A little fresh red bell pepper provides a different garnish here.
Each year as a cook and food blogger, I take advantage of the fact that I’m a faithful person observing Lent who needs to get a little more fish in her life. (I am a progressive Christian– a lifelong Presbyterian worshiping with the United Church of Christ.) Continue reading
My niece Jamie is a married mom of three with a demanding full-time job as an accountant for a big company. With no time to cook, she just laughs and says, “I don’t even know how to feed my family!” Husband Jerry is not an admitted cook, either. And that’s the way it is for lots of young moms and dads. Continue reading
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| Made in a deep, heavy 8 quart cast iron pot with a lid (Dutch oven) |
Last year around this time, I made a pot roast with big pieces of butternut squash and halved onions in the oven. A day later I took the leftovers, including the gravy, and made stew. Stew from leftovers is definitely an improvement over freshly made stew. There’s a deeper, fuller, and more flavorful rich quality–without question. It’s just that there’s usually less than when you make a fresh pot. That stew made very quickly with the addition of more onions, celery, and Guinness stout, etc., was divine. I mean it, it was an incredible stew. When my boss tasted it (and she’s a really good cook), she said, “Alyce cooks for God, you know.”
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| At the top of Dublin’s Guinness brewery, there’s a 2DIE4 pub…here’s one view. |
No who knows totally why one time things are so scrumptious you want more and more — and another time (same ingredients and method apparently) it’s like, “This is ok. Yeah, we can eat dinner here.” Perhaps it’s the quality of the meat (in the case of stew) or maybe it’s a little pixie dust. Your taste buds might be on their “A” game so that you are able to season the pot in an extraordinary way. Truly, I just don’t know. I know when I’m tired — really exhausted– the meal prepared under those circumstances is plebian. I just did that recently, so I know. I know when I don’t give something my undivided attention that it’s bound to be less interesting. (As in the kids are hungry-throw a bunch of cut-up chicken in the oven and make some rice for God’s sake.)
Despite the fact that I make several pots of stew over the winter each year, I remembered that one. I also remembered I was determined to recreate it from scratch if possible. Hence this pot of stew that, by the end of the cooking, morphed into one big pot pie.
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| We could choose between three temperatures of Guinness pints. Dubliners love their Guinness and speak highly of the company that has employed and taken care of many of them over the years. |
Options:
**If you’d like stew only, add a cup or two more liquid, and skip the biscuits. You could, without question, make the whole pot of stew in a pot on the stove.
**I did not try it, but I’d guess it’s possible to make the stew all day in the crock-pot–cutting down the amount of herbs–, pour it into an oven-safe pot and bake with the biscuits right at dinner time.
**Another option might be (again, I didn’t try this) to cool the stew and top it with puff pastry, brushing the pastry with a little melted butter or an egg wash–one egg beaten well with a teaspoon of water. (If you put the puff pastry on hot stew, it’ll be melting.) You would then need to bake in a hot oven (400 degrees F) until the puff pastry was golden. That might appeal to some cooks more than making biscuit dough. Here’s a method.
**Like Bisquick biscuits? Go on; I won’t know, though I encourage you to learn to make biscuits. I once knew a woman whose husband insisted he married her because she could make beaten biscuits in her sleep.
** I also give directions –see “Cheddar-Dill Biscuits” scrolling down — for baking and serving the biscuits separately if that suits you better.
Come cold, there’s little more satisfying than a pot of stew in the oven. I encourage you to use the oven method if you can. Play cards. Listen to music. Watch “Michael” or “The Quiet Man,” if it’s St. Pat’s One of the interesting things about this stew is it’s made without potatoes though you could add some if you’d like. I prefer other root vegetables and stick with carrots, turnips, parsnips, as well as celery, onions, garlic, and butternut squash. I’ve you’ve no butternut squash, use extra carrots, parsnips, or a combination. Serve this with another couple of cold Guinness stouts or a glass of your favorite Syrah or Côtes du Rhône if you’re not a dark beer person. (You’ll still love the stew; I promise.)
Five St. Pat’s Movies to Watch This Weekend (Washington Post)
guinness beef pot pie with cheddar-dill biscuits
a look and cook recipe
Total preparation and cooking time: approximately 2 1/2 – 3 hours.
Serves 6-8
( Read through before beginning. Scroll down for separate ingredients list and biscuit recipe)
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| Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. To an 8 qt Dutch oven over medium-high heat, add 3 tablespoons canola oil. When hot, add 2-3 pounds beef chuck (seasoned well with 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper) cut into 1 – 1 1/2 inch pieces. Brown well in two batches, removing the first batch to a plate while you cook the second. |
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| To the second batch of browning beef, add 2 large chopped onions. When beef is nearly brown, add four cloves chopped garlic. Cook a minute, return first batch of beef to the pot, and stir in 2 tablespoons flour. Cook 2 minutes, stirring. |
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| Pour in 2 cups each beef broth and Guinness stout, and stir well to scrape up the bits at the bottom of the pot. Add 1 bay leaf, 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley, a large sprig each of fresh rosemary, thyme, and sage.* Stir in 1/2 teaspoon prepared horseradish or a good hard shake or two of Tabasco. |
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| Add 4 ounces quartered button mushrooms along with one each turnip and parsnip , 2 carrots, 2 stalks celery, and 1 cup of butternut squash, all cut into around 1/2 inch pieces. |
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| Bring to a boil stirring occasionally. Taste and adjust seasonings. Cover and bake in the oven 1 1/2 – 2 hours or until beef and vegetables are tender and sauce is thickened. |
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| Remove from oven and take out the fresh herb sprigs.^ If stew is very, very thick, add a cup water or broth, but no more stout. Biscuits will soak up a lot of the liquid as they bake in the stew. |
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| Meanwhile, make cheddar-dill biscuit dough. It’s a very wet dough. (See below for recipe.) |
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| Spoon biscuit dough (I used a wooden spoon) onto the top of the cooked stew. Brush biscuits with a tablespoon of melted butter. Biscuits will rise and expand to nearly cover top of pie. |
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| Return to oven and bake uncovered another 20-30 minutes until biscuits are golden brown. |
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| Serve hot with a crisp green salad. Store leftovers well covered in frig 2-3 days. Rewarm in another casserole in oven. |
Ingredients List (see below for biscuit ingredients): 2-3 pounds beef chuck roast cut into 1 – 1 1/2 inch pieces; salt and pepper; 2 large onions; 4 cloves garlic; 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour; 2 cups each beef broth and Guinness stout**; 4 ounces button mushrooms; one each turnip and parsnip; 2 carrots; 1 cup cut butternut squash; 1/2 cup chopped parsley, 1 bay leaf, and 1 sprig each rosemary, thyme, and sage*; 1/2 teaspoon prepared horseradish or Tabasco.
*You may substitute two teaspoons each dried rosemary (crumbled) and thyme with 1/2 teaspoon ground sage.
**If you don’t want to use beer, use all beef broth.
^ Leave in bay leaf. Whoever gets it has good luck!
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cheddar-dill biscuits for pot pie
Cook’s Note: This recipe is for the biscuits cooked in the stew. If you want to bake a pan of these biscuits separately, decrease the milk to 2/3 of a cup and mix until the dough just comes together. Turn out onto a floured board or counter and knead 10 times or so before patting or rolling out the dough until it’s about 1/2-inch thick. Cut biscuits out with a floured 2-inch round biscuit cutter. You could also cut the biscuits into squares or rectangles with a sharp knife. Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit (220C/Gas Mark 7) on a baking sheet or in a big (10-inch) pie plate for 15 minutes or until golden. You can serve the biscuits with a pie server in the pie plate at center of the table. They’ll stay warm a good long while and your family or friends can help themselves.
Stir together dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Add cold butter and using a pastry blender or two knives (you can use just your fingers or even do the whole thing in a food processor), cut in the butter until the butter is mostly blended and the mixture appears sandy. Stir in cheese. Pour in milk and mix well without over-mixing. (Using a large spoon, divide dough fairly evenly around the top of the pot pie and brush with the tablespoon of melted butter before baking.)
Sing a new song; listen to Rob Leveridge,
Alyce
(first posted october 2012 right here on More Time)
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| I like a pasta bowl for lamb shanks and sides…sit them up in the rutabagas to show them off. |
If you’re a bit unsure about lamb shanks… what they are or how to cook them, here’s the deal: they’re pretty much like cooking a tiny pot roast on a big old bone. Whatever treatment you’ve given beef chuck roast is probably going to work with lamb shanks–which are from way up on the lamb’s leg. Since the meat is tough, it needs to be braised (cooked in liquid) and the braising liquid of choice is often wine, though it needn’t be. A stiff stout would work, as would broth, tomatoes, cider and water…whatever floats your shanks. Add root vegetables and/or onions, celery, garlic, and you’ve an entire meal. Even just onions and wine with a bit of dried rosemary will give you something well worth eating. Most recipes call for two lamb shanks per person; there isn’t a lot of meat on one. I find that given the vegetables and sauce inevitably cooked with them that one is plenty.
I start lamb shanks on top of the stove and finish them in the oven, cutting off about a 1/2 hour cooking time compared to all oven braising. They can also be done totally on top of the stove, paring down the cooking time even more to about an hour total. Because I wanted a simple rutabaga mash as a base, I cooked the rutabaga separately stove top just like you would mashed potatoes, except I added fresh ginger and garlic to the cooking water. You could certainly cook the rutabaga in the pot with the meat for ease of preparation; add them for the oven time only. Or, if you wanted, you could mix up a bit of couscous (in place of the rutabaga) while the lamb rests or even make a salad in place of green beans. I added potatoes mostly because I wanted them for the next day stew. It won’t take much (and actually there are vegetables in the sauce) to finish this meal. Then, there’s
way fast shanks in the microwave
If you’re interested in under an hour (really), folks have also been microwaving lamb shanks with great success since 1989 thanks to THE NEW BASICS COOKBOOK (Workman, 1989) written by Silver Palate gurus Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. These shanks are done in 30 minutes. Just for fun, here’s the info for microwaving the shanks: (And by the way, I microwave my chuck roasts for chimichangas.)
In a 2 qt microwave-safe casserole, cook 2T olive oil at full power for 2 minutes. Stir in 1 cup chopped red bell pepper, 3/4 c chopped onion, 2 cloves minced garlic, 2 sprigs rosemary (1/2 t dried), 1/2 tsp salt, freshly ground black pepper, 3/4 cup dry red wine, and 1T tomato paste. Cook, uncovered, 5 min. Remove 1/2 of the vegetable mixture and set it aside. Lightly oil 3 small lamb shanks with a bit more olive oil and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Arrange shanks in a triangle over the vegetables remaining in the casserole. Cover, and cook for 20 min. Turn the shanks and cook another 10 min. Spoon the reserved vegetables over the shanks, cover, and cook 2 minutes. Remove the casserole from the microwave, and let it stand for 5 minutes before serving. Serves 2-3.
Still a great all-purpose cookbook. ( above recipe courtesy THE NEW BASICS)
If you’d like to try them my way, do what Dave and I did: put on some great music, pour yourself a glass of wine, and throw this in the oven to braise while you put your feet up and talk through the day. While you can sure eat lamb shanks alone, they’re worth sharing. And, wonder of wonders, if you didn’t eat the third lamb shank, you can make a beautiful stew next day…recipe down below.
wine
While the French like Bordeaux with lamb, I am partial to a softer, rounder wine here like Burgundy (Oregon Pinot Noir to be exact; good French Burgundy is out of my price range generally speaking) or a (red) French Côtes du Rhône, which is a Grenache blend. These wines, for my palate, compliment the softer, sweeter notes in the root vegetables. So, yes, you’ll need two bottles of wine for this meal. One for you and one for the pot. (Not a bad deal.) Ask your wine shop about an inexpensive–under $15– Côtes du Rhône; there are lots of tasty values. The Oregon Pinot will be pricier for the most part (though there are some $20-$30 bottles), but really worth it for a splurge or birthday. These wines will be $40-$50 and up and are often cellared for several years before drinking. So if you head toward the Pinot for you to drink, pick up something less expensive for the pot. Which ones: I love most Oregon Pinots, but have soft spots for Prive, Ken Wright and Sineann,
Try this:
alyce’s lamb shanks with mashed ginger rutabaga, new potatoes, and lemon-crumbed green beans serves 2-3
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| Raw lamb shank |
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| Let them brown well on each side |
4. Return lamb shanks to the pan. Reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook on stovetop 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
5. Place covered pot in oven and bake another hour or so until meat is quite tender…maybe even coming off the bone if you like it like that. (Meantime, make the rutabaga mash (see below for recipe) new potatoes and green beans–no recipe provided for these. I do like a bit of bread crumbs with lemon and pepper on my beans. What I do is throw a piece of great white baguette in the food processor and then toast those crumbs in a bit of butter and grated lemon peel. When the beans are steamed and salted, and peppered, I top them with the lemon-crumb mixture)
Making a sauce and serving up:
1. Remove the cooked shanks to a warm dish and cover. Place back in oven to keep warm while you make the sauce and mash the rutabagas.
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| Cover and return to oven to keep warm while you make the sauce. |
2. In the pan you should have a 1/2 pot of lovely gravy with soft carrots, onions, and so on. If you can do it, spoon off a bit of the fat and remove the small sticks leftover from the rosemary and thyme. Taste and see if it needs seasoning. If you have an immersion blender, haul out the power tools and blend this sauce a bit—as smooth as you’d like. If no immersion blender, you can carefully transfer some of the sauce and veggies to a food processor or simply mash away with a potato masher. Taste again and adjust seasoning if needed.
3. In a large shallow bowl, place half of the rutabaga mash and carefully sit a lamb shank, bone up, in the mash, so that it stands at attention. Spoon a generous serving of sauce on meat and mash. Repeat with the remaining serving(s).
4. Add steamed potatoes and green beans, if serving. Garnish with chopped parsley.
5. Serve hot. Let leftovers cool completely, cover well, and refrigerate 1-2 days until you make stew.
mashed ginger rutabaga 2 servings
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| Cut up the cooked new potatoes for the stew; they go in toward the end or they’ll disintegrate. |
two dog kitchen and what else I’ve been cooking:
Pan-Roasted Brussel Sprouts and New Potatoes with Parmesan and Onions
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| I blogged this on my other blog, Dinner Place, The Solo Cook |
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| When do we get to walk? This computer stuff is getting old, Mom. |
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| Testing a new bread machine. |
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| Leftover grilled chicken with pomegranate seeds, berries and cabbage-spinach salad with sherry vinaigrette |
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| Our Gab |
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| Zabaglione…will make again and blog… |
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| Chickadees, in bitter cold, grab seeds and break them with their beaks while standing on metal feeders. Brr. You think you have food problems.
Sing a new song, and cook lamb! |
