Christmas Day is over, and maybe you’re looking for some tasty, easy to make dishes that don’t involve turkey or ham! This dish is a doddle to make, left overs keep well, and it freezes well if you want to make it in quantity.
It guest well with rice, pasta, polenta or just on its own! Kidney beans add both bulk and flavour to the dish. Serve it with extra fresh chilli on the side, sour cream or some grated cheese if you’re going Mexican.
You can throw this dish together provided you have some minced beef, as pretty much everything else would be pantry staples.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion
500g good quality beef mince
1 teaspoon chilli paste or chilli powder
1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato purée
1 x 400g tin of kidney beans
Freshly ground salt and black pepper
Fresh chillies, sour cream, cherry tomatoes, grated cheese, parsley or coriander to serve
Method
Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Chop the onion finely, and fry over a medium heat until slightly softened, about 1-2 minutes. Add the beef mince in small spoonfuls, breaking it up so that it cooks evenly. Fry until all the mince is brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chilli paste or powder.
Add the chopped tomatoes, half a tin of water using the chopped tomato tin as a measure and the tomato purée. Drain the kidney beans and add to the frying pan. Season with salt and black pepper. Bring the mixture back to the boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes until the sauce has reduced and has thickened. If the mixture looks too dry, add a splash or two of water.
Once cooked, serve straight away with some of the above accompaniments, or keep in the fridge for a day or so to serve later. It also freezes well.
You could easily double or triple the quantities to serve a crowd or batch freeze for later consumption.
I’m on my way back to Sydney from sunny Cairns in far North Queensland. From temperatures of 30 degrees C to a lot less than that in autumnal Sydney!
So here’s a pie recipe that suits colder climes. A hearty pie that is not that difficult to make, with beef and tomato and puff pastry.
This pie has my go-to beef filling, a lovely casserole of slow cooked beef and tomato. And to make it easy, a simple crust of shop bought puff pastry – all butter if you can get it.
It’s rustic – no need to be too fiddly in the presentation!
Ingredients Beef Filling
500g shin (gravy) beef or chuck steak or blade steak if you can’t get shin 1 dessertspoon plain flour 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 medium brown onions, chopped 2 – 4 shallots (more or less depending on the size of the shallots), chopped 2 x 400g tins whole peeled tomatoes I large tomato, roughly chopped 200 mls red wine 1 tinful of water 1 tablespoon molasses 1 dessertspoon Worcestershire sauce Sea salt, black pepper A bay leaf A few springs thyme Few sprigs rosemary
For the pastry – 2 sheets of all butter puff pastry + free-range egg, beaten, for brushing the pastry
Method Filling
Preheat oven to 140 degrees C.
Place the beef into a ziplock bag with the flour, close and shake the bag to coat the beef pieces in the flour. Heat a heavy based cast iron casserole on the stovetop. Add two tablespoons of oil to the casserole.
Add half of the beef pieces and cook for a minute or two to brown the meat, turning to make sure all sides get the heat. This is just to caramelise the meat. Remove the pieces from the casserole and set aside. Add the other half of the beef and caramelise in the same way, removing from the casserole once browned.
Add the other tablespoon of oil, and add the the chopped onions and shallots. Fry over a medium heat until the onions and shallots are softened, about 3-5 minutes. Return the meat to the casserole.
Add the tinned tomatoes, roughly breaking up into the casserole. Add the chopped fresh tomato. Stir in the red wine, and using one of the tomato tins, add a tinful of water. Stir in the molasses and Worcestershire sauce. Season with a sea salt and black pepper. Tie up the bay leaf, thyme and rosemary with an elastic band or a piece of string, to make a bouquet garnis, and put into the casserole mixture.
Making sure the mixture is simmering, carefully remove the casserole to the preheated oven. Cook for 3 hours, or until the beef is tender and almost falling apart. You should check after 2 hours, just in case the casserole has cooked a bit dry. If so, you can add some more water. As a general rule, it’s pretty hard to overcook this cut of beef, so 2 1/2 – 3 hours is usually about the right time.
Remove the casserole from the oven, remove the bouquet garnis, and cool to room temperature.
Making the Pie
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Remove bought puff pastry from the fridge. You will need a pie dish, tin or mould, 18cms or 20cms in diameter. Cut the pastry from each sheet, into two pieces, one slightly bigger than the other. The bigger round should be at least big enough to fit into the pie dish, covering the base and sides. The other round will need to cover the top of the pie.
Ease the bottom pastry round into the dish. You can trim off any excess from around the edge.
Now it’s time to fill the pie. You won’t need all the filling – fill with enough of the meat mixture to fit comfortably into the pastry. Brush the edge of the pastry with the beaten egg.
Take the second, smaller round of pastry, cutting or stretching to the size of the top of the pie, making sure you have enough pastry to overlap the top of the pie. You can always trim the excess. Place over the filling, making sure the top pastry meets the bottom pastry all around the pie. Seal the the top and bottom of the pastry by pushing down around the edge with the prongs of a fork.
Brush the top of the pie all over with beaten egg, before putting the pie into the hot oven. Cook for 30 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Remove from the oven.
Serve in big slices with a green salad, your sauce of choice and some crusty bread.
Ok, this is Tex-Mex meets Italian! A pizza with Mexican style toppings.
I’m keen on home made pizza, and recently I’ve been given some inspiration on Tex-Mex cooking from friends recently returned from living in the US.
So I ended up with a pizza topped with lots of Mexican flavours!
This pizza can be made on a barbecue, and I have included a link to my how-to in the recipe. It needs to be cooked on a barbecue with a hood. Or you could even do it in an ordinary oven!
You also need a good recipe for a slow cooked beef stew – use your favourite, but I have included a link to my recipe.
It seems a bit of a faff, but once made it’s really very delicious. And any of the ingredients left over after making the pizza can be easily incorporated into other dishes.
** You can use your favourite beef recipe, here’s the link to my Beef Casserole.
Method
Make your beef casserole ahead of time. Remember it’s a slow cooked recipe.
Prepare your pizza dough to second proofing.
While the dough is proofing, grill the corn cobs on the bars of the barbecue till nicely charred. When cool enough to handle, cut off the corn kernels, remove to a bowl, and mix with enough of the mayonnaise to coat the kernels. Mix in the chipotle powder, 1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika and a good squeeze of lime juice.
Now shape your pizzas and grill on the barbecue as per the barbecue pizza recipe.
Add the toppings, starting with the beef casserole. “Pull” the beef pieces to get that pulled beef effect. Make sure you spread lots of the tomato sauce on the pizza base. Scatter the corn kernels, spring onions and cheese over the pizza. Sprinkle the rest of the smoked paprika over the pizza.
Cook on the barbecue. Once it’s nicely done, put slices of avocado on top and scatter with coriander. Serve with lime wedges and chilli sauce for those who want an extra kick!
It’s definitely the time when we need comfort food, preferably something warming and hearty. Pies are perfect!
This one has my go-to beef filling, a lovely casserole of slow cooked beef and tomato. And to make it easy, a simple crust of shop bought puff pastry – all butter if you can get it.
It’s rustic – no need to be too fiddly in the presentation!
Ingredients Beef Filling
500g shin (gravy) beef or chuck steak or blade steak if you can’t get shin 1 dessertspoon plain flour 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 medium brown onions, chopped 2 – 4 shallots (more or less depending on the size of the shallots), chopped 2 x 400g tins whole peeled tomatoes I large tomato, roughly chopped 200 mls red wine 1 tinful of water 1 tablespoon molasses 1 dessertspoon Worcestershire sauce Sea salt, black pepper A bay leaf A few springs thyme Few sprigs rosemary
For the pastry – 2 sheets of all butter puff pastry + free-range egg, beaten, for brushing the pastry
Method Filling
Preheat oven to 140 degrees C.
Place the beef into a ziplock bag with the flour, close and shake the bag to coat the beef pieces in the flour. Heat a heavy based cast iron casserole on the stovetop. Add two tablespoons of oil to the casserole.
Add half of the beef pieces and cook for a minute or two to brown the meat, turning to make sure all sides get the heat. This is just to caramelise the meat. Remove the pieces from the casserole and set aside. Add the other half of the beef and caramelise in the same way, removing from the casserole once browned.
Add the other tablespoon of oil, and add the the chopped onions and shallots. Fry over a medium heat until the onions and shallots are softened, about 3-5 minutes. Return the meat to the casserole.
Add the tinned tomatoes, roughly breaking up into the casserole. Add the chopped fresh tomato. Stir in the red wine, and using one of the tomato tins, add a tinful of water. Stir in the molasses and Worcestershire sauce. Season with a sea salt and black pepper. Tie up the bay leaf, thyme and rosemary with an elastic band or a piece of string, to make a bouquet garnis, and put into the casserole mixture.
Making sure the mixture is simmering, carefully remove the casserole to the preheated oven. Cook for 3 hours, or until the beef is tender and almost falling apart. You should check after 2 hours, just in case the casserole has cooked a bit dry. If so, you can add some more water. As a general rule, it’s pretty hard to overcook this cut of beef, so 2 1/2 – 3 hours is usually about the right time.
Remove the casserole from the oven, remove the bouquet garnis, and cool to room temperature.
Making the Pie
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Remove bought puff pastry from the fridge. You will need a pie dish, tin or mould, 18cms or 20cms in diameter. Cut the pastry from each sheet, into two pieces, one slightly bigger than the other. The bigger round should be at least big enough to fit into the pie dish, covering the base and sides. The other round will need to cover the top of the pie.
Ease the bottom pastry round into the dish. You can trim off any excess from around the edge.
Now it’s time to fill the pie. You won’t need all the filling – fill with enough of the meat mixture to fit comfortably into the pastry. Brush the edge of the pastry with the beaten egg.
Take the second, smaller round of pastry, cutting or stretching to the size of the top of the pie, making sure you have enough pastry to overlap the top of the pie. You can always trim the excess. Place over the filling, making sure the top pastry meets the bottom pastry all around the pie. Seal the the top and bottom of the pastry by pushing down around the edge with the prongs of a fork.
I did a bit of fancy scoring on the top of the pie (see photo) but it’s not really necessary.
Brush the top of the pie all over with beaten egg, before putting the pie into the hot oven. Cook for 30 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Remove from the oven.
Serve in big slices with a green salad, your sauce of choice and some crusty bread. A glass of red wine goes down well too!
Bouquet garnis – bay leaf, a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary, tied together
Dumplings
125g self-raising flour
65g cold butter
3/4 cup grated cheese
Method Pre-heat oven to 140 degrees C.
Dust the beef pieces in the flour and place them in a zip lock bag and shake. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed casserole on the stove top.
Fry the beef in small quantities to avoid “stewing” the meat, until brown on all sides. Remove the beef to a plate, add a little more oil to the pan if necessary, and fry the garlic and onion. Add the carrots and lightly brown.
Return the meat to the casserole. Add the stout, ale or beer. Add the tomatoes, roughly chopping as you mix it in. Fill the tomato tin with water and add to the casserole.
Stir in the Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper and sugar.
Place the bouquet garnis into the casserole.
Cook on a medium heat with lid off for 5 minutes, then transfer the casserole, with lid on, to the pre-heated oven. Cook for about two hours or until beef is very tender. If the beef is still a little tough cook for another half hour.
While the beef is cooking, prepare the dumplings.
Put the flour into a large bowl. Grate the cold butter into the flour. If this is too tricky, just chop it finely. Rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add a splash or two of cold water to help the mixture come together into a dough.
Divide the dough into 12 small balls. Once cooked the balls will swell in size.
Place the dumplings on top of the casserole once the meat is cooked. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the dumplings. Cook, uncovered for 20-30 minutes until the cheese is melted and the dumplings are golden brown.
Serve at once with a crisp green salad!
You can also refrigerate or freeze portions of the casserole.
I made these originally as pasties, but really, they are little pastries that you fit in your hand. So handpies they have become!
They’re pretty easy to make, using bought puff pastry. But you really need to get the all butter pastry.
Beef and Tomato Handpies
The beef version uses a beef casserole I cook a lot. It’s easy too, but does require a long slow cooking time. The sundried tomato and feta version is simple as the filling doesn’t need cooking.
The filling was some slow cooked beef cheeks, cooked in Pedro Ximinez sherry. I added in a chopped fresh tomato and and handful of chopped sundried tomatoes. I reduced the tomatoes with the cooked beef until the mixture was thick enough to be used a pastie filling.
Recipe for the beef cheeks follows.
For a dozen pies, you would need about 1/3 of the recipe quantity. The rest is great served with mashed potato or pasta, root vegetables or green salad.
Ingredients
1.5 kg beef cheeks 125 ml olive oil 3 carrots, roughly chopped 1 garlicky bulb, halved 1 brown onion, sliced 500 ml Pedro Ximenez sherry or any other sweet sherry 500 ml red wine 3 bay leaves 3 tablespoons thyme leaves 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 140 degrees C or even lower if your oven is hot (like mine).
Trim the beef cheeks to neaten them up and remove any sinew and silver skin. Season well.
Heat half the olive oil in a large heavy-based baking dish over high heat. Brown the beef cheeks for 2 minutes on each side, or until golden, then remove from the pan.
Add the remaining olive oil, then add the carrot, garlic and onion and sauté over high heat for 12-15 minutes, or until well browned. Stir in the sherry, wine, bay leaves, thyme, sea salt and 500 ml water.
Reduce the heat and add the beef cheeks. Cover and place in the oven to cook for 3-4 hours, or until the cheeks are beginning to fall apart.
The sauce from the beef cheeks should by now be reduced and glaze-like. If it needs further reducing, remove the cheeks from the baking dish, cover with foil to keep them warm and simmer the sauce over high heat on the stove top until nicely reduced.
Increase the oven to 190 degrees C. Take 3 puff pastry sheets, and using a plate as a template, cut out 12 20cm circles; you may have to gather up the trimmings and re-roll them to get all your circles. Don’t worry if you don’t get 12; just get as many as you can from the pastry sheets.
Spoon the stew on to one half of each circle. Brush the pastry edges with water, fold the other half of the pastry over the filling to form a half-moon shape and crimp well to seal.
Place the pies on a lightly oiled baking sheet and brush the tops with beaten egg. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Eat the pies warm or cold.
Sundried Tomato and Feta Handpies
Simply chopped sundried tomatoes and crumble some soft feta. Add a sprinkling of fresh herbs like coriander or thyme to taste.
The quantities are up to you – I used 6 sundried tomatoes and 3 small pieces of feta to make 2 large pasties from 1 pastry sheet.
Spoon the filling on to one half of each circle. Brush the pastry edges with water, fold the other half of the pastry over the filling to form a half-moon shape and crimp to seal. These pies may open during cooking, but as the filling isn’t liquid, they stay intact.
Place the handpies on a lightly oiled baking sheet and brush the tops with beaten egg. Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. These ones are best eaten cold.
This beef dish has to be one of the easiest things you can make and full of flavour! I made it last week for Pancake Tuesday celebrations, as a savoury filling for pancakes. Pancakes stuffed with this beef mix were filling and very tasty. Of course it goes well with rice, pasta, polenta or just on its own! Kidney beans add both bulk and flavour to the dish too. Serve it with extra fresh chilli on the side, sour cream or some grated cheese if you’re going Mexican.
You can throw this dish together provided you have some minced beef, as pretty much everything else would be pantry staples.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion
500g good quality beef mince
1 teaspoon chilli paste or chilli powder
1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato purée
1 x 400g tin of kidney beans
Freshly ground salt and black pepper
Fresh chillies, sour cream, cherry tomatoes, grated cheese, parsley or coriander to serve
Method
Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Chop the onion finely, and fry over a medium heat until slightly softened, about 1-2 minutes. Add the beef mince in small spoonfuls, breaking it up so that it cooks evenly. Fry until all the mince is brown, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chilli paste or powder.
Add the chopped tomatoes, half a tin of water using the chopped tomato tin as a measure and the tomato purée. Drain the kidney beans and add to the frying pan. Season with salt and black pepper. Bring the mixture back to the boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes until the sauce has reduced and has thickened. If the mixture looks too dry, add a splash or two of water.
Once cooked, serve straight away with some of the above accompaniments, or keep in the fridge for a day or so to serve later. It also freezes well.
You could easily double or triple the quantities to serve a crowd or batch freeze for later consumption.
We are living in strange times, in the era of Covid 19. Like a lot of people, I am spending time at home, socially isolating to avoid unnecessary contact with people. I am shopping carefully, stocking up on staples, without going overboard, and thinking about what dishes I can cook with what’s in the freezer and pantry, and don’t require last minute shopping.
I will post a few of these recipes over the next few weeks. To start with, here’s a recipe for a beautiful beef and red wine casserole. I recommend buying some good slow cooking beef cuts and freezing for just this kind of recipe. The other ingredients that are not pantry staples are carrots and onions, and thankfully these can be acquired and then will last quite a long time, ie you can buy and keep on hand for a couple of weeks until you need them.
I began to write this recipe at the end of a Sydney summer, but it soon became apparent it would be a great start to my “isolationist cooking”.
It’s late March 2020 in Sydney. Just a month ago we were sweltering in a hot, hot bushfire summer with humid days and even stickier nights, when the temperature overnight barely dropped a degree or two, making sleeping and living difficult.
But the rain came and the cooler weather with it. Autumn is definitely in the air. While we will have plenty of warm days to come, there is enough cool weather to make me feel like starting some autumn cooking: cakes and tarts with autumn fruits, and nourishing, robust casseroles, rich with root vegetables and red wine.
This is a simple beef casserole recipe that I developed from the memory of many family meals and my own efforts at throwing a few things in a pot and coming up with something tasty!
Beef + onions + carrots + red wine + herbs = a pot of deliciousness.
Here’s the basic recipe. For the beef, any cheap cut of beef is great. My preference is for shin (gravy) beef, but that cut is hard to get in Australia. Chuck steak is good, as well as blade beef.
Ingredients
1 tablespoon plain flour
Sea salt and ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
500g casserole beef cut into small pieces
4 shallots or 1 large onion, chopped
4 -6 baby or small carrots, cut into chunks or keep whole if small enough
1 tin whole peeled tomatoes
1 glass red wine
1 teaspoon vegemite or marmite dissolved in 1/2 cup boiling water
Bouquet garnis – bay leaf, a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary, tied together
A pinch of sugar to season
Method
Pre-heat oven to 140 degrees C.
Dust the beef pieces in the flour and salt and pepper by placing them in a zip lock bag and shake. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed casserole on the stove top.
Fry the beef in small quantities to avoid “stewing” the meat, until brown on all sides. Remove the beef to a plate, add a little more oil to the pan if necessary, and fry the shallots and carrots.
Return the meat to the casserole. Add the tomatoes, roughly chopping as you mix in to the casserole. Add the red wine and vegemite/marmite and water and the pinch of sugar.
Cook on a medium heat with lid off for 5 minutes, then transfer the casserole, with lid on, to the pre-heated oven. Cook for about 3 hours or until beef is very tender. I check after 2 hours and test the ”doneness” of the beef. It is usually a little chewy and needs further cooking. If the beef is cooked to your liking, by all means serve now.
If there is lot of liquid in the stew, now is the time to leave the lid off and return to the oven.
Remove from the oven when finally cooked, and serve. Or the casserole can be refrigerated or frozen until you are ready to use.
I like to serve the beef casserole with rice or couscous or some potatoes baked in their jackets.
A really tasty recipe that not only is easy to make from the pantry and freezer but it’s a lovely way to spend time in these isolationist times.
Here’s a really quick and tasty meatball dish. The meatballs are baked, with cherry tomatoes which makes a simple sauce. You can also customise the meatballs by adding chili, cheese or more sauce. They’re great served on crusty bread as mini burgers too!
The meatballs are very herby, cooked with rosemary and sage, and served with more rosemary, thyme and parsley. Hence the name – my homage to the Simon and Garfunkel version of “Scarborough Fair”, a favourite song of mine. I love the live version on the album Live 69 http://www.simonandgarfunkel.com/music/live-1969/.
Ingredients
1 onion
500g good quality minced beef (I used wagyu beef mince – wonderful flavour)
1/2 tsp rosemary sprigs
1/2 tsp sage leaves
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
2-3 tbls breadcrumbs or a good couple of handfuls
12 cherry tomatoes
6-8 truss cherry tomatoes
1/2 tsp chopped thyme leaves
1/2 tsp torn parsley leaves
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees C non fan forced, 210 degrees C fan forced.
Chop the onion finely, or blitz in a food processor.
Put the beef mince in a large mixing bowl, breaking up the mince with a spoon. You could do all the mixing using your hands if you wish. Add the chopped onion, rosemary sprigs and sage leaves, which have been finely chopped.
Add the beaten egg, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Add the breadcrumbs, mixing to combine so that the mixture holds together. You will need to use your judgement about how much of the breadcrumbs you add to give you a good consistency to make meatballs.
Roll the mixture into golf ball sized balls. Place them side by side, fairly snugly, into a baking dish. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and push them as many halves as you like into the spaces between the meatballs. Scatter some more rosemary springs over the top with more salt and pepper.
Bake in the pre-heated oven for 20 minutes until the meatballs are brown and cooked, but still nice and moist in the middle, if you cut one open.
You could serve as is, but it’s nice to add some more cherry tomatoes. Blister some truss cherry tomatoes in a hot frying pan by dry-frying for a couple of minutes.
Serve the meatballs with the blistered tomatoes, scattered with thyme and parsley.
The Quirk and the Cool 