Create a delicious beef stew with dumplings
A great beef stew is simple to cook, a bit of patience and quality ingredients will deliver amazing results.
With any stew you can add any vegetables you fancy, the long slow cooking processs will intensify the flavours and provide you with a treat for friends and family.
An amazing beef stew starts with amazing beef, shin is a popular choice but other cuts work well because it is cooked at a low temperature over a long period of time.
For this recipe we are keeping it simple, first the beef stew:
1lb of diced beef
1/2lb potatoes
2 large carrots
2 small onions
1 leek
1 clove of garlic
herbs
1 pint of vegetable stock
Beer - optional
Preheat the oven to 150C if fan assisted or 160C for a conventional oven
First - often forgotten, turn the oven on!!
Start with getting your ingredients ready. Peel the carrots and potatoes. Slice the onions, leek, garlic and prepare your vegetable stock.
Lightly flour your beef with seasoning. I put a couple of dessert spoons of plain flour in a plastic bag with salt and pepper and shake it until the beef is lightly coated,
Brown the lightly floured beef in a small amount of oil. You want to do this in the casserole pot.
Browning the meat is simply frying it at a high heat until it gets a bit of colour - this adds extra flavour.
Do a small amount at a time and when its brown put those pieces of meat in a bowl until all the meat has colour.
You may need to add more oil as you do each batch.
The pan will get crispy bits on the bottom - we want to keep this in the pan - it adds flavour.
Once the meat is all browned add the sliced onions, leeks and garlic to the now empty casserole pan, fry all the ingredients for a few minutes.
Again a little more oil may be needed.
Once you have a little colour on the onions you are ready for the next stage.
Now add your chosen vegetables and stir together with the heat still on. A couple of minutes will be enough.
Add the meat back to the beef stew - it's looking great now.
Optional! Add some beer to the stew, around 400ml. The darker the beer the richer the gravy will be.
Add the vegetable stock and stir it all together.
Add your herbs - pop the lid on and pop it in the oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours
Now for the dumpling recipe.
This recipe doesn't use suet, personally I prefer the suet version which uses a beef suet rather than butter!
115g of salted butter
200g of self raising flour
3 atblespoons of water
Egg to brush dumplings
Get your ingredients ready - it's a simple recipe flour, butter and a little water
Add 115g of diced salted butter and 200g of self raising flour and mix with fingertips.
Keep mixing gently until the mixture forms what looks like breadcrumbs.
Then add three tablespoons of water.
Bring together the mixture to form a dough
Remove the beef stew from the oven and remove the herbs, add gravy if more liquid is required.
Divide the dough into around eight balls. Brush with the egg, place the lid back on.
Return to the oven for 25 minutes.
To crisp up the top of the dumplings you can take the lid off for the last 5 minutes and turn the oven up to 220C.
Top tip - test one of the dumplings before serving to ensure it is cooked through.