Recipes from the Kitchen

Geoff’s wife creates tasty recipes with Terrick Beef.

She says: “This recipe takes a lot of preparation but the effort is worth it, especially if you double the quantities to make enough for eight servings as I have done here. In this way you can freeze half of it and have a day off cooking.

“You need to think about this recipe the day before you intend to make it, as the meat has to be marinated overnight.”

Braised Terrick Beef with herb dumplings

Serves 8

Ingredients:

Terrick Beef stewing steak (four 1lb bags/approx 2 kilos)

Bodgers Barley Wine (two 500ml bottles from The Chiltern Brewery)

1½pints/800ml beef stock (two oxo cubes mixed with water)

Two packets of bacon, streaky or back (approx 1lb or 400g)

Button mushrooms (12oz/350g)

16 shallotts (if you can’t find shallots use eight smallish onions instead)

6 tablespoons plain flour

2oz/50g English butter

4 tablespoons oil

2 bouquet garni

coarse ground black pepper

For the herb dumplings:

8oz/230g self-raising flour

2oz/100g shredded suet

1 teaspoon mustard powder

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 tablespoons thyme

Preparation time: three quarters of an hour prior to putting casserole into oven

plus extra time to cook vegetables and make dumplings

Total cooking time: two and a half hours

Method:

The night before you are intending to eat this place the Terrick Beef stewing steak in a bowl and pour the contents of the two bottles of Bodgers Barley wine over it. Leave in the fridge overnight until the next day when you intend to cook the recipe.
Drain barley wine into a container and set to one side.
In a large frying pan melt half the butter with half the oil. Add the bacon (chopped) and brown then transfer to a large casserole dish.
Brown all the Terrick Beef stewing steak quickly in the frying pan in batches, then transfer to the casserole dish.
Take the frying pan off the heat and stir in the flour. You are trying to achieve a smooth paste. Don’t worry if it is lumpy – we will deal with this later.
Put the frying pan (with the flour inside it) back onto the heat and add the barley wine, stock and coarse ground black pepper. Stir constantly and bring to the boil.
If you haven’t got a big enough frying pan you may have to do this in a couple of batches.
If you are anything like me you will have a few lumps, caused by the flour congealing. Not to worry. Put a sieve over the casserole pan and pour the liquid through it onto the meat. Discard the lumps collected in the bottom of the sieve.
Add the two bouquet garni to the casserole dish, cover and place it in a cold oven (not pre-heated) set to 200oC/400oF/Gas 6. Cook for 30 minutes.
Then reduce the temperature to 160oC/325oF/Gas 3 and cook for a further hour.
While the casserole is cooking in the oven you can prepare the vegetables and make the dumplings.
Heat the remaining butter and oil in the frying pan (the one you boiled the liquid in, to make use of the lovely flavours). Cook the shallots until golden. If you are using small onions, cut them in half before frying.
Lift out and set aside, then put the cleaned whole button mushrooms in and cook quickly for five or six minutes. Once cooked, remove the mushrooms and place them with the onions.
Now you can make the dumpling mixture. If you don’t like the feel of claggy mixture on your hands don’t worry, you don’t need to handle this at all. Here’s how. In a bowl mix all the dumpling ingredients. Add small amounts of cold water and fold the mixture with a blunt knife until all the ingredients are sticking together but are not too wet. The key is not to add too much water. Mould the mixture into one large mass with the knife and tip onto a piece of cling film. Put it into the fridge for at least half an hour. This makes it easier to work with.
When the casserole of meat has done it’s one hour at 160oC/325oF/Gas 3 add the onions and mushrooms and cook for a further 30 minutes at the same temperature.
When this time is up take the casserole out of the oven and set to one side for a few minutes while you create the dumplings. Take the mixture out of the fridge, open up the cling film and cut the mixture into quarters. Then take smaller slices off and mould it into small balls with the knife. You may want to use a fork as well. You should end up with approximately 18 dumplings depending on how large or small you make them.
Remove the casserole lid and pop the dumplings onto the top of the casserole. Cook for a further 25 minutes on the same temperature as before.
Remove lid from casserole dish, turn heat up and cook for further 10 minutes to give a slight crust to the dumplings.
Serve in bowls or on plates.
Warning: don’t forget to remove the bouquet garni bags before serving. The first time I made this I did forget and my daughter piped up: “Mum, there’s a teabag in my meal.” Whoops.