Beef Chuck Casserole

The cut of meat which I chose for this winter warming dish, is the chuck, which is a primal cut from the forequarter of the cow and includes the shoulder, neck and upper arm muscles. As this is a piece of meat which requires a lot of slow cooking to release its goodness and become more tender.

The difference between a stew and casserole is easy to distinguish, a stew is cooked on the stove, whereas a casserole begins on the stove and finishes in the oven to complete its cooking.

 The stock: For those of you who live busy lives and don’t have the time to make this stock you can alternatively use 1 litre of boiling water from the kettle and three OXO Cubes.

• Veal bones roasted in the oven for an hour
• Carrots roughly chopped
• White onions roughly chopped
• Celery roughly chopped
• Red wine
• Cold water
• Black pepper corns
• Bay leaves
• Thyme sprigs

1. To begin the stock, place the veal bones into a large roasting tray and roast in a hot oven for one hour, as you want to make a dark stock in this case colour equals flavour.
2. Whilst the bones roast, in a large range master pan heat a little olive oil once the pan is up to temperature add your roughly chopped vegetables and leave them to catch on the bottom of the pan. Ensure that you move them a little as you don’t want to burn them but caramelise and release their natural sweetness.
3. Once the vegetables have reached a beautiful golden brown, deglaze the pan with one third of a bottle of red wine add this in gradually over the caramelising process, this way it means the alcohol burns off leaving a beautiful rich flavour begin.
4. Remove the bones from the oven and carefully place into the pan, ensuring you don’t allow any of the fat to enter the stock. Give the bones and the vegetables a quick 15 minute blast on a high heat. Deglaze with a little more red wine. Add the bruised bay leaves along with the thyme sprigs and whole black pepper corns.
5. Then add cold water to cover, then bring to the boil and leave for as long as you possibly can as this way you extract all of the goodness from both the bones and vegetables. As you will not be eating the vegetables afterwards.
6. Once boiling reduce to a rolling boil for at least 2 hours.
7. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
8. Once cool remove the bones and discard of them, then drain the stock once through a very fine sieve and then a second time through muslin as this ensures all of the impurities are removed leaving behind a beautiful rich stock.
9. As for this recipe you only need one litre of stock, place the strained stock back onto the heat and allow to reduce. By completing this reduction you just increase the flavour.
10. Once reduced remove from the heat decant into a glass pyrex jug, and reserve for later on in the process.

The Gents Classic Chuck beef casserole:

Ingredients:

• Chuck beef Diced
• 1 large turnip – Washed , peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 large parsnip – Washed, peeled and roughly chopped
• 4 large carrots – Washed, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 large white onion – peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 large red onion – peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 punnet of button mushrooms – stalks removed and halved
• 1/3 bottle of good quality drinking red wine
• 2 sticks of celery – washed, peeled and roughly chopped
• 2 leeks – washed peeled and roughly chopped
• Sea salt
• Freshly Cracked Black Pepper
• Tablespoon of plain flour
• 2-3 Bay leaves bruised
• Thyme sprig
• Dash of medium quality of olive oil
• 1 litre of the freshly made stock.

For this dish it is tricky to portion control but roughly it should feed 4 – 6 people but it can feed one man for a week! To begin this winter warmer of a dish prepare all of the ingredients as outlined…

1. Place a large cast iron pryex casserole pan onto a medium heat with a little olive oil, whilst the oil warms in a clean bowl place your diced chuck beef along with one tablespoon of plain flour, freshly ground black pepper and sea salt use your hands to combine ensure that all of the meat is covered as this acts as a natural thickener along with the gelatine from the bones.
2. Pre- heat your oven to 150 degrees, as you want it to be piping hot when the casserole enters.
3. Once the all of the meat is covered place it into the casserole dish and allow to cook until coloured and caramelised once at this point remove from the pan and place into a clean artisan bowl until required later.
4. Deglaze with a little of the red wine, to remove all of the cooked on goodness as this theatrically forms the base for your rich intense gravy.
5. Now add all of the vegetables along with the bruised bay leaves apart from the button mushrooms as you will add these just before it goes into the oven. Allow them to colour a little and release their natural sweetness. Once again deglaze with a little more red wine and allow the alcohol to cook off.
6. At this point add the seared chuck back into the casserole dish and cook for a further 5 minutes. Then add your bad boy stock so that it just covers the contents of the casserole pan, add your mushrooms and allow the content of the pan to come up to the boil before placing it into the oven.
7. Season with freshly cracked black pepper, a little sea salt and lastly add your fresh thyme sprigs place on a tight fitting lid.
8. Place into a pre-heated oven at 150 degrees for roughly 1 hour and a half. To test if the casserole is ready test each piece of vegetable along with a piece of chuck to make sure that it is beautiful and tender.

To serve: Ladle into pre-warmed artisan bowls, serve with sea-salted butter and a fresh loaf of bread. Enjoy in front of an open fire with a good quality glass of red wine.

The Gents Recommendation: Go for a bottle of red Burgundy wine from Bordeaux.