Week 39: Braised Beef with Bacon and Mushrooms

The book: Good Housekeeping Easy To Make Complete Cookbook

The recipe: p146, "Braised Beef with Bacon and Mushrooms"

Spoiler alert: the recipe says "Serves 4". It did not.

The last few weeks of the Random Kitchen project have thrown up some, shall we say, more traditional fare. Perhaps this reflects the sadly unadventurous nature of my cookbook shelf?

In any case, while shepherd's pie or side-dish couscous have certainly been known to crop up in my standard kitchen oeuvre, I tend to have neither the desire nor the patience to bash together a slow-cooked beef casserole of any variety, so I'm not going to complain about this week's opportunity to make further use of the heavy-duty kitchenware I purchased for Nigella's stuff floating in wine a couple of months ago.

Once more, this turns out to be something of an exercise in creative title-writing - as you'll see, there's no real reason why the mushrooms and bacon should be promoted to lead billing ahead of any of the other supporting ingredients here. But hey, who cares as long as there's plenty of beef?

Um, Google, I said beef...

The prep: The recipe allows smoked pancetta as an alternative to the titular bacon, so that's an alternative I grasp with both hands, because who wouldn't? The ingredient list is otherwise quite plain and hearty - an onion, a couple of carrots, a couple of parsnips, a couple of leeks, some chestnut mushrooms - and there's not much else I need to buy in for the occasion.

I consider replacing the requisite redcurrant jelly with lingonberry jam, best known in this country as the cranberry-esque accompaniment to IKEA meatballs, since our fridge always contains a jar of it in case of köttbullar emergencies. In the interests of accuracy, though (and because it's only 80p), I splash the cash on the good old-fashioned British variety, which we'll no doubt soon be exporting to a grateful France.

When it comes to the meat, I decide to take a punt and go one step lower than the humble braising steak called for by the recipe. If we're slow-cooking it anyway, let's see how some supermarket value-brand frying steak holds up. (Sustainability in farming, you say? What is this?)

The making: Shamelessly ignoring the very first line of the method, I hold off on heating the oven for now, as it's clear the pre-oven steps will take a while even allowing for having prepped the vegetables in advance. Anyway, the pancetta is fried until golden, then the leeks are added for a couple of minutes. This mixture is removed and set aside, then the sliced beef is fried in some olive oil until coloured and sealed on all sides. Then this is also set aside - see what I mean about the pre-oven steps? - and a chopped onion is fried in the residual oil and meat juices before the chunkily-sliced carrots and parsnips are added for a few minutes, during which time I finally set the oven going.

The beef is then returned to the casserole and heated through, with a tablespoon of flour added "to soak up the juices" (though there aren't really any left at this stage since they've all been picked up by the veg, which I suppose is a good sign). Next, 300ml of red wine and 300ml of water are added along with a couple of rounded tablespoons of the redcurrant jelly, and the whole thing is seasoned and brought to the boil. Lid firmly secured, the casserole is now ready to go in the oven for two hours at 170 degrees - not slow-cooking in the day-long sense, but not exactly rushing things either.

Once those two hours are up, the leek and pancetta mixture (remember that?) is stirred into the pot along with the mushrooms (halved rather than sliced, for further chunkiness), and back into the oven it all goes for a further hour. And that's it - the dish is ready to serve, so I yoink it out of the oven and prepare to garnish with chopped flat-leaf parsley as the recipe recommends.

That's my dinner, then - what are you having?

Unlike the tasty but time-consuming galette from way back in Week 9, this recipe really does satisfy the "Easy To Make" element of the cookbook's title. Sure, there's quite a bit of peeling and chopping to begin with, but we're not exactly talking about skilled labour here, and after that it's as straightforward as you like. Top marks on that front, then. But what about...

The eating? Well, first things first: the cheapskate beef is a triumph, lovely and tender and ready to fall apart at the slightest hint of contact with a fork, so fuck paying more, frankly.

That's not what makes this dish really work, though. What elevates it beyond your average beef casserole is the interplay of the flavours, from the subtle richness that comes with using a sensible quantity of wine (I'm looking at you, Nigella) to the smoky infusion from the pancetta (and the pancetta fat that's melted away into the sauce, natch) combined with the sweetness of the parsnip - and of the redcurrant jelly too, I suppose, not that you can particularly taste the latter, but that's probably a good thing.

It only strikes me afterwards that no stock is used, so it's not overly salty - often the Achilles heel of stews and casseroles. And the quantities of liquid involved mean it's not overly saucy either, unlike the aforementioned Nigella aberration, yet the ingredients are still cooked to tender perfection.

For all this may not be sophisticated cuisine, this is basically entirely heroic in pretty much every respect, and it makes me wonder why I don't make this kind of thing more often. I work from home, after all, so I have both time and a sturdy casserole dish on my side. Though I suppose there is the small matter of the long-term waistline impact...

Welcome to Braised Beef. Twinned with: itself.

While the recipe doesn't make any serving suggestions (as the above photo neatly illustrates), if I were making it again - and I will - then I suppose it could benefit from being paired with some crusty bread \o/ or a green vegetable, or you could chuck in some potato to flesh things out a bit.

Alternatively, you could do what we did and essentially accompany it with itself. Braised beef with a side portion of even more braised beef, followed by second helpings of braised beef. The perfect menu.

Serves 2, in other words - and only if you're quick.

One-word verdict: YES

Not that this meat-heavy recipe helped much, but I'm currently carb-loading for the Royal Parks Half Marathon, which I'll be running to raise money for Parkinson's UK and all the excellent work they do. It's nearly race day and I need all the support I can get, so if you're enjoying The Random Kitchen, I'd be superbly grateful if you'd consider donating to my fundraising page. Thanks!