          
grated zest of 1 large lemon
juice of 2 lemons
a little water as needed

To finish
chopped parsley
grated zest of 1 lemon

[f you are using a slow cooker, turn it to high. If using the oven, set it to 140C.]

Carefully trim all fat and silverskin from the meat, but leave in place any seams of gristle, which will soften during cooking. Pat the meat dry with paper towels and cut into large chunks.
Peel carrots and cut into chunks of similar size to the pieces of meat.

Put a little oil into a frying pan [preferably cast iron rather than non-stick] and heat until very hot. Place the meat in the pan, being careful not to crowd the pieces - you'll probably need to brown it in 2 batches. Brown the meat on at least two sides and season with salt and pepper.

While the meat is browning [or later if, like me, you're not good at managing tow things cooking at once] chose an enamelled cast iron casserole dish [or deep non-stick pan] and add the butter, diced onion and garlic. Stir over a moderate heat until the onion is translucent, then add the herbs and flour. Stir until the flour starts to colour, then add the stock, lemon zest and juice. Add the browned meat and carrots.

Add a little water to the frying pan [the one you cooked the meat in], return it to the heat and scrape up any juices in the pan. Add this to the casserole. The liquid should almost cover the meat and carrots, so add a little more water if needed. [You need a little less water for the slow cooker.] Bring to the boil, then cover and put in a low oven, about 140C, for about 2 hours until very tender.
[For the slow cooker: after you bring it to the boil, transfer it carefully to the slow cooker. Cook for about 4 hours until very tender.]

Before serving, remove the casserole dish from the oven or turn off the heat.
{For the slow cooker, turn the cooker off 20 minutes before serving.]
Check seasoning and leave to rest for 10 minutes before sprinkling with parsley and lemon zest.

Dinner-time light is always a problem, so the photo isn't great (the mash was Agria, but it wasn't that yellow!). But I hope it gives you the general idea.

An Italian classic

This is my battered 35-year-old copy of Ada Boni's classic Italian cookbook, The Talisman. It was first published in 1928, and was a huge success. By the time it had reached its fifteenth edition, it ran to 866 pages and had 2000 recipes, but half of them weren't of Italian origin. When Matilde La Rosa did the English translation in 1950, she kept only the genuine Italian recipes. In 1975 it came out in paperback. I was living in London and bought it there. It was my first introduction to real Italian cooking - until then I'd only produced the vaguest of imitations, like scone-dough pizza and spaghetti bolognese made with a packet of oxtail soup.

Tonight my niece Jenny and her friend Mark were arriving back from a tramp up Mt Holdsworth, so I knew they'd be wanting solid comfort food. At lunchtime I put the slow cooker on and made an old favourite, Stufatino Alla Romana - Roman beef stew. I hadn't made it in the slow cooker before, but it worked very well indeed. We had it with mashed potato and a parsnip and carrot mash. Although I put in 700 grams of gravy beef, there wasn't much stew left over.

The original page with this recipe is well-stained and eaten through with little bookworm trails. (The creatures that ate it aren't really called bookworms, but I don't know their correct name.) Here's my version, slightly adapted over the years:

Ada Boni's Stufatino Alla Romana
(To serve four people)

1 onion, chopped into small but not tiny pieces
2-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
50 grams bacon, chopped into small pieces (the best kind is that solid lump of bacon you can buy from some specialty suppliers such as Moore Wilson in Wellington, but ordinary leanish bacon is fine)
700 grams cross-cut blade or gravy beef, cut into smallish cubes
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon (approx.) chopped fresh oregano
250 ml (a third of a bottle) robust red wine (not pinot noir)
1 tablespoon tomato paste (the translation says puree, but I'm sure that's wrong, it's too feeble)

If you plan to cook this either on the hob or in the oven, use a shallow casserole with a lid that you can put directly on the heat. If you want to use the slow cooker, use a frypan and transfer everything to the cooker for the long cooking part.
If using the oven, set it to 180C. If using the slow cooker, set it to high.
Saute the onion and garlic gently in the oil until slightly brown. Add bacon, fry briefly. Add meat, salt, pepper, oregano, and let meat brown gently. Pour wine over and cook until liquid is reduced by half. Add tomato paste and only just enough hot water to cover meat. (If you're using the slow cooker, put everything in it at this point and add more water only if it really looks too dry - you won't need much.)
Cover and cook for at least 2 hours, either on a very low heat on the hob (you will need a simmer mat for gas) or in the oven. Check halfway through to see if it's getting too thick and sticky, and add a little water if necessary. In the slow cooker it takes about 5 hours on high.
"The sauce should be dark and very savoury" says Ada. She recommends serving it with braised celery, but I prefer smoothly mashed potato and whatever other vegetable you fancy.