Casserole for Helen!!!

Cinnamon Beef

I'm not too sure about the measurements in this as i usually just chuck it all in but here goes....


You need:

good stewing beef - brisket, skirt or silverside. Enough for two people.
1 large onion
2 large carrots. peeled and halved
2 large potatoes peeled and halved
roughly 5 tbs red wine vinegar
3 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp balsamic vinegar (optional)
5 cloves
plain flour
olive oil
salt
black pepper
ground cinnamon
2 tsp beef gravy granules


Righty ho then,

Cube the beef into large-ish chunks about 1" square.
half fill a plastic bag with flour and then put in the beef cubes and coat well. Take out the cubes and get rid of the excess flour. I put them in a sieve and give them a good shake.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Sprinkle the meat liberally (and I mean liberally!) with cinnamon and black pepper. Fry in batches of about 7 pieces so as not to overcrowd the frying pan. You need to get them to a good golden brown. The smell is wonderful so don't be hungry when you cook this! Remove the meat from the pan but don't throw away the residue in the pan.

Put the fried cubes of meat into a large ovenproof casserole dish.

Next bit. Don't stand too close to the frying pan when you do this or the old nasal passages will suffer!

Heat the residue in the frying pan so it sizzles. Pour on the red wine vinegar, stand back for a bit, add in the garlic, bay leaves, cloves and 2 tsp ground cinnamon, a bit of salt and some black pepper. Simmer for about 5 minutes and then pour over the beef.

Finely chop the onion and put in with the beef. You can put in whatever vegetables you like for this.

Add enough water to cover the beef and vegetables, sprinkle in about 2 teaspoons of gravy granules (not strictly a cheffie thing I know but who cares?) and then put in the oven on a low heat for at least 2 hours. The meat has to be tender and the potatoes cooked through. If the potatoes mush a bit don't worry - say it was on purpose to thicken the sauce!

When the beef is cooked, you can thicken the sauce with some cornflour. I teaspoon of cornflour diluted with about 3 teaspoons of water should be fine.

Serve with rice.

Good luck and let me know how you get on!

Lisa
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