Simplified Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce - An Adaptation

 

Hello my dear people. I hope I have not lost you all on account of my absence these past few months. My apology to any of you who might have thought I had deserted  my blog. It's just been a bit brutal with work and other obligations lately, but here I am back with you and ready to bring you another recipe I hope will bring you happiness. 

Winter always makes me crave food that can warm up even the dreariest of days. We have been experiencing some very frigid weather so I started looking for some good stew recipes. I found a Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce recipe via Food & Wine on Pinterest that sounded very delicious. Of course I adapted it to fit my very lazy mood at the time. I wanted the stew I just did not want to spend too much time chopping vegetables . Here is my simplified version.

Simplified Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce

2 lbs Beef round steaks (About 3/4" thick) cut into cubes.

2 TBSP  Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 Medium White/Vidalia Onion - finely chopped

4-5 Garlic Cloves - Finely chopped

1 1/2 TBSP Flour

1 Bottle Red Wine (Ask your wine shop owner for one that will make a nice stew)

3-4 Medium Sized Bay Leaves

1/4 tsp Dried Thyme

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Put the olive oil into a dutch oven  and heat on medium high heat. slowly add in your beef cubes and season with salt and pepper to taste. make sure to brown the meat cubes on all sides. 

Add the onion and the garlic and cook until they become fragrant. Slowly add in the flour making sure to incorporate it without it creating any lumps. Slowly add in your wine using it to break up any flour lumps that might have formed. Stir in your bay leaves and thyme, distribute evenly. Simmer for one or two minutes and cover the pot.

Place the pot in the oven and cook for another hour and a half or so, allowing the liquid to thicken and reduce.

In the meantime you can either follow the directions on the Food & Wine recipe, or you can just make yourself some white or jasmine rice to accompany the beef. 

Below is an idea for you to make something with the left overs (if you have any). I just made a pizza with some caramelized onions, chopped kale and left over beef stew cubes. It was delicious. Here is the link for the pizza dough again. 

 

Enjoy and savor :)

Bobotie Adaptation

 One of the many reasons I am grateful for having lived outside the US is how much that has helped to broaden my horizons when it comes to food. I am particularly grateful for the time my family and I spent in Dubai, because were it not for it I would have missed out on a lot of cuisine from Africa that I might not have otherwise experienced. One of my favorite food finds during that time was Bobotie. For my US peeps Bobotie is a dish typical of South Africa, and the best way I can describe it is to say that it is like meatloaf but sooooo much better because of all the great flavors that go into it. I have made my version of it adapted from three different recipes, one which I saw in Spinney's Magazine while I was living in Dubai and the other two I found on the internet recently. I took ingredients that the recipes had in common and kept those while omitting stuff like raisins that my husband is not very keen on. Anyway here is my recipe:

Bobotie - An Adapted Version

1 Lb Ground/Minced Beef
1 Lb Ground/Minced Lamb
1 Large Carrot (Grated)
2-3 TBSP Olive Oil
3-4 Shallots (thinly sliced)
4 Garlic cloves (minced)
2 TBSP Curry Powder
2 tsp Tumeric Powder
3 tsp All Spice
2 tsp Ginger Powder
1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
1/4 Cup Water
2 Slices of Bread (Crumbled - I used Arnold's Whole Grains Oatnut Bread)
1/4 Cup Milk
Salt and Pepper to taste
4-5 Bay leaves


Preheat oven to 365 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat in a dutch oven adding the shallots and garlic. Saute until the shallots have become translucent.

Add in the spices adding water if necessary in order to prevent the mixture from becoming dry and clumpy.

Take the pot off the stove and add in your ground beef and lamb making sure to incorporate the shallot, garlic and spice mixture evenly throughout the meat.

Add in the grated carrot and incorporate evenly into the mixture.

In a separate bowl mix the bread with the milk allowing the bread to absorb the milk. Add this to the meat mixture making sure to incorporate it as evenly as possible.

Insert the bay leaves at even intervals, and now you are ready to place your pot in the oven. Make sure to cover and bake for about 1 hour.

** I want to note that you do not need to have a dutch oven to make this. You can just as easily prepare everything in a large pan and then transfer everything into a baking dish. Just make sure that the baking dish is deep enough to fit the meat mixture as well as the topping that is added onto it.

As you get close to the end of the baking time (5 minutes or so) you can start making the topping. Here is what you need to make it:

Bobotie Topping

1 Cup of milk
2 Large Eggs
1 tsp Tumeric
1/2 tsp Salt

Mix all the ingredients together until well incorporated and set aside briefly.

Once your baking time is done remove the baking dish/dutch oven from the oven and remove the foil/lid.

Raise the oven temperature to 400 degrees Fahrenheit

Pour the topping over the meat and place your dutch oven/baking dish back in the oven (uncovered) and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until the topping starts to turn a golden brown.

Remove from oven and allow to cool for a few minutes. It is recommended that this dish be served over yellow rice, but Jasmine rice works well too.

Enjoy.  

Here are the links to some of the recipes I drew inspiration from
Bobotie Recipe at Epicurious
Cleopatras' Bobotie - with secret sauce

Something With Cuban Flair - Ropa Vieja

For those of you who have not been fortunate enough to experience Cuban food yet, the best description that I can give of this dish is this: ropa vieja is to beef what pulled pork is to pork. It is delicious and makes my mouth water to just think of it. I am not Cuban so I do not claim to have the best recipe for it, but this is my adaptation of this wonderful dish.

Ropa Vieja a la Nydia

2 1/2 pounds of flank steak (Cut into strips along the length of the cut of meat AKA along the grain of the meat)

2 plum tomatoes (seeded, pealed and finely chopped)

1/2 Large Sweet White Onion (finely chopped)

1/2 Large Green Pepper (finely chopped)

5-6 Garlic Cloves (minced)

3-4 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 TBSP Tomato Paste

5 TBSP Sherry Cooking Wine

4-5 Cups of water

3-4 Large Bay Leaves

Salt and Pepper to taste

In a dutch oven heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the tomatoes, onion, green pepper and garlic. Saute the vegetables until the onions become translucent and the green pepper and tomatoes are soft. 

Add the tomato paste and stir it in to distribute evenly. Slowly add in 1 cup of the water and let the vegetables simmer for about 5 minutes.

Add the bay leaves and stir in the sherry. Add another cup of the water and let simmer for another 5 minutes.

Add the flank steak strips along with another cup of water, and place the cover on the dutch oven. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Season to taste.

Add 1 cup of water and lower the heat to medium low. Let the meat stew in the vegetable juices for another hour or so making sure to check in every 20 minutes or so to stir the pot and to make sure that the level of the liquid has not dropped too drastically (if it has then add the additional cup of water and lower your heat a little more). The goal of this dish is to make the beef very tender so that it can be pulled apart easily. The meat must have plenty of juices to sit in and more importantly, it must cook slowly (meat that is cooked in heat that is too high for too little time will always wind up chewy and inedible, the only exception to this is when you are searing a piece of meat. More on that when summer comes around).

Once your meat has cooked through and you can easily pull it apart into thin strands you will be good to go so you can turn off the heat or put it on extra low. Patiently and tenderly take that strips of meat out of the juice, pull them apart and put back in the dutch oven back into its beautiful juices and make sure that the shredded meat is drenched in them. 

Serve over rice and enjoy.