Oct 19 2009
Stout meal for hearty eaters
A fortnight ago now (at least; I’m losing track of time) one of Helen’s cousins came up from London with her boyfriend, so we had them round for dinner on Saturday night. Helen spent the day doing medical student stuff so it was largely up to me to prepare the meal.
I pulled out The River Cottage Meat Book and chose Beef in Stout, because it could be made ahead of time, with minimal active involvement, and it is just the kind of dish I’ve always wanted to make.
Up to a certain point, Leith provided everything I needed. Although I was refused the beer at Co-op for looking under-age. I didn’t have any ID because my driving licence was away to get the address changed. This is Murphy’s Law, but I’m not bitter. I just went elsewhere. Helen had to pick up some lardons on her way back from the library but everything else was available locally.
The inclusion of two types of mushrooms — whole button mushrooms and thick slices of open cup mushrooms — really lifted the whole meal for me. I also made some simple mash to go with the stew, and home made bread too. We had beer from Bath Ales, and Helen even got the guilts about not doing any cooking, so did a Nigella sticky chocolate brownie pudding.
I halved nearly all the quantities for the stew recipe (originally for 8 to 10) but it still managed to make about 9 servings. (The recipe in the link has been halved already, and is a fairly accurate picture of what I put in the pot.) We eked the final leftovers out by adding boiling water and noodles, to make a beef and mushroom soup.
I will definitely be doing this dish again, especially if we need to serve a full table of people this winter. Fantastic warming meal.
You weren’t bitter- but the beer was!
It was three weeks ago, in fact. Four by this weekend. September, and the end of my first week of teaching, no less.
you’re not bitter; you’re not stout either.
Beef cooked in beer was a regular “entertaining” recipe of my mother’s, I think. Must try out this one; we don’t seem to eat beef very often, but the whole concept (stew ‘n’ mash) seems desirable as the days get colder/wetter/gloomier.