red wine Archives - Just Julie

The British Stew

Julie Olive — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 19:41:36 +0000

Today we are still in lockdown in the UK due to Covid-19. This morning I woke up in a cooking mood. At first I wanted to cook 3 meals for today, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

However I ended up only cooking 2 meals. Brunch of roast chicken with noodles and dinner is traditional old British stew.

So early in the morning I phoned my mother in law and went over with her the steps for cooking this dish. I have watched her enough time cooking it but it’s nice to hear her instructions kekekekekeke She did give me a very crucial information that I did not know before!!! Then I realised why I don’t like cooking stews. It sticks to the bottom of my pan and I need to soak overnight to wash!

However due to my mother in law’s tip I cooked the best stew ever and nothing stuck to the bottom of my pan. My son woofed down 5 dumplings when he came back from. I will definitely cook this for him again! His ‘so good mum’ makes me so happy.

It is seldom that I cook stew because I am also not a big fan of stew but today I cook for my son as I know he loves a good stew with dumplings, lots of my special dumplings. Also when he last went out to do shopping with his Dad a fortnight ago he bought a stew pack – a packet from the supermarket containing the root vegetables for stew. I think that is a big HINT!

I have a few potatoes left so I decided to add them in too to bulk it up a bit. Both the hubby and the son were really happy!

Note – Traditionally you can serve this with mashed potatoes but I prefer to stew the potatoes as well. One step of work less.

The British Stew

Ingredients

Stew Ingredients

3 tbsp Butter
2 tbsp Plain flour
1 kg Beef (I used beef and lamb chops)
3 Potatoes
2 Onions
3 cloves Garlic
1 small Swede
2/3 Parsnip
2/3 Carrots
1 cup Red wine
2 cup Beef Stock
2 Beef OXO cube
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 Bay leaf
1 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
1 tin Oxtail Soup
1 tin baked Beans
Freshly ground pepper
Freshly ground salt
Leeks/ Celery/ Peas (optional)

Dumplings

120 g Flour + baking powder if not self-raising
60 g Suet
Salt
Pepper
Water

Instructions

Chunked your meat and dust them with flour, Seasoned with some salt and pepper. Fry in melted butter.
When your meat is browned, removed and set aside.
Fry your onions and garlic till fragrant then add back in your protein and beef stock.
Put in your oxo cubes, the Worcestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar. Cover and simmer for an hour till the meat is soft and tender.
While your meat is STEWING make your dumplings. Just add everything and form to a ball then into smaller balls.
When your stewing beef is tender enough add in your root vegetables and oxtail soup. Stew for another 30 minutes.
When your root vegetables are tender enough add in your baked beans. bring the whole pot to boil and place your dumplings around the sides. Cover and stew for 12 minutes or so and it's ready to be served.

Notes

TIP – You must add the baked beans in LAST, bring to boil and add your dumplings in immediately or your stew will stick to the bottom of your pan! I found out today it is TRUE!!!!

TIP – I did not have enough beef today so I mixed beef and lamb.

TIP – I did not have leeks and celery so I used some peas, sweet corn mix vegetables from my freezer.

TIP – Beside the root vegetables pack for stew I added a few red potatoes.

British Stew with dumplings

Beef & Lamb
Seasoned flour
Fry in butter
Onions & Garlic
Beef Stock & red wine, bay leaf.
Beef oxo
Worcestershire Sauce & simmer for an hour.
Add in all the root vegetables & simmer for 30 minutes
Oxtail soup
Baked Beans & bring to boil

Making the dumplings
Shaping
Putting in the dumplings immediately when the beans are boiling.
Stew the dumplings for 12 minutes
It’s done! The dumplings are 3 times the size!

The post The British Stew appeared first on Just Julie.

Posh Spaghetti Bolognese

Julie Olive — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 19:57:06 +0000

As I am going to cook spaghetti bolognese today I just realised that my recipe in my old blog is still missing from this new blog. So I have decided it’s time I update it here in this new blog.

My boy asked for his comfort food and I made the bolognese sauce today so he has a few meals as his tapau.

There are many ways of making a bolognese sauce and almost every household has their own secret recipes. This humble origin from the Italy city of Bologna is now a household staple here in England. The French add in bouquet garni, some uses a touch of cream and in UK children from baby to the elderly love spaghetti bolognese. It is fed to baby like rice porridge in Malaysia. Of course the Italian purist would say we have corrupted their dish.

This take about 30 minutes of cooking, an hour of simmering and after that it is a very flexible and versatile sauce with many usage.

Posh Spaghetti Bolognese

Ingredients

Knob of butter
Minced beef
Beef OXO cubes
Minced garlic
Minced onion
Panchetta or smoked lardons
Worcestershire sauce
Red wine (full bodied)
Passata
Tomato puree
Mixed herbs

Instructions

Please read the pics below for instructions

Spaghetti Bolognese with shaving of Parmesan
Giant Fusilli Spaghetti Bolognese

I like my beef mince to be a bit brown and seasoned. In a clean pan fry your beef. I used a knob of butter.
When mince beef separate add in 2 beef oxo cubes. These will season the mince beef nicely.
Add in 2 onions and a few cloves of minced garlic. Note – If you have small children who don’t like big lumps of onions mince them smaller a bit. Note 1 – when my son was young I grate in carrots too (Y) Start with just a little not too much then slowly increase. Actually my ‘outlaws’ told me in the olden days poor people adds in grated carrots to bulk up the bolognese
Add in panchetta or more smoked lardons or bacon. This gives it an extra ‘ooom’ Note – Some personal family recipe add chorizo it’s all your preference Note 2 – you can add the lardons earlier to get the oil out but I preferred not to. Note 3 – or you can just omit this part if you find it hard to get but taste will be different
Sprinkle in a few drop of worcestershire sauce. If you are wondering what to do with this bottle besides just in this dish, drip some on your finger and try it. It’s a nice seasoning. Note – highly recommend on top of grilled cheese on toast
After about 20 minutes of frying till everything is all nice and incorporated it’s time for the red wine. Use a full bodied red wine. I use a whole bottle except for one glass (someone drank it) You can use beef broth if you are cooking for your baby.
Let the wine cook down to half
bay leaves or you can add a bouquet garni.
This is what makes a bolognese sauce. The passata – I used 2 packets of 500g.
Add in 1 tbsp of tomato puree – this gives it the rich red colour
Note – if you have that left over tomato sauce bottle in the cupboard you can rinse it out and add in too!
Herbs time Mixed herbs is always easy and on hand. Sprinkle some in. As my son grows up he likes the taste more. He don’t like it when he was young. I sprinkle a big tsp but again it is up to you. You can add in a few bay leaves or you can add a bouquet garni.
You can taste now Add in freshly ground peppers. I did not add any salt because the oxo cubes were salty and I plan to serve with Parmesan and it’s a bit salty. Note – sometimes if too sour you can add in a tsp of sugar as some tomato passata are a tad sour depending on the season they were harvested.
Cover and turn heat down and let to simmer for an hour. The bolognese sauce will become rich and shinny
Boil your pasta and makes sure don’t over boil. Overcooked pasta is horrible.
Place some sauce onto your still hot pasta on the still hot pot.
Mix a couple of minutes till the pasta soaked the sauce up

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SousVide Beef Brisket Steaks in mushroom red wine jus

Julie Olive — Sat, 15 Dec 2018 21:15:32 +0000

SousVide Beef brisket steak (28 hours), roasted banana shallots, creamy butternut squash, buttered asparagus, pickled roasted red peppers served with a red wine mushroom sauce.

I promised my boy lollipop that he will be getting only English food this week. Hence my SousVide machine has come out to play. I bought some beef brisket as they looked very nice and I do not mind beef brisket cooked SousVide as they are quite a tasty cut. However cooked normally it could be quite tough. This beef brisket steaks were about 3 cm thick but when SousVide at 140F for 28 hours they were really tasty and tender.

SousVide Beef Brisket Steaks in mushroom red wine jus

Ingredients

beef brisket
Mushroom Red Wine Jus
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp mince shallots
1 tsp mince garlic
1 pkt brown chestnut mushrooms
1 tbsp Roux mic butter & flour equal amount
1 cup red wine
salt and pepper
Butternut Squash Puree
peeled and cubed butternut
butter

Instructions

Mushrooms Red Wine Jus

Melt butter and add in the chopped shallots and garlic. when fragrant add in the mushrooms
Add in the red wine. Reduce to half by boiling before adding the beef stock.
After adding the beef stock let it reduced to half by boiling.
Add the roux slowly and stir till it reach the consistence you want.
When done, add in any excess juice from your beef SousVide and a slice of butter for a glossy jus.

Butternut Squash Puree

Preheat oven to 200 C/Gas 6. Place squash on a baking tray and drizzle with melted butter. Roast in the preheated oven until tender and slightly brown, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Cool until easily handled. Scoop flesh into a food processor; pulse until smooth. I put into a pipping bag to pipe on plate,

Asparagus

Just blanch in hot water and just laced with butter.

Butter shallots & garlic

Mushroom, beef stock & red wine

Butter and flour

The roux

The SousVide beef

Torching

Dane

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