Beef in Beer

On my weekend jaunt across the border I bought myself some beef. I had the idea that I would make beef bourguignon from my new recipe book "The Complete Robuchon". Nice simple meal, beef, burgundy, onions. Nope. 19 ingredients (mind you that is including spices). Cooking time, 2 and a half hours plus 25 minutes for the onions, 5 minutes for the lardons and 10 minutes for the mushrooms. 5 pots or pans. 5!!!! As we say in Australia "bugger that for a game of soldiers". 

Beef in beer instead. 7 ingredients. 1 frypan, 1 crockpot - much better! 

900g diced beef 

3 medium sized onions, sliced 

3 large carrots chopped up 

500g new potatoes (cut larger ones in half) 

Olive oil 

2 large cans of beer (or one bottle) 

2 beef stock cubes 

Chop the carrots and cut in half the bigger of the potatoes. Put in the crock pot/casserole. Heat up a fry pan with a little oil, and brown the meat in batches and add to the crock pot. 

Cook the sliced onions in the pan till softened and a little browned. Pour some of the beer into the pan to lift the delicious browned bits from the pan. Pour into the crockpot and add the rest of the beer and the stock cubes. 

If using an electric crock pot, cook for 7 hours on low. If using a pot on the stove, simmer gently for 2 hours. How easy is that? Ok so it takes a while to cook, but effort? Almost zero and the taste... delish!

Handful soup

Dinner tonight was a super quick and easy soup. I am dubbing it "handful soup" because it is assembled from handfuls of ingredients; no measurements, no fuss. 1 handful of dried mushrooms 1 handful of frozen peas 1 handful of snow peas torn in to pieces 1 handful of rice stick noodles 1 mushroom (or beef will do) stock cube about 2 cups of water 1/2 a star anise In a saucepan, bring the water to the boil. Add the dried mushrooms and star anise and simmer for about 15 minutes until the mushrooms are rehydrated and tender. Add the stock cube, rice stick, frozen peas and bring back to the boil. After about 3 minutes (when the rice stick has softened), add the snow peas and turn off the heat. Allow to sit for a minute, and serve. Easy eh? The star anise is the real secret to making this soup fragrant and irresistibly delicious.

Stuffed chicken leg

Wanting to make sure that I had not lost the knack of deboning chicken legs, tonight I made mushroom-stuffed chicken legs, served with a light redwine sauce and mushroom wildrice.

Mushroom stuffing
2 slices of stale bread
2 eggs
salt
pepper
2 large mushrooms
herbs to taste

Finely chop the mushrooms and put in a bowl. Break/crumble the bread into the bowl. Season and then add the eggs and combine. Stuff into the cavity of the chicken leg, then place them into a baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes in a preheated moderate oven. If there is left overs, you can put it in a twist of foil and pop it in the pan with the legs to cook.


Now I get to find out whether anyone is reading my blog! I can do step by step instructions on how to debone a chicken leg; let me know if you want me to!

Cream of mushroom soup

1 onion, finely chopped
275 g sliced mushrooms (mixed white and brown)
1 tblspn butter
2 tblspn flour
2 cups milk
handful of dried sliced mushrooms (cover with boiling water)
1 chicken stock cube
1 mushroom stock cube

Fry the onion in a pot with the butter until softened and going golden. While the frying is taking place, cover the dried mushrooms with boiling water and let sit. Add the fresh mushrooms to the pot with the onions and cook for 3/4 minutes. Sprinkle with flour and continue to fry for a few minutes. Add a splash of milk and stir rapidly to blend as smoothly as possible (a whisk can be useful for this).

Once blended, add milk gradually until all milk is used up. throw in the dried mushrooms (including the soaking water) as well as the chicken and mushroom stock cubes. Bring to a slow boil and then drop temperature again.

If you like your soups a little saltier, add a splash of mushroom soy, and for an extra kick, you can add a generous splash of vermouth (sherry is also good). Serve.

I blended this soup because of my current non-solids diet, but what I would recommend is maybe blending three quarters of the soup until deliciously smooth, then adding the rest back in, so that you can enjoy the texture of the pieces of mushroom.